Listen, Look, and Learn: An Information-Gathering Process

The ReadWriteThink website provides educators, parents, and afterschool professionals with access to the highest quality practices in reading and language arts instruction by offering the very best in free materials. Learning to extract information from varied sources is essential to the learning process. This lesson models an information-gathering process for primary learners; however, it can be easily modified to address third grade level expectations. Students begin by reading and discussing Helen Lesteru2019s story Score One for the Sloths. Next, students are introduced to an information wheelu2014a circle divided into 3 large pieces, each labeled with a different question about the sloth. Questions include: where does it live? what does it look like? and what does it do ? Then various resources are shared with students as they decide where on the wheel each fact or statement about the sloth should be recorded. Guiding the listening, looking, and learning process helps students gain confidence and develop strategies for gathering information independently.