Vocabulary terms-

Readability Ease- refers to the text itself, looking at the sentence length, syllables and length of words.

Qualitative- Meaning the structure, clarity and background knowledge

Quantitative- The readability measures

Reader and Task- Educators need to match the reader considering knowledge, experience and motivation and the task they need to do for the book (Buechler, Anna notes).

Reading cycle-

Pre-reading- Focuses on prior knowledge, vocabulary.

Preview informational text structure.

Predict what will be learned

During reading- Students participate in word strategies, click or clunk or stop and think.

Students will clarify and summarize.

Post Reading- Teacher clarify any questions, and extend the students thinking with activities like: confusing ideas, tricky words, summarize and discussion.

Text complexity- 3 components

Qualitative- Meaning the structure, clarity and background knowledge

Quantitative- The readability measures

Reader and Task- Educators need to match the reader considering knowledge, experience and motivation and the task they need to do for the book. What do the students need to do and how complex is it? (Buechler, Anna notes)

Strategies-

1- QAR Questions-

QAR stands for Question Answer Relationships. This strategy helps students understand the different types of questions. This strategy can be used with the whole class, small groups or with individual students. Within this strategy there are four different types of questions. The first kind of question is “right there”. These questions are literal and the answers can be found directly in the text. The second type of questions are “think and search”. These answers are gathered from several parts of the text and put together to make meaning. The third type of questions are “author and me”. These questions are based on information provided in the text but the student is required to relate it to their own experience. The last type of questions are the “on my own” questions, these questions do not require the student to have read the passage, but they must use their background or prior knowledge to answer the question. Once students finish reading a passage they should then answer these questions. QAR helps students improve their reading comprehension and helps teaches students how to ask about the reading and where to find the answers within the text. This strategy can be modified for younger students, ELL students and varying reading skills (Miller, L., Stumpf, K., & Mesker, N).

2- ReQuest-

ReQuest strategy is also known as Reciprocal Questioning, which is a variation on the reciprocal teaching strategy. In this strategy, the students take on the role of the teacher by creating their own questions that use in depth understanding based on the reading selected. This strategy can be used for difficult areas of a text that students may not understand to help interpret what is happening in a section of the text. ReQuest helps students develop independent comprehension techniques by learning to question, the text, their peers and themselves as they read. Both students and the teacher will silently read a chosen passage. The teacher closes his or her book when the majority of students are done reading. The students then brain storm questions to ask the teachers. The questions they ask should require thought and be more in depth rather than yes or no questions. As students ask the teacher questions the teacher should reinforce the students’ questioning skills by seeking clarification of unclear questions or extending questions. Next, the teacher and students reverse roles. The teacher will now ask the students questions. During this step, the teacher models a deeper level of questioning and clarify if the students don’t understand the question. The students are expected to give evidence to support their ideas. The teacher leads the students to predict areas of information the author will provide. If students’ predictions are reasonable, then direct them to continue reading silently the remainder of the passage and complete a response activity. If the predictions are not appropriate, repeat the steps 1-4 with the next segment of the article before having students read independently. Lastly, students discuss the article, sharing their completed response activity (Mueller, S., Matthes, A., & Crosby, N) and (Winters).

3- Directed Reading Thinking Activity or DRTA-

DRTA is a comprehension strategy that helps students predict, ask questions about the text and analyze their predictions based on textual evidence. This strategy keeps all students engaged in skills and helps activate prior knowledge. This strategy activates prior knowledge by encouraging students to discuss what they already know about the topic and deepen their understanding. DRTA can be used with individual students, in a small group or as a whole class. The first step is that the teacher needs to pick a text that students have not read an has ample predicted points. The teacher will then introduce the text while activating prior knowledge. Before reading the text, allow students time to make predictions or ask questions about the front cover, title or pictures throughout the story. Then have students read part of the story and give students time to make more predictions or ask more questions during the reading or modify their predictions or create a new question. Lastly, have students reflect on the predictions or questions that they’ve had throughout the story and determine if they are important to their understanding of the text (Koster, E., Pronschinske, I., & Brown, M).

4- Story Maps-

Story maps are visual representations of the elements that make up a narrative. The purpose of a story is to help students focus on the important elements of narrative themes, characters, settings, problems, plot events, and resolution and on the relationship among those elements. Story maps can be used with any age range, but be sure to keep the story map simple for younger students and more complicated for older students. The story maps is a graphic organizer that helps students organize and identify different elements within a story. This strategy can either be used with a whole class, small group or individually. To begin the teacher will select a passage or have the students read a text as class. The students will then identify the different elements within the story and write them in the appropriate area on the graphic organizer.

5- Questioning the Author

Questioning the author encourages students to reflect on what the author of a text is trying to say, to build a mental representation from the information. Teacher and students work collaboratively, reading to resolve confusion and to understand the meaning of the text. Focusing on one specific segment of text the students respond as the teacher asks questions. Through modeling the teacher helps students understand that some parts of a text can cause confusion and hinder comprehension. After the teacher identifies confusing parts of a text that may cause problems with comprehension, the teacher will then share with the students’ what to do when comprehension problems may occur. Students learn how to deal with text that may confuse by emulating the teacher’s questioning techniques (Serravallo, J).

6- Anticipation Guides-

Anticipation guides is a comprehension strategy that is used before reading to activate students’ prior knowledge, stimulate interest, and curiosity on a topic, and set a purpose for the upcoming reading. This strategy can be used with individual students, small groups or a whole class, it can also be used with narrative or informational texts. To start, the teacher will choose a book to use the anticipation guide with. The teacher will then identify the major ideas presented in the reading. These can include characters, setting, elements of the plot, resolution, main ideas or themes and key details that support those ideas. The teacher will then take into consider their students’ beliefs or prior knowledge and create general statements challenge or support their preconceived ideas about the main ideas and key details within the text. Students will respond to these statements with either a positive or negative response indicating whether they agree or disagree with the statement. While students do this, they will make predictions. The teacher will then engage students with an interactive read aloud with the students, asking questions throughout the text to gauge students’ comprehension. Teachers’ may want to refer back to the book or discuss the statements on the anticipation guide. Students will then revisit the anticipation guide and evaluate their initial predictions and determine if their predictions were correct or not. Students will cite specific evidence from the story that supports their answer. Students’ completion of the post reading section of the anticipation guide will give teachers valuable information about how well students comprehended the key concepts of the text (Schake, E., Leahy, S., & Richter, K).