Cite details from the text to ask and answer literal and inferential questions (Inclusive Big Idea #1)

Reading Informational Text

Grade 5: English Language Arts

Inclusive Big Idea #1: Cite details from the text to ask and answer literal and inferential questions

Standard: Quote accurately from a text when explaining what the text says explicitly and when drawing inferences from the text. RI.5.1

• KWL Charts: Before, during, and after reading a text, create a Know, Wonder, Learned (KWL) chart with the class to answer questions about key details in the text. Use colors and icons to differentiate the different sections of the chart. See this TIP Sheet for more information on graphic organizers.
  • What we Know about a topic
  • What we Wonder about a topic
  • What we Learned about a topic
• Instructional Conversations: Individually, in small groups, or with the whole class, engage in a conversation about a content-area topic. Ask students what they already know about the topic to determine their background knowledge. Provide direct information about the topic to build their knowledge. Then, ask different questions about the topic and allow the group to have an open conversation about the topic. Students should support their ideas by using information they learned from books or other multimedia sources. Providing an option to use graphic organizers with sentence starters may help students to record their ideas as they listen to the verbal conversations. See this TIP Sheet for more information on Whole Group Discussions.
• Prediction: Predictions require students to pull together their comprehension of the text so far with schema and other background knowledge to predict what will come next in a text. While presenting information or a nonfiction text, stop to have students make predictions. Providing options for students to process and record their predictions in multiple ways.
• Think Aloud: The purpose of asking students questions about texts is to get them into the habit of self-questioning as they read by themselves. To model this, read aloud an informational text in front of the class. Then, periodically, stop and ask questions out loud. Then, as you continue to read, begin answering the questions yourself. Pre-record think-alouds so that students have the option to listen and watch them multiple times with captions. See this TIP Sheet for more information on how to model using a Think Aloud.
• Response Cards: After reading the text, provide students with a detail of the text. Ask them to make an inference using their background information. For students who struggle with this skill, model how to make inferences using objects, digital, or picture response cards with potential answers.
• Three Level Comprehension Guide: This graphic organizer asks students to be active readers as they record their understanding of a text. Level 1: Literal Comprehension asks students to record what is explicitly stated in the text. Level 2: Interpretive asks students to interpret information from the text and read between the lines. Level 3: Applied asks students to make connections between the information in the text and their own experience/knowledge.

For example, one possible barrier is the amount of information that a student needs to hold in mind.

Ideas to reduce this barrier could include:

• be aware of how much sensory input occurs at once, perhaps offer the option to use headphones
• show examples and provide answers to check along the way
• provide templates or graphic organizers
• allow use of spell checks and other tools 

Use these Inclusive Strategies to help reduce barriers.

• The Big Idea: Cite details from the text to ask and answer literal and inferential questions
• Tell me more about… Citing Details
  • The supporting details of informational text are information that helps to clarify the reader’s understanding of the most important points that the author is trying to make about a specific subject. Identifying and categorizing main ideas within informational text is critical to successful readers. You support your main idea by explaining it, describing it, defining it, or otherwise giving information about it.
• Tell me more about… Asking and Answering Questions
  • In order to answer a question correctly, students have to know where they can find the key details necessary to learn the answers.
    • Right There questions: Answers to this type of question are explicitly mentioned in the text.
    • Think and Search questions: Answers to these questions require students to pull key details from multiple parts of a text to draw a conclusion.
    • Author and Me questions: Answers to these questions require students to make connections between key details from the story and their own experiences.
    • On my Own questions: While prompts such as these are aligned with the text, answers to this type of question require the students to pull key details exclusively from their own experiences and thoughts.
• Tell me more about… Literal Questions
  • Literal understanding is the comprehension of what is explicitly stated in the text. Answers to this type of question can be found in the text.
• Tell me more about… Inferential Questions
  • Inferential thinking is a complex skill that requires readers to merge their prior knowledge with clues from the text to draw conclusions, predict an outcome, and find emerging themes. Learn more about making inferences with this TIP Sheet.
  • Teaching Inferencing: Provide explicit instruction and encourage students to…
    • find clues in the text to get answers
    • add those clues to prior knowledge
    • realize there may be more than one correct answer
    • support inferences with evidence from the text

Common Student Misconceptions

• Answering Questions: Not all answers can be found in the text; some answers rely on the reader to incorporate personal experience and perspective. There can be more than one acceptable answer.
• Inferences: Inferring requires higher-order thinking skills, which makes it a difficult skill for many students. Often, being taught how to make inferences is overlooked and thought to be implicitly learned. Also, teachers often assume that all students have the same or similar prior knowledge. Teachers must be diligent to provide examples, explicit instruction, and background understanding. Helping students understand when information is implied, or not directly stated, will improve their skills in drawing conclusions and making inferences.

Everyday Connections

• In the Kitchen: Find real-world examples to engage students in how important details are to help describe something. For example, you could highlight how important details are for explaining to someone how to make a turkey sandwich.
• After School: Gather information to figure out the key details for how to play a game or join a club or team at school or in the community.

Fourth Grade: Use details to ask and answer literal and inferential questions about a text (RI 1)

Fifth Grade: Cite details from the text to ask and answer literal and inferential questions (RL 1)

Sixth Grade: Cite details from the text to ask and answer literal and inferential questions (RI 1)