The project aims to help 8th grade students improve their reading comprehension and performance on Accelerated Reader (AR) quizzes. Students will be assigned to research and present on one of five common reading strategies. Each group will create an informative poster on their assigned strategy. The best posters from each strategy will be displayed for parents. Individually, students will apply their strategy to a sample text and write a paper describing the strategy. The goal is for students to learn to identify and retain key information from texts using various reading strategies.

1. PROJECT OVERVIEW
Name of Project: Reading Strategies Duration:
Subject/Course: ELA/AR Program Skills Teacher(s): Perez Grade Level: 8
Other subject areas to
be included, if any:
Project Idea In order to boost student performance in AR, students need to improve their reading comprehension. The goal of this
Summary of the issue, project is to familiarize students with various reading strategies that will help them identify and retain key information
challenge, investigation, from the text they are reading. This will help them to perform better on the AR quizzes.
scenario, or problem:
Driving Question What strategies can Wilmington Middle School students use to improve their reading comprehension and therefore their AR
performance?
Content and Skills 1.0. WORD ANALYSIS, FLUENCY, AND SYSTEMATIC VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT: Students use
Standards to be their knowledge of word origins and word relationships, as well as historical and literary context clues, both to
addressed: determine the meaning of specialized vocabulary and to understand the precise meaning of grade-level-
appropriate words.
2.0. READING COMPREHENSION (FOCUS ON INFORMATIONAL MATERIALS): Students read and
understand grade-level-appropriate material. They describe and connect the essential ideas, arguments, and perspectives
of the text by using their knowledge of text structure, organization, and purpose.
T+A E T+A E
21st Century Skills Collaboration  Other:
to be explicitly taught and
assessed (T+A) or that Presentation
will be encouraged (E) by 
project work, but not
taught or assessed: Critical Thinking: 
Presentation Audience:
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2. Group: Each group of students will be responsible for one reading strategy. They will research the 
Culminating strategy in order to understand what it is and how to use it. The group will then create a poster Class:
Products and that highlights and describes this strategy. The poster should be clear, informative and eye-
Performances catching. Each group will present their poster to the class. The best poster of each strategy
from all five periods will be posted in the library for parents to see on Open House and will School:
receive extra credit.
Community:
All individual students will contribute to the group project by researching, planning and Experts:
Individual: creating the strategy poster. In addition, each student will write a paper describing the
strategy and applying that strategy to a sample/model story. Web:
Other:
PROJECT OVERVIEW
Entry event to Show students various images that contain hidden pictures or optical illusions. Flash the image quickly once and
launch inquiry, ask what they see. Let the students study the same image and again ask what they see. They will get more
engage students: information out of the image by using strategies to analyze it. This will communicate the main idea of the lesson to
the students, that reading strategies help with reading comprehension.
Assessments Quizzes/Tests  Practice Presentations
Formative
Assessments Journal/Learning Log Notes
(During
Project) Preliminary Plans/Outlines/Prototypes Checklists 
Rough Drafts  Concept Maps
Online Tests/Exams Other:
Written Product(s), with rubric:  Other Product(s) or Performance(s), with rubric:
Summative ____Strategy Poster______________________________ __________________________________________________
Assessments
(End of Project) Oral Presentation, with rubric  Peer Evaluation
Multiple Choice/Short Answer Test Self-Evaluation
Essay Test Other:
.
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3. Resources On-site people, facilities:
Needed
Equipment: Classroom computers for researching strategies
Materials: Poster paper, colored pencils, pencils, erasers, Reading strategy info cards, prezi on strategies,
prezi with optical illusion images
Community resources:
Reflection Journal/Learning Log – Have students answer  Focus Group
Methods (Individual, the driving question as a writing prompt.
Group, and/or
Whole Class) Whole-Class Discussion Fishbowl Discussion
Survey Other:
© 2008 Buck Institute for Education 3

4. PROJECT TEACHING AND LEARNING GUIDE
Project: Reading Strategies P R O J E C T CCourse/Semester: A R
A L E N D
Project: Reading Strategies Start Date:
Knowledge and Skills Needed by Students Scaffolding / Materials / Lessons to be Provided
to successfully complete culminating products and by the project teacher, other teachers, experts,
M O N D A Y
performances, and do well on U E S D A Y assessments W E D N E S D A Y
T
summative mentors,Scommunity members F R I D A Y
T H U R D A Y
PROJECT WEEK ONE
- show optical illusions -review reading -20 minutes of class -20 minutes of class -20 minutes of class
Prezi strategies prezi 
time to work on the
- Prezi onto work on the
time
Reading Strategies time to work on the
The 5 commonly recognized reading strategiesproject while teacher
- explain how studying - explain project - Information sheets on each reading strategy
project while teacher project while teacher
the picture reveals -assign strategies to circulates - Graphic organizer for students to record
circulates circulates
more about what is groups and hand out information about all 5 reading strategies that they
going on strategy info sheets learn about through the other group presentations
- show reading
strategies prezi
The big picture concept that you need to analyze and Intro activity using optical illusions. Class discussions
reflect on a text in order to fully comprehendR O J E C
P it T WE
 about T W O
E K what objects are hidden within the main pictures.
-20 minutes of class -20 minutes of class -20 minutes of class - teacher returns rough -2nd draft of poster due
time to work on the time to work on the time to work on the draft of posters with to teacher
project while teacher project while teacher project while teacher comments to groups
circulates circulates circulates -20 minutes of class

- rough draft of poster time to review and
due revise rough drafts
PR O JEC T WEEK TH R EE

-return 2nd drafts with -20 minutes to work on -group presentations of - group presentations -teacher announces
comments final poster posters of posters best posters to be
-20 minutes to work on displayed in the library
final poster

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© 2008 Buck Institute for Education 4
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