Visible Learning Using Informational Texts

One of our fifth-grade promise standards is analyzing informational texts to find the main ideas and details, and ultimately write a summary about the text. This is something that has been a challenge to many students, because out of everything they've read in the text, it can be hard to distinguish the most important ideas from the supporting details. In preparation for state standardized testing coming up, I provided a visual representation for the students to refer to whenever they are stuck or wondering which level of understanding they are on: surface, deep, or transfer. It is okay to be at each level, but by the time testing arrives, we are hoping every student can follow the success criteria of the deep and transfer levels - which, in this case, is adding a complete and appropriate summary of the text, using key details as evidence from the text (At the surface level, students will be able to identify these main ideas but lack the skill of locating details to support).

Here are examples of what an annotated informational text looks like at each level. At home, you can discuss with your child where he or she believes s/he is in his/her understanding and ability, and if s/he fall under the "surface" category, think of steps s/he can take to shift his/her focus to finding the details to use as evidence.

Take a look at how the questions are answered in my examples, as well - in order of surface, deep, and transfer levels of understanding. Notice how at the surface level, there aren't even complete sentences for answers, as opposed to the transfer level - where the "student" wrote a complete summary using evidence from the text, after answering the questions in complete sentences. This was a really good way for students to see what the expectations are to receive highly proficient scores.

Surface (MP):

Deep (PP/P):

Transfer (HP):

Thank you for supporting your child! Sometimes s/he just needs some extra motivation to get to the "transfer" level because s/he might not always want to put all the work into writing a summary!