Welcome to my Staying Focused Website! The purpose of this site is to provide teachers with research, resources, and links for teaching reading skills. The resources and links are sorted by skills and grade levels when possible.
All students learn best when instruction has a clear and specific focus.
When reading skills are broken down and taught individually, students have a greater opportunity to excel at particular skills.
This website breaks the skills down according to the Illinois Reading Assessment Framework Objectives designed for the ISAT. http://www.isbe.net/assessment/pdfs/iaf_reading.rtf
Each of the following skills has a page on this website. Click on the links at the top of any page to move from skill to skill.
Standard 1A - Vocabulary Development
- Words in Isolation
- Words in Context
Standards 1B, 1C - Reading Strategies
Standard 1C - Reading Comprehension
- Literal or Simple Inference
- Summarizing and Main Idea
- Sequencing and Ordering
- Drawing Conclusions Based on Evidence
- Interpreting Instructions
- Author's Purpose and Design
Standard 2A - Literary Elements and Techniques
- Story and Literary Structure
- Characterization
- Literary Terms and Devices
Standard 2B - Variety of Literary Works