The Informational Text Reading Inventory (ITRI) was created to address the significant drop in performance that students experience as they struggle to apply the reading skills they've learned in earlier grades to their expository textbooks. ITRI is an instructional assessment and reading inventory that helps teachers to gather baseline data about how well students read their textbooks. ITRI lessons teach the specific reading skill areas that are critical to successful comprehension of informational texts. Because all ITRI content comes from Indiana's Academic Standards for science, social studies, and English/Language Arts (E/LA), the ITRI assessment materials enhance the subject matter teachers already teach. Students will always learn the reading skills within the context of their science, social studies and English/Language Arts curriculum.

The Center for Innovation in Assessment, after helping to develop Indiana's Academic Standards, created a series of lesson plans and informal classroom assessments that address Standard Indicators in the English/Language Arts, Math, Science and Social Studies areas. These convenient resources can be found on the Web at www.indianastandardsresources.org.

This series of curriculum framework instructional activities is geared toward the teaching of each standard. The activities are unique in providing self-contained, teacher-developed lessons that address a manageable number of Standard Indicators for the teaching of particular skills. These lesson plans are more fully developed than many single-class lessons found on the Internet. They contain step-by-step instructions and feature opportunities for incorporating technology, other content areas and standards, and tips for extending the activities and meeting the individual needs of students.