Teaching the Iowa Core (Grades K-3) Reading Standards

Foundational Reading, Comprehension, and Motivation

Comprehension

Closing in on Close Reading - Describes three practices that bring close reading to the lower grades.

Get Close to Think Deeply: Creating Primary-Level Close Readings - Plan for and implement close readings (Grades 1-3).

Improving Reading Comprehension (Grades K-3) - Recommends five specific steps to improve reading comprehension for young readers.

Reading for Meaning - Utilize a research-based strategy that helps all readers build the skills that proficient readers use to make sense of challenging texts.

Reciprocal Teaching for the Primary Grades: "We Can Do It, Too!" - Teaches students to work in small groups to coordinate the use of four comprehension strategies: prediction, clarification, summarization, and student-generated questions.

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension - Access sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of texts.

Uncovering Text Structure in the Early Grades - Help students unpack meaning, understand the content, and remember what they have read by teaching the structure of literary and informational texts.

What Works Clearinghouse Practice Guide: Improving Reading Comprehension (K-3) - Offers five specific steps that educators can take to improve reading comprehension for young readers.

Fluency

Achieve the Core’s Fluency Packets - Utilize sets of materials uniquely designed to address the skills needed to read fluently in Grades 2-3. Read three short Aligned blog posts, which provide a foundational understanding of fluency.

Foundational Reading 

Center on Instruction Building the Foundation - Offers a suggested progression of sub-skills to achieve the Reading Standards.

Florida Center for Reading Research - Offers student centered activities developed by teachers for use in PK-5 classrooms.

Literacy Essentials Professional Development Modules - Provides professional learning to develop a deeper understanding of Literacy Essentials.

Iowa Reading Research Center Resources - Provides opportunities to teach and provide student practice opportunities for various reading and writing skills, as well as offering other guidance and information through a variety of literacy resources listed below.

Reading Rockets - Access a library of effective, research-based classroom strategies to build and strengthen literacy skills in print awareness, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension, and writing.

What Works Clearinghouse: Foundational Skills to Support Reading for Understanding (Grades K-3) - Provides an evidence-based educator practice guide.

Foster Children’s Motivation

Reading: What Else Matters Besides Strategies and Skills? - Explores important elements of reading development.

Simple Practices to Nurture the Motivation to Read -Covers self-selection, the read-aloud, building a balanced book collection, making one’s passions public, and providing rewards that demonstrate the value of reading.

Teacher Practices that Impact Reading Motivation - Use Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) or practices to encourage engagement.

Vocabulary

Effective Vocabulary Instruction - Find out more about the relationship between vocabulary and comprehension, and practical ways that parents can introduce new words to their kids.

Informational and Literary Texts

Informational Texts

Building World Knowledge: Motivating Children to Read and Enjoy Informational Text - Find three techniques to help children become familiar with the language and structure of nonfiction books.

How to Teach Expository Text Structure to Facilitate Reading Comprehension - Offers ways to help students analyze expository text structures and pull apart the text to uncover the main idea and supporting details.

Improve-A-Text Technique - Engage children in adding to a published text to make it better.

Question the Author Strategy - Identifies specific steps to follow during a question the author lesson.

Using Compare-Contrast Text Structures with ELs in K-3 Classrooms - Offers strategies for young learners, and is particularly helpful to EL students. 

Literary Texts

Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) - Guides students in asking questions about a text, making predictions, and then reading to confirm or refute their predictions. 

ELA/Reading Literature Teaching and Learning Strategies - Find strategies that connect the CCSS to best practices.

Story Retelling - Highlights a unit of study for K-3 classrooms.

Summarizing - Teach students how to discern the most important ideas in a text, how to ignore irrelevant information, and how to integrate the central ideas in a meaningful way.

Text Complexity

Navigating Text Complexity - Provides a curated collection of text complexity resources, tools and research.

Promote Deep Thinking! How to Choose a Complex Text (Grades 1-3) - Explore the various factors that contribute to complexity.

Text-Dependent Questions

Depend on the Text! How to Create Text-Dependent Questions (Grades 1-3) - Learn how to prepare questions that challenge students to think at deeper levels each time they do a close reading.

QAR Questions and Answers by Type - Use this guide when planning and teaching students the Question Answer Relationship (QAR).

ReadWorks: Passages and Text-Dependent Questions (Grades K-3) - Create a free account to access passages and text-dependent questions.

Text-Dependent Questions in Action in the Early Grades - Illuminates the skill that requires students to read closely and provide text-based evidence in action. 

Text Discussion

The Power of Interactive Read Alouds - Read about how dialogic discussions provide opportunities for children to develop their use of new vocabulary in a meaningful way, make connections between new and previously-learned information, and learn literary elements. Utilize a Dialogic Reading Planning Form.

Text Discussion in Elementary School - Facilitate whole-group, small-group, or partner text discussions to engage students with a text.

Text Sets

Teaching the Iowa Core (Grades 3-12) Reading Standards - Find a list of helpful websites for locating books to build text sets.

Text Sets: One Theme, Several Books (Grades K-1) - Read a blog that offers ideas and resources for developing text sets.