Reading Biographies to Improve Comprehension (Level 6)

The course is a five-hour reading comprehension course taught over five consecutive days for students reading at the sixth-grade level. Each session is one hour long and will cover one Great Minds biography, comprehension questions, vocabulary activity, and a writing response activity. The writing response activity is an assignment the students complete outside of the classroom. When the writing response activity is completed, the student will post for teacher feedback.
Activities for each session:
1.	Before reading: 
•	Students share the writing response activity from the previous lesson (10 minutes).
•	Survey the text by numbering the paragraphs of the biography then discussing photographs or other visual aids presented in the text. Students also review the comprehension questions to become familiar with the information they should identify while reading.
(5 minutes).

2.	During reading: 
•	First reading – identify vocabulary and clarify the meaning of unknown words and unclear contextual information.
•	Second reading – identify the main topics of each paragraph, sequence the events of the biography (20 minutes).

3.	After reading: 
•	Answer comprehension questions explaining how they found the answer--in the text or using inference skills (10 minutes).
•	Vocabulary matching activity (5 minutes).
•	Writing response assignment (10 minutes).

Evaluation
1.	Student responses to comprehension questions and vocabulary matching activities.
2.	Students work in completing the writing response assignment after each session.