Learning Center

reading

Use 5 strategies to teach cause & effect

April 25, 2013

Use 5 strategies to teach cause & effect
Cause & Effect Downloadable Handout

When students struggle to comprehend cause and effect in their reading, here are some specific instructional strategies to move them forward.

1. Define the characteristics of cause and effect.

  • The cause is why or the reason something happened. It answers the question Why or How. Authors often identify the cause using signal words: Because… Since… Cause… Reason… So that… Unless… The main reason… Due to… For the simple reason that…
  • The effect is the result of what happened. It answers the questions: What happened? What was the result? Authors typically indicate the effect using these signal words: As a result of… If… Consequently… Effect… Therefore… Thus… So… Because of this… So that… For this reason…

2. Reveal the cause-effect relationship.

Help students envision the cause-effect relationship with 2-step, before-and-after photo boxes. Reveal a photograph in the left box (e.g., someone crossing their snow skis, an egg being tossed, a soccer player diving for a ball, etc.). Ask students to predict What will happen? (e.g., the skier will fall, the egg will break, the soccer player will get injured, etc.). Identify their answers as the effect, the after, the end of the process. Reveal the effect photos in the right-side boxes to determine if their predictions were correct.

3. Reveal the effect-cause relationship.

Repeat this same concept, but start with the effect and ask students to predict the cause. Reveal a photograph in the right box. Ask students Why or how did it happen? The answer shows the cause of the event, the before, or the beginning of the 2-step process.

4. Write cause-effect captions.

Have students create captions for each photo combination, explaining their cause-effect relationship.

5. Determine order—cause…then effect.

Explain to students that nothing happens without a reason or without some kind of consequence. Effects always have causes and causes always lead to effects; we rarely see one without the other. After reading a text in its entirety, reread paragraphs closely to identify stated cause-effect sentences. Encourage students to look for any signal words stated within the excerpt. If there are no signal words, readers have to visualize what’s happening to determine what came first (before/cause) and what came second (after/effect).

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest
2 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Lilly shane
Lilly shane
3 years ago

What is a cause

Liz Shockey
Liz Shockey
Admin
Reply to  Lilly shane
3 years ago

Lilly–That’s a great question. Think about when something happens. For instance, if a glass of milk gets spilled. What was the cause? It might have been because someone bumped it. That was the cause. The effect? A puddle of milk.

CompCON 2024
Teach readers to discern 5 nonfiction text structures

[reading]

Teach readers to discern 5 nonfiction text structures

Support summary writing with frames based on a text’s structure

[reading]

Support summary writing with frames based on a text’s structure