Here’s a step-by-step guide for teaching students to identify and find text evidence in passages, helping them support their answers to text-based questions effectively.
Do you find it challenging to get students to find answers in the text?
I have an effective method for teaching students to refer back to the reading and write detailed written responses.
Using interactive passages, students can boost their fluency, comprehension, vocabulary, and writing skills. Let me guide you through my step-by-step approach.
The importance of finding text evidence
Finding text evidence is a critical skill for upper elementary students.
It involves teaching them to go back to the text to support their ideas and understanding.
When students read a story, poem, or article, they need to find and use information from the text to back up their answers or opinions.
For example, if a student says a character is brave, they should be able to cite information in the text that shows this bravery.
This skill helps students engage more deeply with what they read, encouraging them to ask questions, make predictions, and find evidence in the text that supports their thoughts.
It’s an important skill that boosts comprehension and critical thinking.
Let’s explore effective teaching methods.
Start by choosing the right passage.
Keep these three key factors in mind when choosing a passage to teach students how to find text evidence:
1. Choose a basic passage.
Choosing the right passage is crucial for teaching this skill.
Start with a short nonfiction passage that is slightly below the students’ current reading level. If the passage is too difficult, students might get frustrated and not engage with the reading.
In this introductory lesson, I’ve chosen a nonfiction article on Mandrills to help students build these important skills.
2. Provide success and confidence.
It’s important to help students feel successful and confident when learning a new skill. That’s why it’s best to choose a short, easy-to-understand passage. This allows students to focus on finding answers in the text without being overwhelmed by a difficult reading.
3. Look for reading passages with text-dependent questions.
When choosing a passage, it’s important to select one that includes text-dependent questions. These questions should have answers that are directly stated in the text, rather than requiring students to make inferences. This is especially important when teaching beginners how to find text evidence.
To answer specific questions successfully, students need to practice looking back in the passage to find the relevant information. They should also be able to underline or highlight the text evidence that supports their answers.
If the evidence isn’t clearly stated in the passage, students may feel frustrated. Once they have a solid grasp of this concept, more advanced lessons can be introduced.
Introducing important vocabulary
I like to start each lesson by projecting a passage onto the whiteboard at the front of the room. As we read the passage together, I emphasize the importance of reading the entire passage before making any marks on it.
We read the directions together, and the first instruction is to read the text. This is a perfect moment to make sure students understand what we mean by “text.” It’s important to clarify that “text” doesn’t just refer to a text message on a cell phone.
During our discussion, I make sure to explain that “text” refers to any written words with meaning. I also highlight that the article we’re reading can be called an article, passage, reading, selection, excerpt, or simply the text. These terms are important because they are often used interchangeably on state tests.
We also cover the term “text evidence,” which refers to the answers we’re searching for in the passage. I make sure to explain related words like “proof,” “details,” and “support” so that students fully understand their meanings. I’ve noticed that students don’t know what it means to “prove” their answers.
Read the whole article.
At this point, it’s time for students to dive into the article. We start by noticing details in the photos, and then we jump straight into the reading.
When I present this lesson, I read the article aloud from start to finish without pausing for discussion. This approach helps make sure that students stay fully focused on the words of the passage.
Identifying the text evidence
In Step 2, we underline the answers in the passage using a specific color. This skill is crucial because we need to back up our answers with evidence from the text. When we share our answers or discuss the text with others, we want to show that our answers are trustworthy by finding and highlighting evidence in the article.
To find the right information, we scan back through the article, thinking out loud to demonstrate the thought process.
After locating the relevant details, we carefully read and reread the question to make sure we’ve found exactly what it asks for
Sometimes, I intentionally choose incorrect information to help students fully understand the question. We then make adjustments until we find the evidence and details that correctly support the answer.
This is why it’s important to choose a straightforward article—it allows us to stay focused on mastering this skill.
Once we’ve identified the correct paragraph and located the necessary words, I model how to underline the evidence using the designated color
Why use color coding?
Color-coding text is a powerful learning tool. It not only makes key words and phrases visually stand out but also helps students engage more deeply with the text. By quickly identifying the necessary words for a quality response, students become more focused and involved in the task.
When students read and underline directly on the passage, their concentration on the skill improves. Plus, using colored pencils, crayons, or markers adds an element of fun to the process.
It’s also important to teach students to underline the words rather than color over them entirely. Some students might be tempted to darken the words too much, making them hard to read.
Using different colors helps students quickly spot the correct answers, keeping them on track. When information is easy to find, students can develop well-written responses more effectively
Writing the answer
The most challenging part for many students is effectively using the information they’ve underlined.
Students are often tempted to copy the underlined sentence directly into their answer, but this approach doesn’t always work. Sometimes, the sentence contains too much information, and other times, it may not provide enough.
It’s important for students to learn that they might need to combine words and supporting details from several sentences to create a complete answer.
To help students with this, I always show them how I organize my thoughts for writing. I believe modeling is the key to teaching this concept effectively. By watching and copying how I think and write, students learn to handle this task better.
Another important step is to read and reread the question multiple times before answering it. This ensures that students really understand what is being asked, allowing them to answer clearly and correctly.
What about digital and online learning?
You can apply the same general lesson guidelines to online learning environments. If you’re using resources that are already prepared for Google Drive or another digital format, you can easily assign the lessons to your students. Many of these resources are flexible and can be adjusted to meet the varying needs of your students.
The ready-made reading comprehension passages, displayed in the images, include interactive highlighting strips. Students can move these strips over the text on their digital devices to emphasize specific sections.
For additional support, teachers can insert hints or guidance directly in the margins of the passage. If a student doesn’t require this extra help, the tips and hints can be easily removed.
For assignments that aren’t digital, it’s no problem.
You can still assign them to students digitally or for remote-distance learning with just a little extra work. These articles will walk you through the process of converting worksheets into digital assignments.
- Read – Converting PDF Worksheets to Digital for Distance Learning.
- Read – How to Assign Just One or Two Slides in Google Classroom.
- Read – How to Assign Students Work with Google Classroom.
Writing stems for citing text evidence
This is the ideal time to introduce writing stems. Writing stems are simply the beginnings of sentences and are also known as sentence starters or thinking stems.
They provide an ideal starting point for students to cite evidence from a text
We want students to feel comfortable providing textual evidence, so answering questions becomes a natural process. Eventually, students will no longer need to rely on writing stems reference cards. Read more about writing stems here.
Students now have the skills and strategies needed to answer text-based questions effectively.
By the way, these skills are relevant to ALL subject areas. Remind students to use writing stems during science, social studies (history), and other classes as well.
Related articles to learn more:
Prepare for Testing with Writing Stems – Writing stems help students answer constructed response questions by citing evidence from the text. Learn how to use writing stems in your classroom.
Future lesson Ideas
Additional lessons you may want to include in the future are:
- Direct quotes and indirect quotes (paraphrasing) in constructed responses
- The RACES strategy (or a similar approach) for written answers
- A mini-lesson on evidence versus details
Where can I get the resources used in this article?
Bundle of Primates and Woodland Animals Reading Passages – This set includes 17 nonfiction passages focused on primates and woodland animals, designed to help students practice finding text evidence to support their answers. It’s a ready-to-use resource: simply print and go!
Fall – Autumn-Themed Reading Passages – Engage your students with these 20 nonfiction and fiction passages centered around fall and autumn themes. Students will learn to pull out important information and facts from the passages and develop written responses using key elements.
Winter-Themed Reading Passages – Engage your students with these 20 fiction and nonfiction passages that focus on winter topics. Students will read the passages and identify specific information needed to answer comprehension questions.
Spring-Themed Reading Passages – Your students will love these 20 fiction and nonfiction passages about spring! They’ll read the texts and then answer questions by finding and marking the needed information in a specific color as their text evidence.
Writing Stems for Citing Text Evidence Bulletin Board Set – This set includes writing stems (also known as thinking stems) to help students put their thoughts and answers into words. These stems also provide a starting point for answering text-based questions and writing thorough responses.
RACES Constructed Response Strategy Bulletin Board Poster Set – RACES is an easy-to-remember strategy that helps students remember the key components to writing a strong response to questions. It’s an excellent tool for teaching constructed responses.
Finally,
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