Getting ready for state testing can elicit groans from both teachers and students. It’s necessary to prepare students for assessments, but it shouldn’t be painful for kids or teachers. Here are some ways to get your students started by using ready-to-use test prep materials for ELA. Save yourself time and keep your students engaged with high-interest reading passages for painless test prep for middle school ELA teachers and students!
Vocabulary Skills
To begin, many students struggle to understand and identify vocabulary. One strategy to increase vocabulary is through context clues. In these two context clues daily reading products you have access to short passages with two vocabulary questions per passage. Each product includes 8 weeks of 5-day content. That’s 40 days per daily reading product!
Mystery Passages
The first context clues product in the bundle is my Daily Reading Mystery Passages resource. Every week, students encounter a new mystery that they follow day-by-day.
Here are the stories your students will love to read!
The Lost Colony
D.B. Cooper
The Oak Island Money Pit
The Flannan Isles Lighthouse Mystery
Paris Catacombs
The Mary Celeste
The Bermuda Triangle
The Saddle Ridge Gold
Your students read and engage in these mysteries that will keep them on the edge of their seats while improving their vocabulary and test-taking skills!
Survival Stories
Next, try using the survival story bundle to teach context clues. In this part of my Daily Reading bundle that is perfect for test prep, students read survival stories that build day-to-day. Of course, days could easily be combined for short weeks (or the excitement of students) if needed.
Teaching Context Clues
1. Before you begin using the reading passages, teach your students how to use context clues reading strategies.
2. During their reading, ask them to look for synonyms, antonyms, definitions, or examples of the underlined word.
3. If there are no examples of context clues or students struggle to identify which word or phrase is a context clue, suggest that they use the prefix, root, or suffix of the word to find the meaning.
4. As a class, review the answer options.
5. First, have students eliminate the wrong answers.
6. Finally, have them identify and explain the correct answer.
At the end of each week in the context clues bundles, students have an opportunity to showcase what they learn and inferences they draw to increase their comprehension. An added benefit is that students have to review the 5 days together to create one longer passage, which is what students see in more standardized tests.
Making Inferences
My Central Idea and Inferencing Daily Reading resource includes passages and questions tailored to help increase student comprehension. Eight weeks of 5-day content are included in this bundle. With 40 days of central idea and inferencing practice (and extra questions added into the other bundles), students are sure to increase their understanding of the material as well as their ability to defend their answers.
Teaching Inferencing Skills
First, teach your students how to make inferences in reading passages before they get started.
1. During their reading, invite them to write down their initial impressions of the major topics (nouns) and to find the repeated word(s) or phrase.
2. Let them know, the repeated word(s) or phrases is their topic.
3. Next, ask them to find the best sentence in the passage that all of the other details (that they wrote their initial impression about) describe, prove, or exemplify.
4. If the sentence is not written, have them create one!
5. As a class, review the answer options.
6. First, have students eliminate the wrong answers first.
7. If the central idea is not in the passage, have them find the sentence that most closely matches their sentence.
8. Finally, have them identify and defend the correct answer.
Students go through a similar process for inferencing; however, with the inference, they should look at the question to figure out which initial impression they should focus on. Next, they should look at their initial impressions. As a class, review the answer options. Have them eliminate the wrong answers first. Finally, have them identify and defend the correct answer, which happens to be the third question! Students are asked to find a direct quote within the passage that defends their inferencing answer.
Theme
Finally, my Daily Reading Theme resource includes passages and questions tailored to help increase student understanding of the theme. Four weeks of 5-day content are included in this bundle, which combines vocabulary and theme. With 20 days of theme practice, students are sure to increase their understanding of the material as well as their ability to defend their answers. It is the perfect test prep for middle school ELA!
Teaching Theme
Of course, you should teach your students how to identify and support the theme of a passage before they get started.
1. During their reading, invite students to use the same active reading strategies as before (context clues, topic, initial impressions).
2. Next, ask them to add a short summary to the end of their notes.
3. In that summary, ask them to write down what advice that author is trying to give readers about the world.
4. Be sure students generalize the idea to advice or suggestions, NOT passage specifics.
5. At this point, you can distinguish between central idea (passage) and theme (world).
As a class, review the questions.
The first two questions are vocabulary questions (see above), but the other questions are based on theme.
Theme questions are open-ended, short answers, but students are asked to defend their answer by underlining evidence from the story that shows the development of that theme.
Use these strategies once per week or within the first week only. Your students go through these steps multiple times throughout the year, leading to practice and application with that test-taking voice!
My Daily Reading Bundle is perfect for painless test prep for middle school ELA teachers and students. It is an excellent ready-to-use bundle to help your students rock their state reading tests! You can guide students through reading passages that can be used to conquer the most difficult reading skills, including context clues, inferences with main idea or central idea, and theme without the stress of major test prep!
If you’re interested in this bundle, save the most money with my Daily Reading Mega Bundle which includes every resources mentioned here and many more!
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