The Challenge

Today’s students are bombarded with non-fiction, informational text. From charts and graphs to websites to instructions for the latest MP3 player, students must be able to comprehend non-fiction writing in order to be functionally literate in today’s society.

If you’re like me, you grew up taking English classes that focused on fictional literature – who is the protagonist, what is the setting, what are the conflicts? And then, you took education courses in college that instructed you how to teach the same things that you grew up learning.

But, times have changed, and now we’re in a predicament. To assist students in becoming “life-long learners” we need to not only incorporate non-fiction reading into our curriculum, but also be able to assess that students actually comprehend what they read.  So, exactly how do we do this?

An inexpensive way to quickly assess students is to provide them with a photocopy of a non-fiction article and a highlighter. With a few ideas, your students will begin speaking to you through their highlighter, allowing you to quickly assess each individual student’s level of comprehension. Amazingly enough, even students who rarely speak in class immediately have a “voice” through the power of the highlighter.

Using the Highlighter to Assess Comprehension: The Interactive Dictionary

Provide each student with a copy of a non-fiction article and a highlighter. As students read the article silently, ask them to highlight any words that they do not understand. The teacher then becomes the interactive dictionary by walking around the room, looking for highlighted words, and jotting down a one/two word definition on the students’ articles.

The Benefits:

• The classroom remains completely silent for students who need a quiet atmosphere to comprehend text.

• By receiving an immediate, short definition, students can continue with the fluency of their reading while adding additional comprehension to it.

• Students will highlight every word they cannot comprehend because they do not view highlighting as additional work for themselves; ie. “If I highlight these words, she’s going to make me go look them up in the dictionary and do a worksheet.”

• At a glance across the room, the teacher can see who is having the most difficulty comprehending the text. This becomes a great assessment tool that can lead to differentiated instruction. By viewing each student’s highlighting, the teacher can select future non-fiction articles with varying levels of difficulty for multiple students in the class.

• Since each student is given the ability to comprehend the reading (via quick, written definitions by the teacher), a class discussion on the article can involve every student in the room.

• The teacher can create a class vocabulary list from the most commonly highlighted words.

• Students will begin to inform the teacher of non-fiction literacy problems that are not directly related to vocabulary and definitions. For example, some students are unclear that once the name of an organization is fully written, the author will then use the acronym for that organization. Many students highlight the abbreviation, unclear of its meaning. Likewise other students are not aware that once a person’s full name is used in an article, the person is only referred to by his/her last name. Students will highlight the last name later in the article, not knowing its reference.