Units of Study: Mystery: Foundational Skills in Disguise, Gr. 3
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About the Unit
Mysteries are the perfect vehicle for teaching foundational skills that lie at the heart of engaged reading. Students leap at the chance to do the work required to “get” the mystery, following ideas across their texts, seeing cause-and-effect relationships, and predicting outcomes. And, of course, mysteries naturally push kids to infer—to notice clues and to wonder more about them; to consider how part of one chapter relates back to what was learned in an earlier chapter; and to wonder when characters are really telling the truth.
In this unit, students will:
- Learn to read closely to catch key details,
- Learn to think back over and accumulate details, developing hunches, suspicions, predictions
- Become more skilled at gathering information from texts by rereading and annotating
- Transfer what they learn about mysteries to other types of fiction
- This unit is intended to follow Building a Reading Life in the Units of Study series and to reinforce many of the key lessons on foundational skills taught in that unit. It can, however, also come later in the year. Its clear instructional arc will support and engage a wide range of learners.
