The Curious Teacher

Finally, A Fun Way to Teach Annotation! Annotating is the act of a reader writing down his/her thoughts on a text during reading. Real-world readers and writers annotate all the time without skipping a beat. While skilled readers do not think much of this skill, for struggling or young readers annotating can seem like a science and unnatural. But I feel that as educators, if we truly want to raise our students' level of reading independency and comprehension, teaching annotation is not only necessary, but a must. There is just no way around it. But let me tell you, once your students understand the art of annotating, there will be no stopping them. After just a few lessons on annotation, I have seen my students from all different reading levels and interests raise their awareness of the text, critical thinking skills, thinking beyond the text, and their comprehension of the text. Teaching students to annotate and think actively about a text can be a challenge, and that is a