reading directions assignment

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Following Directions Activities for kids

Ask 100 schoolteachers what the number one skill their students need to work on is, and the likely answer: listening. A close second: following directions.

There are many theories as to why today’s students seem to have a harder time listening and following directions. Some blame too much screen time and not enough interaction with other humans. Some cite the break down of the modern family, hectic schedules and the disappearance of the family dinner.

Whatever the cause of the seemingly cotton-filled ears of students populating modern classrooms, there is a solution. Listening skills can be taught and practiced.

Engage the Brain curated some listening activities that parents can do with their kids. (Attribution is below each activity.) The activities are divided into two age groups: Elementary and Middle, though many high school students could benefit from some of these activities, too.

A key to engaging a child your in these activities is to have fun. Set these activities up as games. Challenge your child to improve his listening skills. Like any new skill, listening takes consistent practice over a period of time. Set a goal of practicing listening skills several times a week.

Without further ado… Here are the listening activities:

Elementary Age Children

1. sticker directions.

Materials: index card, colorful circle stickers, a pen

Give your child the following instructions:

1   Take the green sticker and put it in the top left corner.

2   Take the orange sticker and put it in the bottom right corner.

3   Take the pink sticker and put it in the center of the card.

4   Get your pencil out and put a smiley face in the pink sticker. The smiley face should have two eyes and a mouth.

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2. What letter am I?

Materials: paper, pen

Draw a 3 by 3 grid on a piece of paper. Place lower and upper case letters in the boxes. Create a set of set directions for you child to follow:

1. I am not a capital letter.

2. I am not the letter X or the letter V.

3. I am not a vowel.

4. I am in any row but the last row.

5. I come after the letter N in the alphabet.

3. Listen and Color

Materials: paper divided into boxes with various shapes drawn in each box. You can make the activity more challenging by adding more rows and more shapes.

Follow the directions and color.

1. Color the first diamond yellow.

2. Color the square red and green.

3. Color the first shape purple.

4. Draw a big blue dot in the middle of the third shape.

Middle School Age children

1.  listen and draw.

Materials: white drawing paper, pencil or pen

Give these directions orally to your child. Tell your child that you will only be reading each step of the directions twice, so they need to pay close attention.

Step 1 : Turn your paper horizontally. That means “landscape” or long ways.

Step 2 : Draw a two-inch five-point star in the left hand corner. The top point and the left point should touch the edge of the paper.

Step 3 : Now, move your pencil to the middle of the paper. Draw a one-inch square. Shade or color in the square.

Step 4 : On the bottom right hand corner of the paper, draw a two inch circle. Leave about a one-inch margin, which means to come over one inch on the edge of each side of the paper. Inside the circle, draw a happy face.

Step 5 : For the last object, you are going to draw a two-inch equal lateral triangle. It goes in the top right hand corner. Leave a one-inch margin on both edges of the paper.

How does the picture look?

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2.  Origami

Materials: Origami paper, directions

Origami is a challenging activity when you can see the directions. Challenge your child to make a pelican from only your oral directions.

Origami Pelican

3. Mystery Pictures

Materials: white drawing paper, pen or pen

Draw a picture using common shapes on a piece of paper; don’t let your child see your drawing. (Example below) Give your child a piece of paper and give her directions so she can try to replicate your picture on her paper. After you are done, compare the pictures.

Now switch! Let her draw a picture and give you the directions to try and recreate the picture on her paper. How to draw funny cartoons

Wrapping it up

No doubt you have experienced a bout of selective listening with your child. It tends to kick in when a child is asked to start his homework, clean her room, or complete some other unnecessary task that distracts from fun and entertainment. (Editor’s note: Dad’s can suffer from this affliction too.)

The listening activities listed above are suggestions and starting points. With a little creativity these activities can be used many times with just slight tweaks. And the challenge level can be adjusted easily up or down too. With consistent practice in a fun atmosphere, a child can improve his listening skills. It will benefit him in school, life and career.

David Karch (Learning Specialist with Engage the Brain)

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5.2 Effective Reading Strategies

Questions to Consider:

• What methods can you incorporate into your routine to allow adequate time for reading?
• What are the benefits and approaches to active reading?
• Do your courses or major have specific reading requirements?

Allowing Adequate Time for Reading

You should determine the reading requirements and expectations for every class very early in the semester. You also need to understand why you are reading the particular text you are assigned. Do you need to read closely for minute details that determine cause and effect? Or is your instructor asking you to skim several sources so you become more familiar with the topic? Knowing this reasoning will help you decide your timing, what notes to take, and how best to undertake the reading assignment.

Depending on the makeup of your schedule, you may end up reading both primary sources—such as legal documents, historic letters, or diaries—as well as textbooks, articles, and secondary sources, such as summaries or argumentative essays that use primary sources to stake a claim. You may also need to read current journalistic texts to stay current in local or global affairs. A realistic approach to scheduling your time to allow you to read and review all the reading you have for the semester will help you accomplish what can sometimes seem like an overwhelming task.

When you allow adequate time in your hectic schedule for reading, you are investing in your own success. Reading isn’t a magic pill, but it may seem like it when you consider all the benefits people reap from this ordinary practice. Famous successful people throughout history have been voracious readers. In fact, former U.S. president Harry Truman once said, “Not all readers are leaders, but all leaders are readers.” Writer of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, inventor, and also former U.S. president Thomas Jefferson claimed “I cannot live without books” at a time when keeping and reading books was an expensive pastime. Knowing what it meant to be kept from the joys of reading, 19th-century abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” And finally, George R. R. Martin, the prolific author of the wildly successful Game of Thrones empire, declared, “A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies . . . The man who never reads lives only one.”

You can make time for reading in a number of ways that include determining your usual reading pace and speed, scheduling active reading sessions, and practicing recursive reading strategies.

Determining Reading Speed and Pacing

To determine your reading speed, select a section of text—passages in a textbook or pages in a novel. Time yourself reading that material for exactly 5 minutes, and note how much reading you accomplished in those 5 minutes. Multiply the amount of reading you accomplished in 5 minutes by 12 to determine your average reading pace (5 times 12 equals the 60 minutes of an hour). Of course, your reading pace will be different and take longer if you are taking notes while you read, but this calculation of reading pace gives you a good way to estimate your reading speed that you can adapt to other forms of reading.

So, for instance, if Marta was able to read 4 pages of a dense novel for her English class in 5 minutes, she should be able to read about 48 pages in one hour. Knowing this, Marta can accurately determine how much time she needs to devote to finishing the novel within a set amount of time, instead of just guessing. If the novel Marta is reading is 497 pages, then Marta would take the total page count (497) and divide that by her hourly reading rate (48 pages/hour) to determine that she needs about 10 to 11 hours overall. To finish the novel spread out over two weeks, Marta needs to read a little under an hour a day to accomplish this goal.

Calculating your reading rate in this manner does not take into account days where you’re too distracted and you have to reread passages or days when you just aren’t in the mood to read. And your reading rate will likely vary depending on how dense the content you’re reading is (e.g., a complex textbook vs. a comic book). Your pace may slow down somewhat if you are not very interested in what the text is about. What this method will help you do is be realistic about your reading time as opposed to waging a guess based on nothing and then becoming worried when you have far more reading to finish than the time available.

Chapter 3 , offers more detail on how best to determine your speed from one type of reading to the next so you are better able to schedule your reading.

Scheduling Set Times for Active Reading

Active reading takes longer than reading through passages without stopping. You may not need to read your latest sci-fi series actively while you’re lounging on the beach, but many other reading situations demand more attention from you. Active reading is particularly important for college courses. You are a scholar actively engaging with the text by posing questions, seeking answers, and clarifying any confusing elements. Plan to spend at least twice as long to read actively than to read passages without taking notes or otherwise marking select elements of the text.

To determine the time you need for active reading, use the same calculations you use to determine your traditional reading speed and double it. Remember that you need to determine your reading pace for all the classes you have in a particular semester and multiply your speed by the number of classes you have that require different types of reading.

Practicing Recursive Reading Strategies

One fact about reading for college courses that may become frustrating is that, in a way, it never ends. For all the reading you do, you end up doing even more rereading. It may be the same content, but you may be reading the passage more than once to detect the emphasis the writer places on one aspect of the topic or how frequently the writer dismisses a significant counterargument. This rereading is called recursive reading.

For most of what you read at the college level, you are trying to make sense of the text for a specific purpose—not just because the topic interests or entertains you. You need your full attention to decipher everything that’s going on in complex reading material—and you even need to be considering what the writer of the piece may not be including and why. This is why reading for comprehension is recursive.

Specifically, this boils down to seeing reading not as a formula but as a process that is far more circular than linear. You may read a selection from beginning to end, which is an excellent starting point, but for comprehension, you’ll need to go back and reread passages to determine meaning and make connections between the reading and the bigger learning environment that led you to the selection—that may be a single course or a program in your college, or it may be the larger discipline, such as all biologists or the community of scholars studying beach erosion.

People often say writing is rewriting. For college courses, reading is rereading.

Strong readers engage in numerous steps, sometimes combining more than one step simultaneously, but knowing the steps nonetheless. They include, not always in this order:

• bringing any prior knowledge about the topic to the reading session,
• asking yourself pertinent questions, both orally and in writing, about the content you are reading,
• inferring and/or implying information from what you read,
• learning unfamiliar discipline-specific terms,
• evaluating what you are reading, and eventually,
• applying what you’re reading to other learning and life situations you encounter.

Let’s break these steps into manageable chunks, because you are actually doing quite a lot when you read.

Accessing Prior Knowledge

When you read, you naturally think of anything else you may know about the topic, but when you read deliberately and actively, you make yourself more aware of accessing this prior knowledge. Have you ever watched a documentary about this topic? Did you study some aspect of it in another class? Do you have a hobby that is somehow connected to this material? All of this thinking will help you make sense of what you are reading.

Application

Imagining that you were given a chapter to read in your American history class about the Gettysburg Address, write down what you already know about this historic document. How might thinking through this prior knowledge help you better understand the text?

Asking Questions

Humans are naturally curious beings. As you read actively, you should be asking questions about the topic you are reading. Don’t just say the questions in your mind; write them down. You may ask: Why is this topic important? What is the relevance of this topic currently? Was this topic important a long time ago but irrelevant now? Why did my professor assign this reading?

You need a place where you can actually write down these questions; a separate page in your notes is a good place to begin. If you are taking notes on your computer, start a new document and write down the questions. Leave some room to answer the questions when you begin and again after you read.

Inferring and Implying

When you read, you can take the information on the page and infer , or conclude responses to related challenges from evidence or from your own reasoning. A student will likely be able to infer what material the professor will include on an exam by taking good notes throughout the classes leading up to the test.

Writers may imply information without directly stating a fact for a variety of reasons. Sometimes a writer may not want to come out explicitly and state a bias, but may imply or hint at his or her preference for one political party or another. You have to read carefully to find implications because they are indirect, but watching for them will help you comprehend the whole meaning of a passage.

Learning Vocabulary

Vocabulary specific to certain disciplines helps practitioners in that field engage and communicate with each other. Few people beyond undertakers and archeologists likely use the term sarcophagus in everyday communications, but for those disciplines, it is a meaningful distinction. Looking at the example, you can use context clues to figure out the meaning of the term sarcophagus because it is something undertakers and/or archeologists would recognize. At the very least, you can guess that it has something to do with death. As a potential professional in the field you’re studying, you need to know the lingo. You may already have a system in place to learn discipline-specific vocabulary, so use what you know works for you. Two strong strategies are to look up words in a dictionary (online or hard copy) to ensure you have the exact meaning for your discipline and to keep a dedicated list of words you see often in your reading. You can list the words with a short definition so you have a quick reference guide to help you learn the vocabulary.

Intelligent people always question and evaluate. This doesn’t mean they don’t trust others; they just need verification of facts to understand a topic well. It doesn’t make sense to learn incomplete or incorrect information about a subject just because you didn’t take the time to evaluate all the sources at your disposal. When early explorers were afraid to sail the world for fear of falling off the edge, they weren’t stupid; they just didn’t have all the necessary data to evaluate the situation.

When you evaluate a text, you are seeking to understand the presented topic. Depending on how long the text is, you will perform a number of steps and repeat many of these steps to evaluate all the elements the author presents. When you evaluate a text, you need to do the following:

• Scan the title and all headings.
• Read through the entire passage fully.
• Question what main point the author is making.
• Decide who the audience is.
• Identify what evidence/support the author uses.
• Consider if the author presents a balanced perspective on the main point.
• Recognize if the author introduced any biases in the text.

When you go through a text looking for each of these elements, you need to go beyond just answering the surface question; for instance, the audience may be a specific field of scientists, but could anyone else understand the text with some explanation? Why would that be important?

Analysis Question

Think of an article you need to read for a class. Take the steps above on how to evaluate a text, and apply the steps to the article. When you accomplish the task in each step, ask yourself and take notes to answer the question: Why is this important? For example, when you read the title, does that give you any additional information that will help you comprehend the text? If the text were written for a different audience, what might the author need to change to accommodate that group? How does an author’s bias distort an argument? This deep evaluation allows you to fully understand the main ideas and place the text in context with other material on the same subject, with current events, and within the discipline.

When you learn something new, it always connects to other knowledge you already have. One challenge we have is applying new information. It may be interesting to know the distance to the moon, but how do we apply it to something we need to do? If your biology instructor asked you to list several challenges of colonizing Mars and you do not know much about that planet’s exploration, you may be able to use your knowledge of how far Earth is from the moon to apply it to the new task. You may have to read several other texts in addition to reading graphs and charts to find this information.

That was the challenge the early space explorers faced along with myriad unknowns before space travel was a more regular occurrence. They had to take what they already knew and could study and read about and apply it to an unknown situation. These explorers wrote down their challenges, failures, and successes, and now scientists read those texts as a part of the ever-growing body of text about space travel. Application is a sophisticated level of thinking that helps turn theory into practice and challenges into successes.

Preparing to Read for Specific Disciplines in College

Different disciplines in college may have specific expectations, but you can depend on all subjects asking you to read to some degree. In this college reading requirement, you can succeed by learning to read actively, researching the topic and author, and recognizing how your own preconceived notions affect your reading. Reading for college isn’t the same as reading for pleasure or even just reading to learn something on your own because you are casually interested.

In college courses, your instructor may ask you to read articles, chapters, books, or primary sources (those original documents about which we write and study, such as letters between historic figures or the Declaration of Independence). Your instructor may want you to have a general background on a topic before you dive into that subject in class, so that you know the history of a topic, can start thinking about it, and can engage in a class discussion with more than a passing knowledge of the issue.

If you are about to participate in an in-depth six-week consideration of the U.S. Constitution but have never read it or anything written about it, you will have a hard time looking at anything in detail or understanding how and why it is significant. As you can imagine, a great deal has been written about the Constitution by scholars and citizens since the late 1700s when it was first put to paper (that’s how they did it then). While the actual document isn’t that long (about 12–15 pages depending on how it is presented), learning the details on how it came about, who was involved, and why it was and still is a significant document would take a considerable amount of time to read and digest. So, how do you do it all? Especially when you may have an instructor who drops hints that you may also love to read a historic novel covering the same time period . . . in your spare time , not required, of course! It can be daunting, especially if you are taking more than one course that has time-consuming reading lists. With a few strategic techniques, you can manage it all, but know that you must have a plan and schedule your required reading so you are also able to pick up that recommended historic novel—it may give you an entirely new perspective on the issue.

Strategies for Reading in College Disciplines

No universal law exists for how much reading instructors and institutions expect college students to undertake for various disciplines. Suffice it to say, it’s a LOT.

For most students, it is the volume of reading that catches them most off guard when they begin their college careers. A full course load might require 10–15 hours of reading per week, some of that covering content that will be more difficult than the reading for other courses.

You cannot possibly read word-for-word every single document you need to read for all your classes. That doesn’t mean you give up or decide to only read for your favorite classes or concoct a scheme to read 17 percent for each class and see how that works for you. You need to learn to skim, annotate, and take notes. All of these techniques will help you comprehend more of what you read, which is why we read in the first place. We’ll talk more later about annotating and note-taking, but for now consider what you know about skimming as opposed to active reading.

Skimming is not just glancing over the words on a page (or screen) to see if any of it sticks. Effective skimming allows you to take in the major points of a passage without the need for a time-consuming reading session that involves your active use of notations and annotations. Often you will need to engage in that painstaking level of active reading, but skimming is the first step—not an alternative to deep reading. The fact remains that neither do you need to read everything nor could you possibly accomplish that given your limited time. So learn this valuable skill of skimming as an accompaniment to your overall study tool kit, and with practice and experience, you will fully understand how valuable it is.

When you skim, look for guides to your understanding: headings, definitions, pull quotes, tables, and context clues. Textbooks are often helpful for skimming—they may already have made some of these skimming guides in bold or a different color, and chapters often follow a predictable outline. Some even provide an overview and summary for sections or chapters. Use whatever you can get, but don’t stop there. In textbooks that have some reading guides, or especially in text that does not, look for introductory words such as First or The purpose of this article  . . . or summary words such as In conclusion  . . . or Finally . These guides will help you read only those sentences or paragraphs that will give you the overall meaning or gist of a passage or book.

Now move to the meat of the passage. You want to take in the reading as a whole. For a book, look at the titles of each chapter if available. Read each chapter’s introductory paragraph and determine why the writer chose this particular order. Depending on what you’re reading, the chapters may be only informational, but often you’re looking for a specific argument. What position is the writer claiming? What support, counterarguments, and conclusions is the writer presenting?

Don’t think of skimming as a way to buzz through a boring reading assignment. It is a skill you should master so you can engage, at various levels, with all the reading you need to accomplish in college. End your skimming session with a few notes—terms to look up, questions you still have, and an overall summary. And recognize that you likely will return to that book or article for a more thorough reading if the material is useful.

Active Reading Strategies

Active reading differs significantly from skimming or reading for pleasure. You can think of active reading as a sort of conversation between you and the text (maybe between you and the author, but you don’t want to get the author’s personality too involved in this metaphor because that may skew your engagement with the text).

When you sit down to determine what your different classes expect you to read and you create a reading schedule to ensure you complete all the reading, think about when you should read the material strategically, not just how to get it all done . You should read textbook chapters and other reading assignments before you go into a lecture about that information. Don’t wait to see how the lecture goes before you read the material, or you may not understand the information in the lecture. Reading before class helps you put ideas together between your reading and the information you hear and discuss in class.

Different disciplines naturally have different types of texts, and you need to take this into account when you schedule your time for reading class material. For example, you may look at a poem for your world literature class and assume that it will not take you long to read because it is relatively short compared to the dense textbook you have for your economics class. But reading and understanding a poem can take a considerable amount of time when you realize you may need to stop numerous times to review the separate word meanings and how the words form images and connections throughout the poem.

The SQ3R Reading Strategy

You may have heard of the SQ3R method for active reading in your early education. This valuable technique is perfect for college reading. The title stands for S urvey, Q uestion, R ead, R ecite, R eview, and you can use the steps on virtually any assigned passage. Designed by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his 1961 book Effective Study, the active reading strategy gives readers a systematic way to work through any reading material.

Survey is similar to skimming. You look for clues to meaning by reading the titles, headings, introductions, summary, captions for graphics, and keywords. You can survey almost anything connected to the reading selection, including the copyright information, the date of the journal article, or the names and qualifications of the author(s). In this step, you decide what the general meaning is for the reading selection.

Question is your creation of questions to seek the main ideas, support, examples, and conclusions of the reading selection. Ask yourself these questions separately. Try to create valid questions about what you are about to read that have come into your mind as you engaged in the Survey step. Try turning the headings of the sections in the chapter into questions. Next, how does what you’re reading relate to you, your school, your community, and the world?

Read is when you actually read the passage. Try to find the answers to questions you developed in the previous step. Decide how much you are reading in chunks, either by paragraph for more complex readings or by section or even by an entire chapter. When you finish reading the selection, stop to make notes. Answer the questions by writing a note in the margin or other white space of the text.

You may also carefully underline or highlight text in addition to your notes. Use caution here that you don’t try to rush this step by haphazardly circling terms or the other extreme of underlining huge chunks of text. Don’t over-mark. You aren’t likely to remember what these cryptic marks mean later when you come back to use this active reading session to study. The text is the source of information—your marks and notes are just a way to organize and make sense of that information.

Recite means to speak out loud. By reciting, you are engaging other senses to remember the material—you read it (visual) and you said it (auditory). Stop reading momentarily in the step to answer your questions or clarify confusing sentences or paragraphs. You can recite a summary of what the text means to you. If you are not in a place where you can verbalize, such as a library or classroom, you can accomplish this step adequately by  saying  it in your head; however, to get the biggest bang for your buck, try to find a place where you can speak aloud. You may even want to try explaining the content to a friend.

Review is a recap. Go back over what you read and add more notes, ensuring you have captured the main points of the passage, identified the supporting evidence and examples, and understood the overall meaning. You may need to repeat some or all of the SQR3 steps during your review depending on the length and complexity of the material. Before you end your active reading session, write a short (no more than one page is optimal) summary of the text you read.

Reading Primary and Secondary Sources

Primary sources are original documents we study and from which we glean information; primary sources include letters, first editions of books, legal documents, and a variety of other texts. When scholars look at these documents to understand a period in history or a scientific challenge and then write about their findings, the scholar’s article is considered a secondary source. Readers have to keep several factors in mind when reading both primary and secondary sources.

Primary sources may contain dated material we now know is inaccurate. It may contain personal beliefs and biases the original writer didn’t intent to be openly published, and it may even present fanciful or creative ideas that do not support current knowledge. Readers can still gain great insight from primary sources, but readers need to understand the context from which the writer of the primary source wrote the text.

Likewise, secondary sources are inevitably another person’s perspective on the primary source, so a reader of secondary sources must also be aware of potential biases or preferences the secondary source writer inserts in the writing that may persuade an incautious reader to interpret the primary source in a particular manner.

For example, if you were to read a secondary source that is examining the U.S. Declaration of Independence (the primary source), you would have a much clearer idea of how the secondary source scholar presented the information from the primary source if you also read the Declaration for yourself instead of trusting the other writer’s interpretation. Most scholars are honest in writing secondary sources, but you as a reader of the source are trusting the writer to present a balanced perspective of the primary source. When possible, you should attempt to read a primary source in conjunction with the secondary source. The Internet helps immensely with this practice.

What Students Say

• How engaging the material is or how much I enjoy reading it.
• Whether or not the course is part of my major.
• Whether or not the instructor assesses knowledge from the reading (through quizzes, for example), or requires assignments based on the reading.
• Whether or not knowledge or information from the reading is required to participate in lecture.
• I read all of the assigned material.
• I read most of the assigned material.
• I skim the text and read the captions, examples, or summaries.
• I use a systematic method such as the Cornell method or something similar.
• I highlight or underline all the important information.
• I create outlines and/or note-cards.
• I use an app or program.
• I write notes in my text (print or digital).
• I don’t have a style. I just write down what seems important.
• I don't take many notes.

You can also take the anonymous What Students Say surveys to add your voice to this textbook. Your responses will be included in updates.

Students offered their views on these questions, and the results are displayed in the graphs below.

What is the most influential factor in how thoroughly you read the material for a given course?

What best describes your reading approach for required texts/materials for your classes?

What best describes your note-taking style?

Researching Topic and Author

During your preview stage, sometimes called pre-reading, you can easily pick up on information from various sources that may help you understand the material you’re reading more fully or place it in context with other important works in the discipline. If your selection is a book, flip it over or turn to the back pages and look for an author’s biography or note from the author. See if the book itself contains any other information about the author or the subject matter.

The main things you need to recall from your reading in college are the topics covered and how the information fits into the discipline. You can find these parts throughout the textbook chapter in the form of headings in larger and bold font, summary lists, and important quotations pulled out of the narrative. Use these features as you read to help you determine what the most important ideas are.

Remember, many books use quotations about the book or author as testimonials in a marketing approach to sell more books, so these may not be the most reliable sources of unbiased opinions, but it’s a start. Sometimes you can find a list of other books the author has written near the front of a book. Do you recognize any of the other titles? Can you do an Internet search for the name of the book or author? Go beyond the search results that want you to buy the book and see if you can glean any other relevant information about the author or the reading selection. Beyond a standard Internet search, try the library article database. These are more relevant to academic disciplines and contain resources you typically will not find in a standard search engine. If you are unfamiliar with how to use the library database, ask a reference librarian on campus. They are often underused resources that can point you in the right direction.

Understanding Your Own Preset Ideas on a Topic

Laura really enjoys learning about environmental issues. She has read many books and watched numerous televised documentaries on this topic and actively seeks out additional information on the environment. While Laura’s interest can help her understand a new reading encounter about the environment, Laura also has to be aware that with this interest, she also brings forward her preset ideas and biases about the topic. Sometimes these prejudices against other ideas relate to religion or nationality or even just tradition. Without evidence, thinking the way we always have is not a good enough reason; evidence can change, and at the very least it needs honest review and assessment to determine its validity. Ironically, we may not want to learn new ideas because that may mean we would have to give up old ideas we have already mastered, which can be a daunting prospect.

With every reading situation about the environment, Laura needs to remain open-minded about what she is about to read and pay careful attention if she begins to ignore certain parts of the text because of her preconceived notions. Learning new information can be very difficult if you balk at ideas that are different from what you’ve always thought. You may have to force yourself to listen to a different viewpoint multiple times to make sure you are not closing your mind to a viable solution your mindset does not currently allow.

Can you think of times you have struggled reading college content for a course? Which of these strategies might have helped you understand the content? Why do you think those strategies would work?

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Access for free at https://openstax.org/books/college-success/pages/1-introduction

• Authors: Amy Baldwin
• Publisher/website: OpenStax
• Book title: College Success
• Publication date: Mar 27, 2020
• Location: Houston, Texas
• Book URL: https://openstax.org/books/college-success/pages/1-introduction
• Section URL: https://openstax.org/books/college-success/pages/5-2-effective-reading-strategies

© Sep 20, 2023 OpenStax. Textbook content produced by OpenStax is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License . The OpenStax name, OpenStax logo, OpenStax book covers, OpenStax CNX name, and OpenStax CNX logo are not subject to the Creative Commons license and may not be reproduced without the prior and express written consent of Rice University.

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How to Get Your Students to Follow Directions

Getting students to quickly follow directions is a work of art for sure. My first couple of years teaching, I am not sure how much of my instruction time I wasted repeating directions, clarifying unclear directions, redirecting students who were not following directions, you get the idea!

The next couple of years, I experimented with strategies and techniques to get my students following directions quickly, quietly, and correctly. I wanted them to be held accountable for following directions, while still promoting a positive learning environment. This post will share all those tips with examples from my own classroom.

Following Verbal Directions

Choral repeat directions.

When you give quick one to five words directions, have your students choral repeat the directions after you give them and before you expect them to complete the directions. I do this regularly when telling the students which page to turn to of a common novel or textbook. For example: I will say “Turn to page 64 in your science textbook. What page?” and the students will immediately respond with “64” as they are turning to that page. This ensures the students know exactly what page to turn to and any students who have gotten distracted are immediately brought back when they hear the other students choral repeat or respond.

Repeat Directions with Partner

For lengthier directions or multi-step directions, I often have my students quickly repeat the directions with a partner. The key is to do this quickly because you don’t want this to take up your instructional time; you want this to actually enhance it by making sure the students are all on the same page. I listen in while they are repeating the directions and if I feel there is confusion with some of the students, I will address those before the students continue with the task.

Use Countdowns or Timers

Speaking of making sure that the strategies you use enhance your instruction time instead of taking away from it, I regularly use a countdown (verbal or online). I also give my students a specific time limit to complete routine everyday tasks. For example, the students will have maybe 10 seconds to put up math materials and transition to science by taking out their science materials. For tasks that take longer, I will set a timer on the smartboard and then hold the students to that time.

Physical Response when Finished

As much as possible, I try to  use physical responses or silly responses when my students are finished with a quick verbal direction. An example of this is actually one of my favorite go-to strategies that I think has the biggest impact on my students following directions quickly (and quietly).  When I give my students a direction (take out your reading book, write your name on your paper, etc), they know to indicate they are done by putting their thumbs up. This keeps the sense of urgency as they know they need to get it done and get their thumbs up to let me know they are ready. This also communicates the expectation that they will “show me they are ready and not tell me by talking.”

Another strategy I use for multi-step directions is having the students hold up the number of fingers that represent the number of things I need them to do. For example, “When you return to your seat, take out the book you are reading (1 thing – 1 finger), find the page you are currently on (2 fingers), and write a summary of what you have read so far (3 fingers). The act of going through the directions and holding up the fingers really helps the students remember all of the tasks you have asked them to do.

Use Similar Procedures and Routines as Much as Possible.

Using procedures and routines to keep as much as possible consistent will take away the need to even give directions for the students to follow in many cases. For example, in my classroom, students know that when math is finished, they are to take out their social studies interactive notebook, reading text, and show me they are ready for social studies with a thumb up. I don’t even have to give this direction by the second month of school. They know to do it and do it quickly.

Another example is when we come back from lunch, the students know to take out their language notebooks, find their language review, and begin that day’s review. If it is the first day of the week, they know to turn to the next clean page in their language notebook and wait for instructions. I always spend the first month or two of school teaching and reviewing these procedures and that work pays off.

Use Positive Reinforcement or (Friendly) Competition.

Use positive reinforcement or competition with teams or groups when you are giving directions that you want followed quickly. Groups that follow directions quickly can gain points or just receive a compliment. I always try to go positive when I am reminding my students to follow directions. I have found that, for the most part, this naturally makes the other students want to follow directions.

Include Written Directions to Accompany Verbal Directions.

Multi-step directions or directions that span over the course of more than 30 minutes are always written on the board in short phrases and numbered in the order they need to be complted. When the students are not following directions or if they ask what to do next, I can easily remind them to look at the board.

Now, I know what you are thinking. These tips are great for verbal directions, but my students can’t seem to read and follow written directions on their assignments. I have some tips in that area, too!

Following Written Directions

Close read directions.

One strategy that really made a difference was explicitly teaching my students how to “close read” every direction on an assignment. For the first couple of months of school, we did this regularly as a class until it became habit. We would read the directions, circle or underline the important information in the directions, and then retell the directions in our words.

Silent Read, then Discuss with Partners

Another tip is to have the students silently read the directions first (this helps hold each student accountable) and then have them quickly restate the directions to a partner before beginning. Again, this strategy is something I implement consistently at the beginning of the year and then pull away once I see that the students have internalized the habit of reading the directions first. If I see that my students are slipping on reading and following written directions, I will bring this strategy back as a class or the close read strategy shared above.

Teach the Students to Number the Tasks in a Set of Directions

Another helpful strategy for written directions is having the students number the tasks in the directions. They do this by simply placing a number above that phrase or sentence in the directions. For example, the following written direction has four different tasks and the students would simply place a number above each one:

Read each sentence and underline the example of figurative language. Then determine which type of figurative language is being used and explain the meaning of that phrase.

With some classes, I have even taken this strategy a step further and required them to check off the number after they complete each task. This not only ensures they understand the directions but also holds them accountable for following those directions.

Implement a Procedure for When Students are “Stuck” and Need Help.

E ven with doing all of these strategies, you will have times when students are not sure they are following directions correctly. Have a clear procedure in place for the students to ask for help. I like to use the Ask 3 Before Me strategy. Using this strategy, the students have to ask three students for help on an assignment before they can ask the teacher. This allows them to get the help they need, while also holding them accountable for asking for it from peers.

Another option for lengthier independent tasks is to have a “parking space” in your room where the students write a question on a sticky note and place it on an area of the markerboard or a chart paper. This is a common strategy used in professional development, but it can also work in classrooms. You can have a student in charge of checking the parking space and helping to answer the questions.

Teach Students How to Ask for Clarification

Even though I set the expectation that my students need to listen to understand the directions, there are times when students are genuinely confused by what you want them to do. I still want my students to feel comfortable asking for help or clarification. We spend time at the beginning discussing how they can ask for help or clarification instead of saying “I don’t know what to do” or “What am I supposed to do?” We make an anchor chart together and I leave it hanging all year and refer to it as needed.

Here are some examples statements we may put on our chart:

• I understand _____ but I am confused about _______________.
• When you said __________________, did you mean ___________________?
• Can you show me an example so I can make sure I understand correctly?

By doing this, you are holding your students accountable for listening to the directions, but you are also teaching them that it is okay to ask for clarification. This promotes an environment where the students take accountability and feel safe asking questions.

Do you use any of these tips or strategies? What do you personally do to ensure your students follow directions? Let me know in the comments!

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Reader interactions.

October 16, 2016 at 10:29 am

What wonderful tips!! Thanks so much for sharing 🙂

October 17, 2016 at 1:54 pm

You’re welcome!

October 16, 2016 at 8:43 pm

I use music as a cue at the beginning of my Language Arts class. As students enter I have a list of tasks they need to complete or materials they need to get. Then I play a 3 minute song (I like to use Mission Impossible). The students know I start teaching as soon as the music finishes.

I love that idea, Danielle! Kids always love music and they would love that! Thanks for sharing!

October 26, 2016 at 3:58 pm

That’s a great idea! I also like that they know as soon as the music stops, it’s time for you to start teaching. I’m sure that helps your class time run more smoothly!

October 16, 2016 at 10:58 pm

Excellent tips! I’m going to try a lot of these. Thanks!

October 17, 2016 at 8:58 pm

You’re welcome! I would love to know how they go after you try them out.

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I’m Jennifer Findley: a teacher, mother, and avid reader. I believe that with the right resources, mindset, and strategies, all students can achieve at high levels and learn to love learning. My goal is to provide resources and strategies to inspire you and help make this belief a reality for your students.

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3 Quick & Effective Following Directions Activities that Build Listening Comprehension

One essential part of success in the classroom is following directions. Of course, this takes practice for young learners, but listening activities can help! Learn how students can build listening comprehension in fun and meaningful ways.

• Simple Following Directions Activities That Kids Love

Kids learn to follow one-step directions before they work on multi-step directions. Some master this skill before entering the classroom, but others need some help. This is where listening activities come in handy!

Learn how Listening Mats can help kids with listening comprehension and reading skills in and out of the classroom.

Table of Contents

Scenario #1, scenario #2, what are listening mats, what do listening mats include, how & when to use listen & draw activities, free listening mat samples to try, listening mats resources, more listening & following directions activities, common challenges.

Imagine this: You give your students a few steps to complete a game with a partner. Some pairs listen the first time and can play the game without your intervention. Others, however, need guidance because they missed the first step.

We’ve all experienced this.

Students need to work on listening comprehension to begin following multi-step directions as they age. Listening Mats are a great way to practice this skill in a fun way.

Imagine this: You give your students a worksheet and ask them not to begin until you read the directions. Before you have the sheets passed out, Jonathan has already started coloring his pictures and writing words on the dotted lines.

Those weren’t even part of the instructions.

Jonathan needs to work on his listening skills. Following directions activities, like Listening Mats , help students learn to stop and think about what they must do before they begin.

Listening activities help students learn to pause and think about what they are doing before they begin. Listening Mats provide students with a picture and a set of instructions to follow. Students can read the instructions independently, or teachers can call out the directions slowly so students can work at their own pace.

Listening Mats offer bulleted lists of tasks to complete on a picture, a list of things to draw in designated boxes, or a short story for students to illustrate using all the elements. The point of each activity is to get students to slow down and think!

Listening Mats include many activities to help students master their listening comprehension skills. There are ten months’ worth of listening activities, and they are differentiated for kindergarten through 2nd grade.

Each month has 20 different following-directions activities that build on listening and reading comprehension.

The activities include:

• Listen and color – Students read and complete a list of tasks using the image on the page.
• Follow directions and draw – Students read and follow the instructions to illustrate the boxes.
• Visualize and draw – Students read and illustrate a short story using all the elements mentioned.

Listening activities are an excellent addition to any lesson, specifically your reading lessons. They teach kids to slow down, process, and translate to other subject areas.

Use the mats to start the day as a fun morning work warm-up activity, or have them on hand to wind down at the end of the day. There’s no wrong time to use them. The great thing about the Listening Mats is their versatility.

Keep them in your back pocket for days when you have a sub, or use them weekly to get extra practice. Try using fun crayons or markers to complete the listening mats as well! They will be following directions accurately in no time.

What Teachers are Saying

My kiddos have finally started listening to my instructions during other activities after introducing these! I feel like they’re finally starting to really pay attention to what I am saying 🙂 – Holly S. GREAT! NO PREP, just PRINT! These are absolutely great for teaching my students. It teaches them to listen to instructions and how important it is to listen to the DETAILS of that instruction. – Homeschool M. My students would do these all day if I let them. I paired these with tons of distractions, as we were practicing self-talk to avoid being distractions. I ran around the room with maracas, my neighbor ran in and banged on some desks, and I talked super quietly in order to get them to focus in on me. – Kelsey M. I used this resource throughout the school year. First, to enhance listening skills Gradually, I used the resource to promote reading. My students found these challenging and fun. – Janet R. My students love these drawings! So happy to have this low prep, engaging activity to use during my centers! – LaYoyia D.

Try 6 FREE Listening Mats in your classroom with this printable sample! See how simple they are to prep and how much kids love using them to practice following directions. Then, apply them to whole-group lessons or smaller groups.

Click the image below to grab a copy.

Try the Listening Mats Bundle by Proud to be Primary. It includes 20 different listening mats for each month of the school year.

You can also see each month individually and the seasonal/themed activities for each month.

Each set of Listening Mats has three variations to try that all work on following directions. Through repeated practice, your students will master listening comprehension skills.

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Helping Students Follow Directions

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

• Supporting Materials

Thought starters

• How do simple actions like highlighting and numbering help students focus?
• Why does Mr. Colquitt repeat the directions?
• How does Mr. Colquitt check for understanding?

10 Comments

AUDREY Batiste Jul 1, 2020 1:47pm

This was a good video and by highlight and then numbering this strategy enabled the students to get important key steps of the task. Also enabled students to ask questions if time permitted. After breaking it down into steps they now know exactly what to do. 

Michael Stires Jun 9, 2020 1:23pm

Following directions is an especially important strategy for students to learn. I enjoy seeing this teacher reading the directions and point out the important factors for the students to refer to and walks them through every step while keeping students engaged with reading it back to him. Being able to hear the directions multiple times not only from the teacher but also from the students allows for the processing time to really be able to apply those directions into the task presented. Once being in the same shoes as the students are in this video, directions were difficult to understand when they weren’t explained in detail, it was hard connecting all the dots to be able to effective do what is being asked of. This teacher does a great job breaking down directions for students to understand.

Cade Patterson Aug 27, 2019 7:57pm

This strategy is a great way to teach the students how to highlight key concepts of the questions and highlighting important instructions. This is a great strategy they can use not only in Mr. Colquitt class but in every class they take. I am excited to use this strategy in my own classroom someday!

MARTHE BORN Dec 29, 2018 9:36pm

I work with high school students filling out scholarship applications.  Most applications are now done online and students are able to complete most of it without help, but oftentimes they try to submit it without completing the essay portion.  Using the highlight and numbering strategy for the essay directions would be very helpful.  I recommend to students that they copy and paste the essay objectives to the top of their word document and check off the steps as they complete them.  I am going to try the highlight and numbering this semester.

Stephanie Sanantonio Dec 10, 2018 2:22pm

I think this is a great strategy for students to learn how to follow directions. This strategy is useful for students with an IEP who specifically need directions repeated, but also keeps all of the students in the classroom on track and focused as well. I like how the teacher first reads the directions, then tells the students what to highlight and how to number each step, has the students read the directions back to him, and then asks if anyone has questions about the directions. This allows the students to hear the directions from the teacher, read it themselves, hear it from a peer, and then process the directions. The repetition helps the students stay on task, get back on task if they were off-task. Highlighting the steps in the directions help to check off each step that has been completed and each step that still needs to be done. This process helps students to create organization skills as well as executive functioning skills.

• Transcript: Helping Students Follow Directions

Transcripts

Speaker 1: Everyone should be in this activity packet. We're going to look under the section that's titled Connecting Our Ideas. Please have your highlighters ready, I'm about to provide explicit directions for this activity. You will view a visual in silence for 30 seconds, analyze the visual in pairs using the analysis prompts, and then share out as a class. Now I will repeat the directions and I will let you know what to highlight and what to number. The directions say you will view a visual in silence for 30 seconds. Please highlight that and then place a one above what you highlighted. Persephone, what am I expecting you to do with this activity? Persephone: We're going to view it for 30 seconds and then we're going to analyze the visual in pairs with the analysis prompts and then we're going to share it out as a class. Speaker 1: Thank you. What questions do we have about this activity? Yeah.

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Close Reading Strategies: A Step-by-Step Teaching Guide

Slow down, think, annotate, and reflect.

In the age of ChatGPT and other AI , using close reading strategies doesn’t come naturally to students. When students get a new assignment, their first instinct may be to race to the finish line rather than engage with text. This means students will miss a lot of nuance and meaning as they move through school.

On the other hand, a close reading of text requires students to slow down, think, annotate, and reflect. The ultimate idea? We get more information and enjoyment from reading and working with the text when we use close reading strategies.

What is close reading?

Close reading is a way to read and work with text that moves beyond comprehension into interpretation and analysis. Put another way, close reading helps readers get from literal to inferential understanding of text.

After a close reading, students should understand what the text says and understand ideas embedded in the text, like a cultural perspective or religious opinion. They’ll also have an idea of what the text means to them, and what their opinion about it is based on more than just an offhand feeling. In class, close reading may take multiple class periods to complete and should have a goal at the end—a discussion or essay or some way for students to share what they’ve learned.

Read more: What is close reading anyway?

Here is our step-by-step  guide with strategies for teaching close reading:

1. choose the perfect passage.

Image: Jennifer Findley

As you’re planning texts for a lesson or unit, start with what you want students to get out of what they’re reading. So, if you’re studying text structure, choose books or articles with interesting text structures. If you’re studying character development, find a passage that shows how a character changes or evolves. The point: There has to be something to find in text so that students aren’t grasping at straws.

Read more: How To Choose the Perfect Passage for Close Reading

Tip: Texts should be at or just above students’ grade and reading level, but they don’t have to be dense with text. Here’s how to use picture books in close reading lessons .

2. Prepare students by teaching annotation

Source: The English Classroom

Close reading will require some prep work. Students have to know how to annotate effectively, pulling out and making notes on the most important parts, i.e., not highlighting everything. Spend some time at the start of the year or unit teaching students how to identify and mark the most important parts of a text (new or key words, main ideas, pivotal plot points).

3. Students read the text for literal comprehension

First, have students read the entire text. The text should take less than one class period to read through once, so a chapter or article or even a few paragraphs could be enough. The first time students read, they’re reading for a general understanding and the main idea. They can think through:

• What is this story about?
• What information does this article contain?
• What is literally happening?
• What is the message or purpose?

4. Check in

After the first reading, check in with students to make sure they have a clear, literal understanding of the text. If they don’t, clear up misconceptions. If they do, move on to the second reading.

5. Chunk text in preparation for read 2

Image: iTeach. iCoach. iBlog.

Before the second reading, have students separate the text into paragraphs or chunks. Number each chunk. This way, when students review the text, they can easily refer back to paragraph 1 or chunk 2 and all be on the same page.

6. Work with text-dependent questions

Image: Instructional Coach

Now that students have a clear understanding of what the text is about, introduce the text-dependent questions that students will be working with in their close reading. Text-dependent questions are those that can only be answered using the text. For example, a question like “Why did Jeremiah eat a bullfrog?” rather than “Why is it not a good idea to eat a bullfrog?”

Questions that you work with should also range in their complexity. If the passage is more complex in terms of structure, content, or vocabulary, the questions may be less complex. But if a passage is easier for students to work with, the questions can be more advanced.

7. Set the end goal

Students shouldn’t be reading just to read. Explain the end goal—a Socratic seminar discussion, a partner discussion, an essay, a project. Once students know how they are going to respond to the questions, they’re better able to think through how they’re going to show what they know.

Here are creative ways to use close reading .

8. Time for reads 2 and 3

Image: Reading Ladies

Now that students have the question, the text, and the end goal, they’re ready to reread. The second time students read the text, they’re reading it to annotate for their own understanding. This is also the point where you’ll want to break students into groups—which students can work independently and which need some, or a lot of, support to complete the read?

Some texts will require a third reading for students to fully prepare, or students may need to reread chunks or paragraphs even more to get what they need. The important part is that students understand that rereading is an important part of close reading.

9. Respond to the text

This is it! The final close reading discussion. In this response, students will:

• Summarize what they read.
• Answer the text-dependent questions.
• Include evidence to support their ideas.
• Draw conclusions about the meaning of the text.

Have some way for students to plan out what they are going to say or write, and have them turn in their annotated reading so you can refer back to it if you’re confused about how they got from point A to Z.

10. Reflect

Every so often, reflect on how close reading is changing what students are taking away from what they read. Close reading should shape their reading skills and how they approach text beyond your class, but students may need support seeing the connection.

11. Level up

As students get more comfortable with close reading, you can level up their discussions by:

• Having students develop their own questions after they read a text or as you progress through a longer text.
• Using texts that are more complex in terms of content or structure.
• Challenging students to do a close reading of a picture book or graphic novel, rather than full-on text.

What strategies do you use to teach close reading in your classroom? Share in our WeAreTeachers HELPLINE group  on Facebook.

Read why close reading can be the most fun lesson in your week ..

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This Reading Mama

I Can Read Directions Printable Chart {FREE}

By thisreadingmama 1 Comment

Teaching multiple children sometimes gives me an overwhelmed feeling, kind of like a squirrel in the middle of the road not knowing which way to run. It is so helpful when learners have and can use resources other than me to help them be more independent learners.

That’s exactly why I created this I Can Read Directions Printable Chart !

*This post contains affiliate links. **The free printable can be found towards the END of the post by clicking on the teal download button.

I Can Read Directions By Myself Printable Page

You know the routine.

You explain to your learner(s) exactly what to do on the page, then you sit down with another learner {or multiple learners, if you’re in the classroom} to teach. The child that’s “supposed” to be working independently comes up a few times to announce, “I don’t know what this says,” or “I don’t know what to do.”

Or you have learners who just sit and do nothing because they can’t remember and they can’t read the directions independently, yet. {This has NEVER happened to me, mind you-ha!}

So, I’ve been doing a little thinking on it and here’s the aftermath of my latest brainstorm…in the middle of the night, mind you. I sometimes wish I had an “off” button for my brain. Seriously.

Because most worksheets and activity pages share common language in the directions { trace , match ,  write, etc.}, I thought that a visual tool would be helpful. Even young learners can begin to read directions on worksheets and activities themselves with this printable chart.

To make it most effective, underline {or circle} the words in the directions from the worksheet that are on the chart {Pictured is one of my CVC Activity Pages }. If you’re a classroom teacher, you could do this even before you make copies.

This way, learners know they can reference the chart when they get to an underlined word. Hang the chart up near centers or students’ work area so they can reference it when needed.

Included in the free printable {click teal download link below} is a full-color chart, like you see in the images, or a blackline version.

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Click on the images to read more or download the freebie.

Enjoy! ~Becky

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May 30, 2017 at 3:56 pm

Thank you so much Becky. I was always meaning to make a chart like this but never got around to it. This chart will be up in my classroom in the morning. This well help my students prepare for their end of term tests. and save me a lot of reading time. GOD BLESS YOU

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Purdue Online Writing Lab Purdue OWL® College of Liberal Arts

Reading Practices for Assignment Prompts

Welcome to the Purdue OWL

This page is brought to you by the OWL at Purdue University. When printing this page, you must include the entire legal notice.

Copyright ©1995-2018 by The Writing Lab & The OWL at Purdue and Purdue University. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, reproduced, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed without permission. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our terms and conditions of fair use.

Understanding Writing Assignments: Reading Practices

Part of understanding what the assignment asks is to practice careful reading skills to ensure that you know what each part of the prompt says. Below are some suggestions for careful reading that should help you to understand assignment prompts from any course.

Read the Prompt More Than Once

Read through the assignment prompt at least twice . The first time, mark any words or phrases that you don’t understand, then attempt to use context clues or use other resources to figure out what they mean. Once you figure out those missing pieces, read the prompt again. This time, mark the key ideas with a different color of pen. This will allow you to make sure that you understand all of the parts of the assignment, and that you focus on the important aspects of the prompt.

Notice the Important or Key Phrases

Finding the key goal for an assignment is often the first and most difficult step when reading an assignment prompt. One way to begin is to find all of the verbs in the prompt, because the verbs will give you directions.

Some commonly used verbs used or tasks in assignment prompts are:

*Genres adapted from Genre, Style and Writing (Purdue OWL).

Each of these terms can mean something slightly different, depending on the context of the course and the assignment. Again, ask your instructor if you are not sure what the assignment asks you to do.

Questions to Ask Yourself

As you read (or re-read) the prompt, it is always good to write down questions, concerns, or thoughts that you have about the assignment so that you don’t forget them later.

There are also some questions that you should ask after you have finished reading the prompt, to check for comprehension.

• What am I being asked to do?

• Who is my audience?

• What sources or ideas do I need to include?

• How can I schedule my writing time (including research time, if applicable) around my own schedule?

• What concepts do I need to hone in on to understand?

For more information on this topic, click here .

After You Read the Prompt

Sometimes, after you read an assignment prompt, you have a lot of ideas in your head—and sometimes, not very many at all. So, it can be beneficial to engage in some pre-writing activities that can help you come up with some initial ideas about your essay.

You could…

• Write a list of everything you know about the topic

• Compose as many questions as you can about the topic and begin to try and answer them

• Search online for information about the topic

More suggestions can be found by clicking here .

Understanding Assignments

What this handout is about.

The first step in any successful college writing venture is reading the assignment. While this sounds like a simple task, it can be a tough one. This handout will help you unravel your assignment and begin to craft an effective response. Much of the following advice will involve translating typical assignment terms and practices into meaningful clues to the type of writing your instructor expects. See our short video for more tips.

Basic beginnings

Regardless of the assignment, department, or instructor, adopting these two habits will serve you well :

• Read the assignment carefully as soon as you receive it. Do not put this task off—reading the assignment at the beginning will save you time, stress, and problems later. An assignment can look pretty straightforward at first, particularly if the instructor has provided lots of information. That does not mean it will not take time and effort to complete; you may even have to learn a new skill to complete the assignment.
• Ask the instructor about anything you do not understand. Do not hesitate to approach your instructor. Instructors would prefer to set you straight before you hand the paper in. That’s also when you will find their feedback most useful.

Assignment formats

Many assignments follow a basic format. Assignments often begin with an overview of the topic, include a central verb or verbs that describe the task, and offer some additional suggestions, questions, or prompts to get you started.

An Overview of Some Kind

The instructor might set the stage with some general discussion of the subject of the assignment, introduce the topic, or remind you of something pertinent that you have discussed in class. For example:

“Throughout history, gerbils have played a key role in politics,” or “In the last few weeks of class, we have focused on the evening wear of the housefly …”

The Task of the Assignment

Pay attention; this part tells you what to do when you write the paper. Look for the key verb or verbs in the sentence. Words like analyze, summarize, or compare direct you to think about your topic in a certain way. Also pay attention to words such as how, what, when, where, and why; these words guide your attention toward specific information. (See the section in this handout titled “Key Terms” for more information.)

“Analyze the effect that gerbils had on the Russian Revolution”, or “Suggest an interpretation of housefly undergarments that differs from Darwin’s.”

Additional Material to Think about

Here you will find some questions to use as springboards as you begin to think about the topic. Instructors usually include these questions as suggestions rather than requirements. Do not feel compelled to answer every question unless the instructor asks you to do so. Pay attention to the order of the questions. Sometimes they suggest the thinking process your instructor imagines you will need to follow to begin thinking about the topic.

“You may wish to consider the differing views held by Communist gerbils vs. Monarchist gerbils, or Can there be such a thing as ‘the housefly garment industry’ or is it just a home-based craft?”

These are the instructor’s comments about writing expectations:

“Be concise”, “Write effectively”, or “Argue furiously.”

Technical Details

These instructions usually indicate format rules or guidelines.

“Your paper must be typed in Palatino font on gray paper and must not exceed 600 pages. It is due on the anniversary of Mao Tse-tung’s death.”

The assignment’s parts may not appear in exactly this order, and each part may be very long or really short. Nonetheless, being aware of this standard pattern can help you understand what your instructor wants you to do.

Interpreting the assignment

Ask yourself a few basic questions as you read and jot down the answers on the assignment sheet:

Why did your instructor ask you to do this particular task?

Who is your audience.

• What kind of evidence do you need to support your ideas?

What kind of writing style is acceptable?

• What are the absolute rules of the paper?

Try to look at the question from the point of view of the instructor. Recognize that your instructor has a reason for giving you this assignment and for giving it to you at a particular point in the semester. In every assignment, the instructor has a challenge for you. This challenge could be anything from demonstrating an ability to think clearly to demonstrating an ability to use the library. See the assignment not as a vague suggestion of what to do but as an opportunity to show that you can handle the course material as directed. Paper assignments give you more than a topic to discuss—they ask you to do something with the topic. Keep reminding yourself of that. Be careful to avoid the other extreme as well: do not read more into the assignment than what is there.

Of course, your instructor has given you an assignment so that they will be able to assess your understanding of the course material and give you an appropriate grade. But there is more to it than that. Your instructor has tried to design a learning experience of some kind. Your instructor wants you to think about something in a particular way for a particular reason. If you read the course description at the beginning of your syllabus, review the assigned readings, and consider the assignment itself, you may begin to see the plan, purpose, or approach to the subject matter that your instructor has created for you. If you still aren’t sure of the assignment’s goals, try asking the instructor. For help with this, see our handout on getting feedback .

Given your instructor’s efforts, it helps to answer the question: What is my purpose in completing this assignment? Is it to gather research from a variety of outside sources and present a coherent picture? Is it to take material I have been learning in class and apply it to a new situation? Is it to prove a point one way or another? Key words from the assignment can help you figure this out. Look for key terms in the form of active verbs that tell you what to do.

Key Terms: Finding Those Active Verbs

Here are some common key words and definitions to help you think about assignment terms:

Information words Ask you to demonstrate what you know about the subject, such as who, what, when, where, how, and why.

• define —give the subject’s meaning (according to someone or something). Sometimes you have to give more than one view on the subject’s meaning
• describe —provide details about the subject by answering question words (such as who, what, when, where, how, and why); you might also give details related to the five senses (what you see, hear, feel, taste, and smell)
• explain —give reasons why or examples of how something happened
• illustrate —give descriptive examples of the subject and show how each is connected with the subject
• summarize —briefly list the important ideas you learned about the subject
• trace —outline how something has changed or developed from an earlier time to its current form
• research —gather material from outside sources about the subject, often with the implication or requirement that you will analyze what you have found

Relation words Ask you to demonstrate how things are connected.

• compare —show how two or more things are similar (and, sometimes, different)
• contrast —show how two or more things are dissimilar
• apply—use details that you’ve been given to demonstrate how an idea, theory, or concept works in a particular situation
• cause —show how one event or series of events made something else happen
• relate —show or describe the connections between things

Interpretation words Ask you to defend ideas of your own about the subject. Do not see these words as requesting opinion alone (unless the assignment specifically says so), but as requiring opinion that is supported by concrete evidence. Remember examples, principles, definitions, or concepts from class or research and use them in your interpretation.

• assess —summarize your opinion of the subject and measure it against something
• prove, justify —give reasons or examples to demonstrate how or why something is the truth
• evaluate, respond —state your opinion of the subject as good, bad, or some combination of the two, with examples and reasons
• support —give reasons or evidence for something you believe (be sure to state clearly what it is that you believe)
• synthesize —put two or more things together that have not been put together in class or in your readings before; do not just summarize one and then the other and say that they are similar or different—you must provide a reason for putting them together that runs all the way through the paper
• analyze —determine how individual parts create or relate to the whole, figure out how something works, what it might mean, or why it is important
• argue —take a side and defend it with evidence against the other side

More Clues to Your Purpose As you read the assignment, think about what the teacher does in class:

• What kinds of textbooks or coursepack did your instructor choose for the course—ones that provide background information, explain theories or perspectives, or argue a point of view?
• In lecture, does your instructor ask your opinion, try to prove their point of view, or use keywords that show up again in the assignment?
• What kinds of assignments are typical in this discipline? Social science classes often expect more research. Humanities classes thrive on interpretation and analysis.
• How do the assignments, readings, and lectures work together in the course? Instructors spend time designing courses, sometimes even arguing with their peers about the most effective course materials. Figuring out the overall design to the course will help you understand what each assignment is meant to achieve.

Now, what about your reader? Most undergraduates think of their audience as the instructor. True, your instructor is a good person to keep in mind as you write. But for the purposes of a good paper, think of your audience as someone like your roommate: smart enough to understand a clear, logical argument, but not someone who already knows exactly what is going on in your particular paper. Remember, even if the instructor knows everything there is to know about your paper topic, they still have to read your paper and assess your understanding. In other words, teach the material to your reader.

Aiming a paper at your audience happens in two ways: you make decisions about the tone and the level of information you want to convey.

• Tone means the “voice” of your paper. Should you be chatty, formal, or objective? Usually you will find some happy medium—you do not want to alienate your reader by sounding condescending or superior, but you do not want to, um, like, totally wig on the man, you know? Eschew ostentatious erudition: some students think the way to sound academic is to use big words. Be careful—you can sound ridiculous, especially if you use the wrong big words.
• The level of information you use depends on who you think your audience is. If you imagine your audience as your instructor and they already know everything you have to say, you may find yourself leaving out key information that can cause your argument to be unconvincing and illogical. But you do not have to explain every single word or issue. If you are telling your roommate what happened on your favorite science fiction TV show last night, you do not say, “First a dark-haired white man of average height, wearing a suit and carrying a flashlight, walked into the room. Then a purple alien with fifteen arms and at least three eyes turned around. Then the man smiled slightly. In the background, you could hear a clock ticking. The room was fairly dark and had at least two windows that I saw.” You also do not say, “This guy found some aliens. The end.” Find some balance of useful details that support your main point.

You’ll find a much more detailed discussion of these concepts in our handout on audience .

The Grim Truth

With a few exceptions (including some lab and ethnography reports), you are probably being asked to make an argument. You must convince your audience. It is easy to forget this aim when you are researching and writing; as you become involved in your subject matter, you may become enmeshed in the details and focus on learning or simply telling the information you have found. You need to do more than just repeat what you have read. Your writing should have a point, and you should be able to say it in a sentence. Sometimes instructors call this sentence a “thesis” or a “claim.”

So, if your instructor tells you to write about some aspect of oral hygiene, you do not want to just list: “First, you brush your teeth with a soft brush and some peanut butter. Then, you floss with unwaxed, bologna-flavored string. Finally, gargle with bourbon.” Instead, you could say, “Of all the oral cleaning methods, sandblasting removes the most plaque. Therefore it should be recommended by the American Dental Association.” Or, “From an aesthetic perspective, moldy teeth can be quite charming. However, their joys are short-lived.”

Convincing the reader of your argument is the goal of academic writing. It doesn’t have to say “argument” anywhere in the assignment for you to need one. Look at the assignment and think about what kind of argument you could make about it instead of just seeing it as a checklist of information you have to present. For help with understanding the role of argument in academic writing, see our handout on argument .

What kind of evidence do you need?

There are many kinds of evidence, and what type of evidence will work for your assignment can depend on several factors–the discipline, the parameters of the assignment, and your instructor’s preference. Should you use statistics? Historical examples? Do you need to conduct your own experiment? Can you rely on personal experience? See our handout on evidence for suggestions on how to use evidence appropriately.

Make sure you are clear about this part of the assignment, because your use of evidence will be crucial in writing a successful paper. You are not just learning how to argue; you are learning how to argue with specific types of materials and ideas. Ask your instructor what counts as acceptable evidence. You can also ask a librarian for help. No matter what kind of evidence you use, be sure to cite it correctly—see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial .

You cannot always tell from the assignment just what sort of writing style your instructor expects. The instructor may be really laid back in class but still expect you to sound formal in writing. Or the instructor may be fairly formal in class and ask you to write a reflection paper where you need to use “I” and speak from your own experience.

Try to avoid false associations of a particular field with a style (“art historians like wacky creativity,” or “political scientists are boring and just give facts”) and look instead to the types of readings you have been given in class. No one expects you to write like Plato—just use the readings as a guide for what is standard or preferable to your instructor. When in doubt, ask your instructor about the level of formality they expect.

No matter what field you are writing for or what facts you are including, if you do not write so that your reader can understand your main idea, you have wasted your time. So make clarity your main goal. For specific help with style, see our handout on style .

Technical details about the assignment

The technical information you are given in an assignment always seems like the easy part. This section can actually give you lots of little hints about approaching the task. Find out if elements such as page length and citation format (see the UNC Libraries citation tutorial ) are negotiable. Some professors do not have strong preferences as long as you are consistent and fully answer the assignment. Some professors are very specific and will deduct big points for deviations.

Usually, the page length tells you something important: The instructor thinks the size of the paper is appropriate to the assignment’s parameters. In plain English, your instructor is telling you how many pages it should take for you to answer the question as fully as you are expected to. So if an assignment is two pages long, you cannot pad your paper with examples or reword your main idea several times. Hit your one point early, defend it with the clearest example, and finish quickly. If an assignment is ten pages long, you can be more complex in your main points and examples—and if you can only produce five pages for that assignment, you need to see someone for help—as soon as possible.

Tricks that don’t work

Your instructors are not fooled when you:

• spend more time on the cover page than the essay —graphics, cool binders, and cute titles are no replacement for a well-written paper.
• use huge fonts, wide margins, or extra spacing to pad the page length —these tricks are immediately obvious to the eye. Most instructors use the same word processor you do. They know what’s possible. Such tactics are especially damning when the instructor has a stack of 60 papers to grade and yours is the only one that low-flying airplane pilots could read.
• use a paper from another class that covered “sort of similar” material . Again, the instructor has a particular task for you to fulfill in the assignment that usually relates to course material and lectures. Your other paper may not cover this material, and turning in the same paper for more than one course may constitute an Honor Code violation . Ask the instructor—it can’t hurt.
• get all wacky and “creative” before you answer the question . Showing that you are able to think beyond the boundaries of a simple assignment can be good, but you must do what the assignment calls for first. Again, check with your instructor. A humorous tone can be refreshing for someone grading a stack of papers, but it will not get you a good grade if you have not fulfilled the task.

Critical reading of assignments leads to skills in other types of reading and writing. If you get good at figuring out what the real goals of assignments are, you are going to be better at understanding the goals of all of your classes and fields of study.

You may reproduce it for non-commercial use if you use the entire handout and attribute the source: The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

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Baruch College Writing Center

Understanding Assignment Instructions

This guide focuses on a key first step in any writing you’ll do for school: making sure you understand your professor’s assignment before you get started.

Read to determine the goal of an assignment

Focus on your professor’s verbs, understand the assignment’s goals.

Read the assignment prompt and try your best to answer the following questions. You can take notes on the assignment sheet itself, or start a new brainstorming document where you’ll being planning your essay.

• What is the main task of this assignment?
• Does the professor provide any background, definitions, or context for the assignment? If so, what?
• What verbs does the professor use?
• Are there specifications about which texts can be used?
• Are there specifications about organization, structure, or sequencing of information/paragraphs?
• Are there mechanics directives? (page length, font, etc.)
• When is this assignment due?
• What is this professor’s goal in giving this assignment? What are the specific skills this professor is valuing/asking students to demonstrate? What do they want to find out?

When you first read an assignment, highlight the verbs—this is what your professor is asking you to do.

“Summarize”

When a professor asks you to summarize , they are asking you to provide a brief, condensed explanation of a text’s main ideas, usually in order to answer a ‘what’ question (what is the plot of The Great Gatsby? ). Summary is often not an end in and of itself, but a necessary step and precursor to argument (though not always explicitly stated as such in prompts.)

Try to present the ideas of a reading in a condensed form, providing your reader only with information that will be necessary to understand your argument.

“Analyze”

When a professor asks you to analyze , they are asking you to break down the text or issue that you are examining into parts, usually in order to answer a ‘how’ or ‘why’ question about these specific parts (why does Fitzgerald use images of time so frequently in The Great Gatsby? )

Pay close attention to noticeable, intriguing, or puzzling patterns in the text. Select and summarize a pattern that seems significant, and pose ‘how’ or ‘why’ questions about it, which you will go on to answer in the form of an argument.

“Argue”

When a professor asks you to argue , they are asking you to take a stance on a certain issue and to explain why this is your stance (often in the form of a thesis.) Unless explicitly stated otherwise, most assignments are asking you to construct some form of argument, after having considered a text/issue/point of view.

Read, summarize, and analyze the issue. Take a stance and write a claim that explains your stance, the significance of your stance, and answers a how/why question. Back up this claim with the analysis of evidence.

“Compare”

When a professor asks you to compare/contrast , they are asking you to identify the significant similarities, and/or differences, between two items/texts.

Choose a theme to focus on and make a list of appearances of that theme in two texts. Circle similarities in both lists (or alternatively, differences.) Decide which similarities are significant/most interesting to you, and develop a thesis to explain this significance. Support this thesis with the presentation and analysis of evidence from each text.

“Describe”

When a professor asks you to describe , they are asking you to provide a detailed explanation about how/why something happened.

“Explain”

When a professor asks you to explain , they are asking you to clarify a topic by giving a detailed account of how and/or why it occurs.

After you’ve identified the key instructions in your assignment, reflect on the assignment goals. Once you understand what your professor wants you to demonstrate that you’ve learned, you’ll be ready to get to work.

Sometimes, your instructor will include these goals explicitly, but more often, you’ll need to understand what’s implied. For each example, we’ll share example instructional language and the implied assignment goals.

Draw on prior knowledge

Drawing on ideas in Steven Pinker’s How the Mind Works , examine how our mind and mental abilities have evolved.

Based on our readings, class lectures, and discussions on B.F. Skinner, how would you explain . . .

Implied assignment goals:

These instructions help you find a context for your writing. They draw on your prior knowledge from the course, and ask you to demonstrate knowledge of the key concepts you’ve learned.

Though you’re responding to other sources, you will likely still need to make your own argument/thesis!

Develop your original argument or thesis

In your paper, you should be engaged in original analysis, rather than a summary of our class discussions.

I am interested in seeing you think on the page.

Propose an original hypothesis in the area of psychology

While your essay can build on arguments by other authors, it should ultimately diverge in some way from what others have said. Your professor values how you think about the subject and what new ideas you bring to the discussion.

Support your argument with specific, focused examples

In the film Citizen Kane , analyze how settings, sound, framing, camera angles, and other technical devices emphasize Kane’s isolation. Your project will address racism and its legacy in the U.S. You may want to consider economic implications, social or psychological implications, political implications etc.

The professor’s list includes some , but not all, of the possibilities for your writing. With “other technical devices,” she would ideally like you to brainstorm other areas not mentioned here, and then narrow your focus from among the choices. As you write, focus on how questions rather than what .

Form connections between key terms

Make sure to define any key terms/concepts you introduce from Pinker’s text, before making your case.

You might begin by coming up with a definition of adulthood based on Critical Reading Question 2 on pg. 198.

Your professor will look for your ability to connect key terms to the larger discussion that will follow in your paper, in addition to clarifying relevant definitions.

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Giving directions

Do the preparation exercise before you listen. Then, look at the map and listen to the directions while you do the other exercises.

Instructions

Do the preparation exercise before you listen. Then do the other exercises to check your understanding.

Preparation

Do this exercise before you listen.

A Go straight on. Then take the first left on to Green Street. Walk past the library and it’s the building next to the library on the left.

B Go straight on. Go past the traffic lights. You will see a shop on the right. Go past that and it’s on the right next to the shop.

C Go straight on. Go past the traffic lights and go straight on until you get to the roundabout. At the roundabout turn left. Go past the theatre. It’s the building next to the theatre, opposite the hospital.

D Go straight on. Go past the traffic lights and take the second right on to King’s Road. Go past the bookshop. It’s the building next to the bookshop opposite the café.

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When you receive a paper assignment, your first step should be to read the assignment prompt carefully to make sure you understand what you are being asked to do. Sometimes your assignment will be open-ended (“write a paper about anything in the course that interests you”). But more often, the instructor will be asking you to do something specific that allows you to make sense of what you’ve been learning in the course. You may be asked to put new ideas in context, to analyze course texts, or to do research on something related to the course.

Even if the instructor has introduced the assignment in class, make sure to read the prompt on your own. You’d be surprised how often someone comes to the Writing Center to ask for help on a paper before reading the prompt. Once they do read the prompt, they often find that it answers many of their questions.

When you read the assignment prompt, you should do the following:  

• Look for action verbs. Verbs like analyze , compare , discuss , explain , make an argument , propose a solution , trace , or research can help you understand what you’re being asked to do with an assignment.

Unless the instructor has specified otherwise, most of your paper assignments at Harvard will ask you to make an argument. So even when the assignment instructions tell you to “discuss” or “consider,” your instructor generally expects you to offer an arguable claim in the paper. For example, if you are asked to “discuss” several proposals for reaching carbon neutral by 2050, your instructor would likely not be asking you to list the proposals and summarize them; instead, the goal would be to analyze them in relation to each other and offer some sort of claim—either about the differences between the proposals, the potential outcomes of following one rather than another, or something that has been overlooked in all of the proposals. While you would need to summarize those proposals in order to make a claim about them, it wouldn’t be enough just to summarize them. Similarly, if you’re asked to compare sources or consider sources in relation to each other, it is not enough to offer a list of similarities and differences. Again, this type of assignment is generally asking you to make some claim about the sources in relation to each other.

• Consider the broader goals of the assignment. What kind of thinking is your instructor asking you to do? Are you supposed to be deciding whether you agree with one theorist more than another? Are you supposed to be trying out a particular method of analysis on your own body of evidence? Are you supposed to be learning a new skill (close reading? data analysis? recognizing the type of questions that can be asked in a particular discipline?)? If you understand the broader goals of the assignment, you will have an easier time figuring out if you are on the right track.
• Look for instructions about the scope of the assignment. Are you supposed to consult sources other than those you have read in class? Are you supposed to keep your focus narrow (on a passage, a document, a claim made by another author) or choose your own focus (raise a question that is sparked by course texts, pair texts in a new way)? If your instructor has told you not to consider sources outside of those specified in the assignment, then you should follow that instruction. In those assignments, the instructor wants to know what you think about the assigned sources and about the question, and they do not want you to bring in other sources.
• If you’re writing a research paper, do not assume that your reader has read all the sources that you are writing about. You’ll need to offer context about what those sources say so that your reader can understand why you have brought them into the conversation.
• If you’re writing only about assigned sources, you will still need to provide enough context to orient the reader to the main ideas of the source. While you may not need to summarize the entire text, you will need to give readers enough information to follow your argument and understand what you are doing with the text. If you’re not sure whether you should assume that readers are familiar with the ideas in the text, you should ask your instructor.  
• Ask questions! If you’re not sure what you’re supposed to do, email your instructor or go to office hours and ask.
• picture_as_pdf Tips for Reading an Assignment Prompt

DJ LeMahieu nears rehab assignment; Gerrit Cole throws BP session

• Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS -- Injured Yankees players DJ LeMahieu and Gerrit Cole are headed back to New York after spending time rehabbing at the team's complex in Tampa, Florida, with LeMahieu likely to start a rehab assignment later this week.

LeMahieu took live at-bats and worked defensively before making the trip to New York while the Yankees begin a three-game series in Minnesota . Manager Aaron Boone said LeMahieu, who has been out all season after a non-displaced fracture of his right foot during spring training, would likely start a minor league rehab assignment on Thursday or Friday.

"Definitely want him to play games and get some volume under his belt," Boone said pregame Monday, adding he was unsure of how many rehab games LeMahieu might play before being activated.

Meanwhile, Cole threw "30-some, 36 pitches or so" in his latest throwing session as he recovers from right elbow inflammation.

"Gerrit, everything went well," Boone said. "Gerrit, just onward and upward."

The Yankees also announced that outfielder Jasson Domínguez (Tommy John surgery recovery) and infielder Jorbit Vivas (left orbital fracture) are starting rehab assignments with Single-A Tampa. They faced former Yankee Domingo Germán, who made his first start with the Pirates' Single-A affiliate Tuesday. Right-hander Tommy Kahnle (right shoulder inflammation) had his rehab assignment transferred to Double-A Somerset.

Court rejects parents’ attempt to opt kids out of LGBTQ-inclusive reading assignments

A federal appeals court rejected a bid from a group of Maryland parents to require Montgomery County Public Schools to allow them to opt their children out of lessons that involve LGBTQ-inclusive material.

A divided three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a  lower court decision  denying a preliminary injunction on the basis that the parents had not yet demonstrated how the county’s board of education book policy would infringe on their right to free expression of religion.

Three sets of parents – who are Muslim, Jewish and Christian – along with a parental rights organization, sued the Maryland school district after it said it would no longer allow parents to opt their children out of lessons that used a slate of newly approved LGBTQ-inclusive books.

The parents argued that the books “contradict their sincerely held religious beliefs about marriage, human sexuality, and gender” and that the lack of an opt-out policy violates their children’s First Amendment right to free exercise of religion.

U.S. Circuit Judge G. Steven Agee, writing for the majority in the opinion, said there was not enough evidence on the record to assess how the books were being used in the classroom and, therefore, to assess the likelihood of the case succeeding.

“We take no view on whether the Parents will be able to present evidence sufficient to support any of their various theories once they have the opportunity to develop a record as to the circumstances surrounding the Board’s decision and how the challenged texts are actually being used in schools,” Agee, appointed by former President George W. Bush, wrote.

“At this early stage, however, given the Parents’ broad claims, the very high burden required to obtain a preliminary injunction, and the scant record before us, we are constrained to affirm the district court’s order denying a preliminary injunction,” he continued, in the opinion, which was joined by U.S. Circuit Judge DeAndrea Benjamin, an appointee of President Biden’s.

U.S. Circuit Judge A. Marvin Quattlebaum, Jr., an appointee of former President Trump’s, dissented, arguing the board violated parents’ right to influence their children’s religious upbringing.

Eric Baxter – vice president and senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which is representing the parents – pledged to appeal the ruling on Wednesday, in an emailed statement to The Hill.

“The court just told thousands of Maryland parents they have no say in what their children are taught in public schools,” Baxter said in his statement. “That runs contrary to the First Amendment, Maryland law, the School Board’s own policies, and basic human decency.”

“Parents should have the right to receive notice and opt their children out of classroom material that violates their faith. We will appeal this ruling,” he added.

In August 2023, U.S. District Judge Deborah Boardman found that the parents were unlikely to succeed on the merits and denied their request to keep the policy in place while the case proceeds. She found that they failed to show that the lack of an opt-out policy would result in the “indoctrination of their children” or “coerce their children to violate or change their religious beliefs.”

“The parents still may instruct their children on their religious beliefs regarding sexuality, marriage, and gender, and each family may place contrary views in its religious context,” Boardman wrote in the order last year.

“No government action prevents the parents from freely discussing the topics raised in the storybooks with their children or teaching their children as they wish,” she added.

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to The Hill.

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Scroll down to reveal a hint for each category of today’s Connections, or head to the comments for community hints and conversation.

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Good morning, dear connectors. Welcome to today’s Connections forum, where you can give and receive puzzle — and emotional — support.

Be warned: This article includes hints and comments that may contain spoilers for today’s puzzle. Solve Connections first, or scroll at your own risk.

Post your solve grid in the comments and see how your score compares with the editor’s rating, and one another’s.

Today’s difficulty

The difficulty of each puzzle is determined by averaging the ratings provided by a panel of testers who are paid to solve each puzzle in advance to help us catch bugs, inconsistencies and other issues. A higher rating means the puzzle is more difficult.

Today’s difficulty is 3.2 out of 5.

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In Connections, each category has a different difficulty level. Yellow is the simplest, and purple is the most difficult. Click or tap each level to reveal one of the words in that category.

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See our Tips and Tricks for more useful information on Connections.

Join us here to solve Crosswords, The Mini, and other games by The New York Times.

It’s Game Time!

Take your puzzling skills in new directions..

WordleBot , our daily Wordle companion that tells you how skillful or lucky you are, is getting an upgrade. Here’s what to know .

The editor of Connections , our new game about finding common threads between words, talks about how she makes this daily puzzle feel fun .

We asked some of the best Sudoku  solvers in the world for their tips and tricks. Try them to  tackle even the most challenging puzzles.

Read today’s Wordle Review , and get insights on the game from our columnists.

We asked Times readers how they play Spelling Bee. The hive mind weighed in with their favorite tips and tricks .

Ready to play? Try Wordle , Spelling Bee  or The Crossword .