Text Based Evidence with Rainbow Comprehension

Rainbow Comprehension for young students is the idea of color coding text in order to locate the evidence. Students have an easier time locating evidence to support their answers within informational text. The Rainbow Comprehension theme sets are non-fiction. We also all know students need more critical thinking skills. But before we build these critical skills we need to teach younger students the basics. The questions found throughout the sets are "right there" type questions.

I spent this week doing a big overhaul on the entire Rainbow Comprehension sets. The passages and the questions have all been placed on one page. A box has been added to write the answers instead of handwriting lines.

The new design also helps save ink. We all enjoy saving money there. Let's take a look at Rainbow Comprehension to see how it works.

1. Students need four basic colors (blue, green, red and yellow). You can use crayons, colored-pencils or markers.

2. Students will use the crayons, pencils or markers to locate the evidence in the text.

3. I recommend students circle key words throughout the text.

4. Students should read the passage three times to build fluency and comprehension. They can keep track of how many times they have practiced reading the passage by circling the 1, 2, 3 at the top of the page.

*Students read closely to determine what the text says explicitly and makes inferences from it.

5. The students can underline the evidence or color over the evidence as shown in the image below.

Important Information:
Rainbow comprehension is not intended to be completed independently. This is a process skill. We want to guide students through this process by effective modeling. This skill can be taught in small groups, tutoring or intervention. The foundation of this skill is taught in first, second and third grade.

Rainbow Comprehension and other text based strategies should be accompanied by: interactive read alouds, shared reading, teacher modeling, think alouds, guided reading and independent reading.