Understanding Stated Information: Instructional Focus Lesson Day 1
“Just the facts, Jack.” Have you ever had a friend who went on and on to retell a simple event? You’ve probably wanted to interrupt with “Cut to the chase.” Although your friend may have a very entertaining way of telling you something, your friend may not be very skilled at understanding what the important information is. To do well on your ITBS tests, you’ll need to know how to understand stated information. You need to understand the important information in whatever you hear, see, or read. This is a skill you can learn to outwit the test makers. Let’s find out how to do this.
Understanding stated information usually involves finding the facts in written material. To start with, we need to be clear about what a fact is. A fact is something that can be proved or disproved. “Broccoli is a vegetable” is a fact. “I like broccoli” is an opinion. You couldn’t really prove a person likes broccoli—they could lie and you’d never know.
To do well on certain questions on the ITBS Reading Comprehension Test, you’ll need to find information and understand it well enough to recognize it on an answer form and select the correct answer. You may find the answer “right there,” or it may have been reworded or rephrased to identify a similar concept.
Test items that ask you to demonstrate your ability to understand stated information might start with the following questions:
This is our second Instructional Focus Area. If you need to use the HAND from main idea, do so. The real ITBS test questions won’t be broken into the five categories we’re teaching you. The questions will be a mixture of main idea, stated information, understanding vocabulary in context, interpreting information in a new context, and drawing conclusions—all in mixed up order. You’ll be using tips from all of our focus lessons to be successful…so don’t learn one and figure you can forget it!
Before we try a sample test situation, remember these tips:
1. Read all of the questions before you read the passage. This will tell you what strategy to use—the hand or the keychain or others we’ll learn later.
2. Mark the reading passage as you go—either in your head or on paper if you can.
3. Look for specific facts to answer the specific questions.
4. VERY IMPORTANT: don’t be confused by sentence order. Lots of sentences in the reading selection will be in passive voice. They’re more confusing to understand. You’re used to active voice.
Here’s an example: I broke the vase.
This is active voice. It’s easy to see who did what.
That same information in passive voice looks like this: The vase was broken by me.
Who broke the vase is difficult to find. It’s not too hard to understand this example, but the sentences in the real reading selections are longer and more complicated. Watch out for PASSIVE VOICE. It’s another trick!
Let’s put these tips to work and search for key facts in the familiar story The Three Little Pigs. In case you’ve forgotten, the three little pigs were sent off to create their own houses made from straw, sticks, and bricks. The wolf huffed and puffed, and the first two houses fell. The pigs went to their brother’s house. The wolf wasn’t able to blow the brick house down. He fell down the chimney into a soup pot over the fire. Use your key chain to make a list of the facts you know. You might come up with answers to the following questions:
1. How many pigs?
2. What materials did the pigs use to build their houses?
3. Who are the characters?
4. What did the wolf try to do?
5. What happened at the end?
6. Which pig’s house wasn’t destroyed?
You may not be able to use all of the key words, but you will be able to use many of them.
Now that you have the facts, a question might ask you to use the stated facts to figure something out—like the main idea!
1. The main idea of The Three Little Pigs is:
a. Don’t build a house in a forest that has wolves.
b. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing well.
c. Straw is a cheap material to use for a house.
d. Take a class before building a house.
Obviously, the answer is “b.”
Let’s look at a sample prompt and four questions. Read carefully and use the keychain strategy to understand stated information.
NAME______________________________
When George Washington traveled from his home to New York, the roads were so rough that it took seven days to make the trip by horseback, traveling about forty miles a day. You could make the trip now by train or car in six hours or even less.
The roads were so uneven that sometimes one side of a traveling stagecoach was two or three feet higher than the other. Passengers were thrown from side to side and often bounced right out of their seats.
When the roads were originally made, stumps of trees were sometimes left sticking up six or eight inches above the surface of the ground. When a wheel struck on one of these stumps, the stagecoach was often upset, or a wheel was torn off.
Most of the roads were narrow. They were so narrow that there were stretches several miles long where two carts or carriages could not pass each other.
Before roads were hard-surfaced, heavy rains often turned the dirt into deep mud that did not dry up for days at a time. The mud in the roads might be as much as three or four feet deep. Whenever that happened, travel on the roads was difficult, if not impossible, since vehicles often got stuck in the mud and had to be pulled out. Sometimes it took twenty horses and hours of work to pull a stagecoach out of the mud.
When roads were muddy, people on farms found living less comfortable. Delivery of mail was slowed up and sometimes stopped. It was difficult for farmers to get their crops to market. There was little, if any, visiting between families who lived at some distance from each other. Often people were forced to stay at home.
The building of hard roads changed all of this. Travel in the country is now much simpler. Farm families can plan to visit one another and have good times together without being afraid that a heavy rain will spoil the trip. In spite of rain, people who live in the country can get to nearby towns for shopping, social gatherings, entertainment, and recreation.
1. How far was it from Washington’s home to New York?
a. Forty miles
b. Seven days
c. Less than six hours
d. Two hundred eighty miles
2. What does the article say has made travel much simpler in the country today?
a. People live closer together.
b. Automobiles were invented.
c. Towing companies can be called by cell phone.
d. Hard roads were built.
3. What did the article say might cause a wheel to be torn off?
a. Too heavy a load
b. Backing up incorrectly
c. A road that is too narrow
d. Tree stumps in the road
4. How did farm families feel when roads were too muddy to travel?
a. Happy because the family had some time to be together
b. Disappointed that plans were spoiled
c. Not worried—they went anyway
d. Sleepy from listening to the rain
We’ll be talking about understanding stated information for seven days. On the 5th day, you’ll take an assessment like the one we just worked through. This assessment will prove whether you understand how to find stated information or not. You will need to get three out of the four answers correct to prove your understanding. We’ll be coming back to understanding stated information for two days before you actually take the ITBS Reading Comprehension Test.