Practicing Written Responses to Texts

My students will be taking the NECAP Reading Test this-coming week. I’ve been trying to prepare them for the written responses to reading they’ll be doing. Therefore, I’ve tried to create some of my own materials. Here’s one thing I did.

First, we read Lenore Look’s book Uncle Peter’s Amazing Chinese Wedding.
Second, we talked about the book.
Third, I let two days pass and then we read it again.
Fourth, I gave my kids the following task and told them to use “The Z” (a graphic organizer to help them plan their response to to extended response).
DIRECTIONS: Answer all of the questions in complete sentences. Use evidence from the text to support your written responses.
a. How does the little girl act at the beginning of the story?
b. How does she act at the end of the story?
c. What happens that makes her feelings change towards Stella? Use details from the story to support your answer.
Fifth, They had 45 minutes to work on this task, though most were done in a lot less time.

I found that the kids did super-well with questions a and c (Whew!). However, b was tricky for them since many of them wrote about what happened or how she felt at the end of the story, not about how the little girl acted. Perhaps I should’ve phrased the questions differently.

I’m going to give them one more “assessment” like this today, using a different picture book. I hope this will help them feel even more prepared for tomorrow’s NECAP Test.