In this video, Stephanie Gaboury of the Blue Hills Adult Education Program teaches her intermediate-level ABE students (GLE 4-8.9) a new reading comprehension strategy to help them summarize a text by finding the topic and main idea of each paragraph. Watch as Ms. Gaboury uses explicit instruction to first explain and model the strategy for her students, and then engages them in guided practice and independent application of the strategy.
As part of a broader unit on female empowerment and social activism, Ms. Gaboury chose a reading from CommonLit entitled ”Marley Dias: The 13-Year-Old Author Who Made a Difference” for this lesson. You will need to create a free account to view the reading on CommonLit, which is an online resource for digital readings and related activities.
Digital skills are also woven into the instruction, with students using their Chromebooks to complete a typed summary and comprehension questions about the reading (23:10). Toward the end of the video, listen as Ms. Gaboury reflects on the lesson, including why she chose the reading selection and her thoughts on the lesson (28:07).
Thank you to the staff and adult learners from the Blue Hills Adult Education program for allowing us to film their class!
Would you like to teach this lesson yourself, or use the video for professional development with a team of teachers? Following are related resources:
- Lesson Plan: This lesson plan uses the ACLS-approved ABE/ELA lesson planning template (Word doc).
- Discussion Questions: Teaching teams can use these questions as a starting point to delve more deeply into the content of the videos.
