3rd Grade
60 minutes
Materials
Read an informational text and use text paired with illustrations to clarify the main
idea, tell key details, and improve my comprehension of the text.
Essential Question
Lesson Progression/Overview
Other Resources
Guided Practice (We do): T. uses guiding questions and continues to demonstrate
impact of illustrations and pairing of text/illustration.
Paired Practice (Peer do): S. use two checkpoints in the book to dialogue with peers
for comprehension and clarification of ideas.
Independent Practice (You do): S. read set of pages from book and use teacher
generated response questions to create written responses to be shared with class during
closure.
Closure: Students return to whole group and share responses, reflections,
observations, and clarifications.
Differentiation
Support: students with decoding issues may need recorded text, small groups may be
facilitated so that guiding questions and extended modeling may occur
Extension: Improve-A-Text (what features should have been added or deleted to make
the text better for the reader), synthesis of 3 text features to formulate new
ideas/inferences
Assessment
Students will read the remaining pages of the book and create written responses to
demonstrate application of synthesis of text elements related to comprehension.
Lesson Component
Objective/Goal
Content
RI. 3.7 Use information gained from illustrations (e.g., maps, photographs) and the words in a text to
demonstrate understanding of the text (e.g., where, when, why, and how key events occur).
Read an informational text and use text paired with illustrations to clarify the main idea, tell key
details, and improve my comprehension of the text.
Essential Question
How can integrating/synthesizing text elements and close reading help me to better understand a
text?
Materials
Statement of Objectives
Teacher Input
(I do)
Review recently read/studied book, The Queen of the Falls; ask students for quick retell and
our purpose for spending so much time on that book (close reading, practicing synthesis with
text and illustrations).
Explain that today we will be working along the similar lines with yesterdays close read, I
Wish. We will be revisiting the text to examine it more closely for details or ideas that we
may have missed but that could help us to get even more of the information that has been
conveyed by the author.
Draw heavy parallels between fiction/nonfiction skills here. Readers must be able to move
from genre to genre but still use critical thinking skills elastically and as they apply.
Remind students to use the text element chart to be on the lookout for illustrated features
that can support our understanding; the author does everything on purpose to help the
reader.
I can use the text and illustration(s) components to come to new understandings about a text or to
strengthen my previous thoughts.
Guided Practice
(We do)
(Peer do)
Demonstrate using think aloud on page one Using the picture, I think I can see just one of the falls
out of the three. The text says there are three so I now understand that its not a straight across fall of
water but instead the land underneath kind of snakes around. I do wonder which falls this picture is but
I can see that its massive. If I connect that back with the text, all three of the falls together must be
massive! (details, inferences,)
Stop and metacognitively break down your thinking on the three column chart: text,
illustration (text feature), my thinking. When you are done recording, show students how
you took all three columns simultaneously and came up with your new/updated ideas.
The second picture: Rereading these bulleted facts while looking at the picture was helpful for me.
Yesterday I thought that the picture just looked like the waterfalls I pictured in my head but I realize
now that this picture is showing how fast the water is flowing. I can tell because its not just frothy at the
base of the falls but almost immediately when the water goes over the edge. Also, looking in the
background of this picture, I see how small the ground looks and this reinforces where the text says that it
is a 170 foot drop to the bottom. I am wondering if the flow rate increases or decreases when it gets to the
pool of water below? (main idea, details, questioning)
Independent Practice
Formative Assessment
Closure
Which of the 5 Ws or H are included in this illustration? Is it matched by this text or text elsewhere?
What was the authors purpose for including this text with this illustration?
Using the text and illustration together, what is the main idea of this section?
Using student copies of text, allow students to work independently to complete their three
column chart.
Students can then generate written responses that use both text and illustration as support.
Suggestion: Provide questions on printable labels so that students may stick the label in a
reading journal and respond underneath.
Come back to the group to share responses. Note/record sentence starters that were
powerful/clear on the board for students who may need additional support on future
activities of this nature.
Look at three column chart notes and determine if students are able to use the text and
illustration (or other text features) to come to a new understanding or deeper understanding
of ideas/information in the text.
Students who are restating what the text says and how it matches the picture are unable to
break apart their thinking process and may require sentence frames/stems to help facilitate
responses. Leave the metacognition analysis until after solid thinking has been established.
Allow students to share their chart and how it led to their responses; share responses.
Reinforce goal/objective and draw attention to the students ability to closely read today as
well as the purpose for putting multiple elements together. Once we have practiced using just
the graphics, we will begin to integrate other nonfiction features such as subheadings,
footnotes, info boxes, etc., to help us continue to extend our thinking.
Tomorrow: we will work on this skill with a fresh text and begin to be less mechanical about
the process, we will begin to do this synthesis automatically.