RACE Responses

The RACE strategy is a powerful tool for improving reading comprehension and writing skills. It stands for Restate, Answer, Cite, and Explain. In 4th grade, we have been using this strategy to clearly and thoroughly write about our reading.

When students are asked a question about their reading, the RACE strategy gives them a structure to answer in their own words, go into the text to cite evidence, and then explain their evidence to show understanding. It provides them with helpful sentence stems to start each part of their written response. 

We have done several examples together so far this year, and now students are starting to complete them on their own. We used this graphic organizer today to answer a question about a nonfiction text. The goal is that students feel prepared to structure a response that displays deep thinking and write a strong paragraph about it.