During reading, teachers might consider one of the following:
Comprehension Strategies
Having students practice a comprehension strategy during reading encourages them to be actively engaged in the text and thinking while reading. Teachers need to be careful to model the strategies before expecting students to use the methods themselves and should initially use one strategy at a time. Students may try the strategies by marking in the text or writing on post-it notes as they read. Practice with these skills will help students use them more naturally when they are reading independently or faced with difficult pieces of text. The following list has been adapted from the book, Strategies That Work, by Stephanie Harvey and Ann Goudvis.
Determining Importance
Readers determine the most important ideas and themes in a text according to their purpose for reading. Students learn to use their conclusions about important ideas to focus their reading to exclude peripheral or unimportant details.
Discussion Web
Useful during or after reading, this organizer has students identify which facts are important to the text and which are trivial. As they read, students write facts onto one column or another. Teachers might consider giving students the main topic of the reading and having them write down details that connect to the topic in one column and details that are not directly related in another. This organizer also works well when reading math story problems. Students are able to identify relevant and irrelevant information in the text.
Double Entry Journal (Cornell Notes)
Double Entry Journals, also termed Cornell Notes, can be used in a variety of ways. Before assigning reading, the teacher develops a double column note sheet. On the left hand side of the sheet, the teacher writes down key terms or main ideas in the text. The right hand side of the note sheet is used for details or facts found in the reading. Teachers may choose to give students the details ahead of time and have them develop the main ideas as they read, or vice versa. Eventually with practice, students will be able to determine both the main ideas and important details from the text. Teachers may also differentiate, giving some students more support on the guide than others. Students should also know that the journal naturally lends itself to being used as a study guide after reading.
GRP
For this strategy, students read the text and try to remember as many important facts as possible. After they have read, they put away the text and write down every fact they can remember. Next, students go back into the text to look for things they missed. They add the additional facts to their list. Finally students categorize, or organize the information they took from the text. This strategy helps students read more critically and shows them the importance of looking back in the text when they need additional information. It also allows students to think more deeply about what they read by creating their own categories, or main ideas found in the text. This strategy may be used during and after reading. It can also be adapted to include a summary piece after categorizing the information from the reading.
Inferring
Readers draw inferences from text by using their prior knowledge and textual information to draw conclusions, make critical judgments, and form interpretations from the text.
Key Sentences
Key Sentences forces students to identify the most important information in the text. As students read, they mark sentences they think are important to the text. After reading, they choose the one sentence they believe is most important, write it down on a post-it note, and then explain why they think it is important. Finally, students discuss their sentences with a group of students, explaining their reasoning and listening to others’ thoughts. Another variation of this activity would be to allow students to write the most important sentence on one sticky note, and their favorite sentence on a different colored post-it. This activity encourages students to think critically while reading, determine important information in the text, and give evidence to support their thinking.
Making Connections
Readers make connections by activating prior knowledge before, during, and after reading text. Students learn to use prior knowledge to make connections between the reading and what they have experienced, what they have read, or what they know about the world.
Marking in Text
As students read, they can mark in the text using a variety of different strategies. They might write questions they have as they read, highlight four main ideas, circle key vocabulary words, mark areas in which they are confused, write one key word that sums up every paragraph, or write connections they have to the text. This strategy can be adapted to best fit any text the students are reading for class.
Questioning
Readers ask questions of themselves, the authors, and the texts they read. Students learn to use their questions to clarify and guide their reading.
Repairing Comprehension
Readers use a variety of “fix-it” strategies to repair comprehension when it breaks down.
Selective Reading Guide / Reading Road Map
Using a Selective Reading Guide is a classic comprehension activity. As students read, they answer questions, write definitions for key vocabulary words, fill out charts, or draw pictures to help them increase their understanding of the text. Reading Guides can be adapted to fit a teacher’s needs for a piece of text. For example, they might instruct students to read a certain range of pages, and then complete an activity before moving forward in the text. They can also be developed for pairs of students. Paired Reading Guides might ask one student to read a section aloud, answer questions together, and then have the second student read the next part of the text. This might be useful as a differentiated activity, where one student is given a longer piece of text than another, though both students are responsible for reading parts of the story or nonfiction piece.
Synthesizing
Readers retell or summarize what has been read. Students learn to synthesize in order to better understand and remember.
Text Structure Organizers
These organizers are helpful when using nonfiction pieces of text. Before reading, teachers determine the type of structure found in the text (compare and contrast, cause and effect, problem and solution, etc). As the students read, they take notes in the organizer. This helps to show them the format of the text, which in turn increases their understanding of the reading. After students are familiar with the various text patterns and graphic organizers, teachers may have students choose or draw their own charts to use for notes while reading.
Think Aloud
If we expect our students to use comprehension strategies, it is important that we model our own thinking as we read. This strategy can be used to model many of the “during” reading strategies. Teachers generally choose a short piece of text to use when “thinking” aloud. The teacher would read a few sentences in the text or word problem, “think” out loud, and show the students what they are thinking as they read or work out the problem. This helps students realize adults, or “good” readers think as they read, as well as learn some of the strategies that might be useful when approaching certain pieces of text. This is an important piece in having our students learn to be better readers.
Three Leveled Guide
Three Leveled Guides force students to think more critically about the text during and after reading. In order to develop one, teachers must think about various levels of thinking, such as applied, interpretive, and literal. This strategy lends itself to small group discussions about the text and forces students to make judgments about various topics. The structure and format of the guide may be altered to best fit a teacher’s needs.
Visualizing
Readers create visual and other sensory images from text during and after reading. Students learn to use the sensory connections they make to text to deepen understanding of the text.
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