Basic Comprehensions Skills

1. Predicting: 

This is simply guessing/foreseeing what you think might happen.  Using this skill means that when you are reading you are interacting with the story rather than being passive.  Being a more thoughtful, active reader will help you to take more meaning away from the story.

2. Questioning:

Again, because it is better to be an active reader, asking yourself questions as you read will help you to think about the story more deeply.  Ask yourself why a character did something, what the significance of an event is etc...  Ask who, what, why, where, when.  Questioning can be used in another way as well.  If you are reading along and see something (a character name you don't recognize, a piece of information that is unfamiliar) ask yourself if you read about this already.  You can self-monitor and look back in the text to clarify.  Three of my favorite questions that I ask myself when reading are "What is the big idea?", "What are my own thoughts and feelings about this book?", and "What does this story remind me of or make me think of?"

3. Visualizing/using your senses:

When you read try to use your senses to imagine what a person or scene might look like.  Let it play out in your mind like a movie.  Imagine what things would smell like, taste like, sound like, and feel like as well as what they would look like.  Finally, imagine what emotions the characters might be feeling during different parts of the book.

4. Inferring/drawing conclusions:

This skill is a little more challenging, but it can really help you think more deeply about what you are reading.  Instead of just reading what is actually written on the page, I want you to read between the lines.  What does it mean to read between the lines?  This means to take all of the information you have so far and making a reasonable determination about what you think is being suggested about a part of the book or a character.  Inferring can include thinking about what symbols stand for, what sayings really mean, and the message that is being sent through events of the book.  

5. Synthesizing:

I know, this is a big word, but really all it means is to take in all the new information you have based on what you have read, add it to what you already knew, and think about what your new ideas and ways of thinking about things are.  Really, all learning is synthesizing, because every new thing we learn makes us think about things in a different way.  While this is the most challenging skill because you have to think deeply about your own learning process and examine your thoughts, the good news is that there are no right or wrong answers to what your new thinking is.  As long as you think hard, and express what you think in a unique way, you are doing it right.  

6. Summarizing:

Summarizing is "gathering up" the most important information in a book.  Think about a book or story you have read, or even a movie that you have watched.  If you only had a minute to summarize it, what would you tell people about it?  You would probably choose important information like plot, important details, and characters, but you might not put in many smaller details.  When you summarize you should be able to tell what the "big idea" of the book was.  There is often more than one right answer for this.  Because we all interact with a book differently, and have different thoughts and feelings about it, what we see as the "big idea" or the message that the story sends, might be different from others thoughts.  

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