Virginia SOL 8.DSR
SOL Standard (Knowledge and Skills Cluster)
The student will build knowledge and comprehension skills from reading a range of challenging, content-rich texts. This includes fluently reading and gathering evidence from grade-level complex texts, reading widely on topics to gain purposeful knowledge and vocabulary, and using reading strategies when comprehension breaks down.
Virginia Standards of Learning for English
Cluster contents
Knowledge and Skills in This Standard
8.DSR is a Standards of Learning standard. These are the knowledge and skills expectations under it.
- 8.DSR.A
Read a variety of grade-level complex text with accuracy, automaticity, appropriate rate, and meaningful expression in successive readings to support comprehens...
- 8.DSR.B
Proficiently read and comprehend a variety of literary and informational texts that exhibit complexity at the higher range of the grades 6-8 band (See the Quant...
- 8.DSR.C
When responding to text through discussion and/or writing, draw several pieces of evidence from grade-level complex texts to support claims, conclusions, and in...
- 8.DSR.D
Regularly engage in reading a series of conceptually related texts organized around topics of study to build knowledge and vocabulary. (These texts should be at...
- 8.DSR.E
Use reading strategies as needed to aid and monitor comprehension when encountering challenging sections of text. These sense-making strategies attend to text s...
Teacher's field guide
What This Cluster Means
What Students Need to Do
- Students read complex literary and informational texts accurately, smoothly, and with understanding. They monitor meaning, self-correct, and use strategies when a section becomes confusing. They gather evidence and build knowledge across related texts.
What Mastery Looks Like
- Students read challenging passages accurately, at a steady rate, and with phrasing that reflects meaning. They notice confusion, apply a useful strategy, and accurately quote or paraphrase several relevant details. They connect ideas and vocabulary across related texts.
Common Misconceptions
- Students may think fluent reading means reading as fast as possible. They may choose one quotation without checking whether it supports the claim, or keep reading when meaning breaks down.
How to Assess It
- Give students a grade-level paragraph and ask them to summarize it, identify one confusing spot, and cite two lines supporting an inference. Have them explain which strategy helped.
Lesson moves
Ways to Teach It
Give pairs a printed article, sticky notes, and highlighters; they mark confusing lines, text structure clues, and evidence for one claim.
Ask students to write: Which reading strategy helped you solve a difficult section, and what changed in your understanding?
Run an evidence relay: teams match claim cards to quotation cards, locate each quotation in the source, and explain the match.
Have students compare two news articles on a local issue, list shared vocabulary, and use evidence to explain what they learned.
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Printable 8.DSR Worksheet

A ready-to-print activity worksheet aligned to 8.DSR, with an answer key for the teacher on its own page. No account needed.
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