SOAR® Study Skills Book Resources for Educators

Free Resources for Note Taking – Note Taking Resource

Citations for State & Standardized Tests:

¹National Research Council. (2000). How people learn: Brain, mind, experience, and school. Washington, D.C.: National Academy Press.

² Andrade, H.G. (2000). Using rubrics to promote thinking and learning. Educational Leadership, 57, 13-18.

³ Stiggins, R.J. (1997). Student-centered classroom assessment. 2^nd edition. Upper Saddle River, N.J.: Merrill.

⁴ Meier, D. (1995). The power of their ideas: Lessons for America from a small school in Harlem. Boston: Beacon Press.

⁵Johnston, P.H. & Winograd, P.N. (1985). Passive failure in reading. Journal of Reading Behavior, 17(4), 279-301.

⁶Rief, L. (1990). Finding the value in evaluation: Self-evaluation in a middle school classroom. Educational Leadership, 47(6), 24-29.

⁷Wolf, D.P. (1989). Portfolio assessment: Sampling student work. Educational Leadership, 46(7), 35-39.

⁸Valencia, S.W. (1998). Literacy portfolios in action. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.

⁹Linn, R.L. (2000). Assessments and accountability. Educational Researcher, 29(2), 4-16.

¹⁰Popham, J.W. (1999). Why standardized test scores don’t measure educational quality. Educational Leadership, 56(6), 8-15.

¹¹Guskey, T.R. (2003). How classroom assessments improve learning. Educational Leadership, 60 (5), 6-11.

¹²Stiggins, R. J. (2002). Assessment crisis: The absence of assessment for learning. Phi Delta Kappan, 83 (8), 758-765.

¹³ Powell, S.D. (1999). Teaching to the test. The High School Magazine, 6 (6), 34-37.

Page 103 – Additional Reading Tips:

Nonfiction text, no visuals. Prime your brain with a few of the following strategies: Read the back of the book, read reviews on Amazon.com, do an internet “image” search for the topic, and/or search for a summary of the text. Don’t go overboard! Give yourself a strict time-limit, no more than 15 minutes. Most nonfiction includes headings and sub-headings, so continue turning them into questions, then reading to answer your questions.

Fiction. Fiction is often easier to comprehend than nonfiction because we can better relate to “stories” than we can to facts about a specific topic. However, many of the same strategies listed above are good for building background: Read the back of the book, read reviews on Amazon.com, and search the internet for a summary of the text. “Proper nouns” (names of characters and places) can get confusing. If you have trouble keeping track of these details, create a chart listing each person/place and details to remind you about their significance in the story.

Literature. Literature is “tricky” fiction. It’s tricky because we can usually relate to the elements and emotions of the story better than nonfiction. However, the problem is cutting through unfamiliar language and settings from unfamiliar times. Reviews on Amazon.com, text summaries, and video summaries can be very useful for building a framework for comprehension. Be prepared to look up unfamiliar words that can snag your understanding. As you read, make predictions about what you think will happen next to sharpen your comprehension as you read.

 

JS KS 02132015