Before Reading

Why? Students will make more connections to the text if they are familiar with the topic.

Activate prior knowledge before reading by doing one or more of the following:

• students brainstorm in whole or small groups what they know about the topic of the text.

• show images related to the text

• introduce the text immediately after instruction

Why? Activating prior knowledge before reading goes beyond just reviewing the content. Anticipation guides allow the students to formulate their thinking about the content, then set a purpose for challenging that thinking while reading.

Using anticipation guides before reading by doing one or more of the following:

• Provide students with a list of statements based on the key ideas from the text. Students will then rate their level of agreement or disagreement with the statement.

• After the reading, use their responses as a discussion point. Students should use evidence from the text to support or dispute their initial responses.

• Use the anticipation guides (and subsequent responses) to assess the students' comprehension of the text.

Why? Students will have more confidence reading if they do not have to worry about decoding unfamiliar words. See the Vocabulary section for more ideas.

Use one or more of the following strategies when focusing on key words:

• allow students to create a glossary of the unfamiliar words

• encourage students to decode the words using root word knowledge

• introduce the words to the class then ask students to find the words in the text.

Why? Making predictions provide students with a purpose for reading, especially when students revise their predictions midway.

Make predictions before reading by doing one or more of the following:

• students should use the text features, title, and images to predict the main idea

• Predictions should be made using the 5Ws (Who, What, When, Where, & Why)

• Ask leveled prediction questions based on Bloom's Taxonomy (knowledge, understand, apply, analyze, evaluate, & create)

Why? Students often skip the text features, which often leads to gaps in comprehension.

Preview the text features below before reading and ask the questions that follow:

• Title - what should you expect to read in this text?

• Subheadings - what should you expect to learn about in this section?

• Bold or italicized words - why are these words highlighted?

• Images or captions - how do these enhance the text? Why did the author include these?

• Footnotes or citations - what evidence has the author identified? Why is the author using this evidence?

Why? Struggling readers often skip reading and only skim instead. Students need to understand that skimming is only a previewing a strategy and is NOT considered reading.

Skim the text before reading by doing one or more of the following:

• Students can make bullet-point notes of what they read when skimming. Students can then add to the notes after reading.

• Students can make predictions based on what they learned from skimming.

• Students can compare what they "read" when skimming. Students should then critically read the text and discuss how their initial findings changed.

Why? Students will be more focused if they set a purpose AND work toward that purpose when reading.

Set a purpose before reading by doing one or more of the following:

• Students can write down content-specific questions they expect to answer when reading.

• Students should write down what they specifically expect to learn when reading.

• Students can work in small groups or pairs to write down purposes for reading. Students should host each other accountable during and after reading.