Stage 2 - Detailed Reading

Detailed reading

Once the text has been read aloud and discussed, the teacher guides the class to identify information that they will use later for writing. Students can highlight or underline each chunk of information. This can be done at two levels.

Level one: Long texts

Long texts can be read paragraph by paragraph. After reading each paragraph the teacher directs students to mark two or three items of key information in the paragraph. These items will be used later for making notes and writing summaries.

Paragraph-by-paragraph reading can happen very quickly. With practice, students soon learn how to identify key information themselves.

Level two: Short texts

With short texts or key passages in long texts, the teacher may guide students to identify important information in each sentence. With practice, students learn to become independent at identifying information. As each sentence is discussed in depth, high achieving students benefit as well as students experiencing difficulties.

Sentence-by-sentence reading takes time and should only be done on short passages that are essential to the subject area learning taking place.

In this video, the teacher briefly prepares the students for each section of text by explaining what it is about, then reading it aloud as the students follow.

The teacher then guides the class to identify each important chunk of information in the text, asking each student in turn.

Students then highlight specific words in the text and discuss their meaning in more depth. This may involve defining words, explaining concepts or asking students to interpret meanings.