Underlining Text

After doing some in class reading, have students get out their pencils or markers and underline or mark key ideas. The teacher can model this for them as necessary, perhaps passing out her marked copy. Also encourage students to take marginal notes. Discuss the purpose of marking text: if they underline and annotate their text, they are building their own study guide into to go back and review at test time. After they are finished marking their texts, students can compare their annotation to a peer’s, but emphasize they won’t be the same.
With this strategy, students are learning a valuable study skill as well as extending practice with a particular text.