ZINC STAAR MASTERY

Students often skip straight to the question, skim through the multiple choice answers, and work backwards through the passage. Since three of the four answer choices are wrong, but there’s more than one right-sounding answer, this sets them up for anxiety and second-guessing. Use this 10-minute, teacher-led mini-lesson to teach your students an alternate approach: Read + Predict.

Knowing that the multiple choice answers can confuse students, we teach them to go through each possible answer and categorize it with a quick "maybe" or "no." This starts the elimination process and simplifies the choices. After doing this, students move on to look more closely at their “maybe” designations. Use this 10-minute, teacher-led mini-lesson to teach your students how to use the Maybe or No approach.

After students narrow down the answer choices (using Zinc’s Maybe or No method), they then go through each answer choice. They then examine every word carefully, looking for words that make the answer wrong—for example, "extreme" words like “always” or “never.” Use this 10-minute mini-lesson to teach your students how to ensure that Every Word Matters on test day.

Once students have learned the four-step method for answering individual questions, help them move through the entire test with confidence. Skipping and Coming Back is Zinc’s method for saving time, bypassing anxiety, and making the test more enjoyable. Use this 10-minute, teacher-led mini-lesson to help your students tap into the way their brains process information most effectively.

Click here for Spanish/English versions of all four Test Prep Mini Lessons. Since students take the assessments in English, we’ve provided slides with instructional content in Spanish and reading passages and test questions in English.

In the Use Your Senses section of the Reading Ignition Unit, students are asked to start by finding words they can easily picture when reading challenging texts, and actually “experiencing” these words in their heads. They should use all their senses to see, hear, taste, touch, and smell the sensory details in the text.

Many abstract words do not make images in our minds. Readers easily overlook those words and miss critical information. In Make It Real, students are asked to make abstract terms real to their own relevant example. For example, Shakespeare says, "A rose by any other name would smell as sweet." Actually think of another name. Would the rose’s smell change if we called it “Steven"?

In the Pronouns section of the Reading Ignition Unit, students are asked to track pronouns back to their antecedents in order to follow what’s going on in the text. Basic pronouns like, “she,” “he,” or “they,” are covered, as well as pronouns like “it” or “this” or “that” often students often overlook.

In a text, writers give signals to guide readers through layers of meaning. Navigators come in the form of punctuation, signal words, and asides. For example, "however" is a signal to expect a contrasting layer of information, whereas a comma or a colon may signal us to expect an explanation.