Texts Resources

Shared Reading

Teachers can use shared reading to help students learn to engage, interact, and make meaning from text. During shared reading, teachers read with students, pausing often enough to allow the student to take the lead and minimizing questions until the student is interacting and initiating their own comments or asking their own questions. To learn more about shared reading in DLM, complete the DLM module on Shared Reading and explore other modules and supports at https://sharedreader.org.

Shared Reading Vignettes

Are you having a hard time imagining what shared reading might look like using these books with your students with more complex needs? Here are some vignettes that describe what interactions between teachers and students with the most significant cognitive disabilities might look like. They are arranged by grade level because they link to specific books at each grade level, but read some at the grade levels above and below the levels you teach to get more examples.

3rd Grade Shared Reading Vignette My Father’s Dragon Unit – “Wild Island

4th Grade Shared Reading Vignette The Birchbark House Unit – “Omakayas

5th Grade  Shared Reading Vignette The Secret Garden – “Families

7th Grade  Shared Reading Vignette Hatchett – “Moose

9th-10th Grade Shared Reading Vignette The White Heron – “Making a Dress

11th-12th Grade Shared Reading Vignette To Kill a Mockingbird – “Dad Loved the Farm

Teaching Comprehension

There are three modules that will help you learn to use Anchor-Read-Apply to teach students to comprehend text through listening or reading.  Completing these modules will help you take advantage of the documents below that offer specific lesson ideas linked to each of the DLM Essential Elements in Reading Literature and Reading Information Text. The modules are:

Teaching Text Comprehension: Anchor-Read-Apply

Participants will learn to identify the components of an Anchor-Read-Apply text comprehension lesson, match purposes for reading with anchor activities, and describe the difference between asking question to assess comprehension and teaching students to understand text in increasingly complex ways. 

Generating Purposes for Reading

This module reviews the Anchor-Read-Apply framework for reading comprehension. Participants will learn how to generate purposes for reading using the DLM Essential Elements and review activities to help students activate background knowledge. 

DR-TA and Other Text Comprehension Approaches

Participants will briefly review the anchor-read-apply framework and will be introduced to the DR- TA, KWL, and Yes/No comprehension instructional strategies. 

Anchor-Read-Apply Lesson Supports Linked to DLM Essential Elements

3rd Grade DLM Reading Purposes Anchor Read Apply

4th Grade DLM Reading Purposes Anchor Read Apply

5th Grade DLM Reading Purposes Anchor Read Apply

6th Grade DLM Reading Purposes Anchor Read Apply

7th Grade DLM Reading Purposes Anchor Read Apply

8th Grade DLM Reading Purposes Anchor Read Apply

9-10th Grade DLM Reading Purposes Anchor Read Apply

11-12th Grade DLM Reading Purposes Anchor Read Apply

All Grade Levels Combined

Please READ this important message about Tar Heel Reader if you are not already familiar with the site.

Familiar Texts

The DLM Alternate Assessment supports students with the most complex disabilities by providing them with the texts they will encounter in the English Language Arts assessment before they encounter them in the assessment.  The FAMILIAR texts will be released as they are available.  In addition, when there are specific objects called out for the assessment, those are described.

The familiar texts for are available through the Educator Resource Page for your state.  If your state participates in the Year-End assessment only, the familiar texts are here:  Educator Resource Page YE.  If your state participates in the Instructionally Embedded Assessment windows, the familiar texts are here: Educator Resource Page IE.

Other Texts

One of the challenges in providing students with the most significant disabilities with access to the general curriculum is finding materials that link directly to the grade level content, but are written at a level that is accessible.  As part of the DLM project we have been building a library of companion texts that go with the exemplar texts called out in the Appendix of the College and Career Readiness Standards. These books are accessible, open-source texts that you and your students can read online, on a reader that uses epub files, or offline as Powerpoint files or printed versions of the books. The books come from the collection of books at Tar Heel Reader.  Many of the books were written by teachers across the U.S., Canada, and other English speaking countries.  Please read the message about Tar Heel Reader linked above if you are not already familiar with the site.  You will find a great deal of variety in the quality of the books and not all of the books are appropriate for all students.  If you take some time to familiarize yourself with tarheelreader.org you’ll find you can choose which books you want your students to access. You can find the library of companion texts at  https://www.dlmpd.com/exemplar-text-supports/