• What is AVID Weekly?

    • Lessons align with Common Core State Standards (at the secondary and postsecondary levels).
    • Used by AVID teachers across all subject areas to teach AVID critical reading strategies.
    • Elementary, middle and high schools plus postsecondary institutions all benefit from AVID Weekly.
    • Features current newspaper articles and images from The Washington Post News Service & Syndicate and Tribune Content Agency.
    • Secondary edition features a monthly video from CNN.
    • Certain lessons include English language learner embedded scaffolds.
    • New articles and lessons are available each month during the academic year.

    AVID Weekly Article

  • The Matrix

    The Matrix is the first page that an AVID Weekly subscriber sees once he or she has logged in. What makes it a valuable resource is its usability and overall function. The Matrix lists the fifteen articles available for the month (which can be viewed online or downloaded as a pdf. file). This page also tells users if an article is advanced, intermediate, or foundational. These distinctions take into account vocabulary, content, sophistication of ideas, text structure, and overall length of text. It also categorizes each article under a general content area like Behavioral and Social Science, Natural Science, or Education.

    Finally, the Matrix identifies articles that lend themselves well to the teaching of a particular strategy. For instance, a teacher wanting to teach the strategy “Marking the Text” will want to read an article that contains key terms and clear claims. The Matrix will match an article with a specific strategy, in this case, “Marking the Text.” And if a teacher is interested in learning about a particular strategy, he or she can download a copy or view the reading strategy online.

    The Matrix

    Instructional Model

    Each month, AVID Weekly offers three instructional models that assist teachers in the delivery of effective literacy instruction. The models offer engaging before, during, and after reading strategies that help bring the text alive for students. The two articles and their corresponding lessons are listed on the Matrix (at the bottom) along with the other eight articles for the month. It is important to note that the lessons cannot possibly account for every learning need in the classroom; therefore, teachers using the instructional model may need to make adjustments to time on task, strategy implementation, and/or task completion.

    Instructional Model

    Summary Lessons

    For those teachers who are familiar with the strategies and approaches outlined in the instructional models and on this page, AVID Weekly provides a summary lesson for teachers who do not wish to use the step-by-step guide. The summary includes a prompt for purpose-driven reading, a skill-based learning outcome, an approximate time for task completion, and a brief description of strategies students should learn while reading the text.

    Lesson Summary

    Assessment Tool

    The following questions could be used to hold students accountable for their reading or to challenge them to critically think about the ideas in a text. Students could answer the questions in short answer format, you could provide multiple choice answers for each question you ask, or you could use the questions to engage students in meaningful discussions about a text.

    You will notice that the questions below have been organized under Costa’s Levels of Thinking. When assessing students’ comprehension, use level one questions. Level two and three questions should be used to develop and assess students’ critical thinking skills.

    Assessment Tool