Reading Comprehension Stategies

Reading Comprehension Strategies

When attempting to teach reading comprehension strategies, our overall goal to equip

them with the learning skills to carry across the content areas and throughout life. If we are

successful we gain literate, productive leaders of the future. 

Below are some strategies to help engage students in thinking about texts even on the

most difficult of days.

Bio-Impressions

This strategy (McGinley and Denner, 1987) works well with biographies, autobiographies, or memoirs.

• The  teacher writes five to ten words all connected in a line with arrows pointing downwards between each word. All the words are relevant to the text and the person of interest. The words range from important people or events in their life, to concepts or vocabulary words for focus.
• After providing adequate time to Think-Pair-Share, students write a paragraph about the person making sure to include all listed words.
• After reading the text, they rewrite their paragraph correcting any misconceptions or adding any important details.

This strategy provides the additional benefit of not only engaging students, but provides yet another connection between reading and writing along with the added benefit of writing practice!

Anticipation/Reaction Guide

This strategy engages students in previewing the necessary information before they read a text.

• Prior to the lesson, the teacher creates a chart of several statements about the related text to be read. Included in the chart are columns for students to mark whether they agree or disagree with the statement.
• The teacher models reading the first few statements and predicting whether the text will agree or disagree with these statements.
• Then students predict the rest of the statements.
• During and after reading the text, students will review and discuss what they found out about the statements from the text.

The value of this strategy is text-based discussions with their peers and the teacher before, during, and after the selected text reading.

Connection Stems

Examples include: 

That reminds me of

I remember when

I felt like that person when

If I were that person I would

In this strategy, the teacher generates sentence starters that help students express different text connections between themselves and the text. Writing down their connections may be difficult for students. By using sentence connection stems, teachers may alleviate some of the anxiety for the required task, and allow students opportunities to openly discuss the text rather than focus on getting the wording correct for their contributions.

Save the Last Word for Me

This activity involves very little prep once students have been given instructions and practiced. 

• Students read the assigned text. 
• Students choose a significant quote & page number on a note card. 
• On the other side, students write the reason for the chosen quote and its importance.
• Share quotes.
• Classmates try to guess why this quote was chosen and why the writer/student thought it was important.

 This activity engages students in predicting, using text evidence, sharing their views, and

respecting the views of others. 

Close Reading

Steps:

• 1st read- look for key ideas and details
• Set the purpose for reading and have students read text as independently as possible. Depending on the text complexity and the readers, the first read may be done independently, as a read aloud/think aloud, or paired or shared reading. The first read should be without building background; students should be integrating their background knowledge with the text as they read. Focus on the key ideas and details in the text, making sure that readers know the main idea, story elements, or key details that the author includes. Following the first read, have students Think-Pair-Share to assess what they have gleaned from the text. By listening to students as they share, you can determine the focus of the first read, etc. 
• 2nd read-author’s craft and structure
• For a second, close read, select a portion or chunk of the text that is “close read worthy.” That is, have students reread a section that includes complex elements or ideas that they should explore to arrive at a deep understanding of the text. After rereading, students discuss the text with partners or in small groups, focusing on the author’s craft and organizational patterns. This may include vocabulary choices, text structure or text features that they author included. Use a Text Dependent Question to focus or set a purpose for a close rereading. After students share with partners or in small groups, have groups share out with the entire class to assess understanding. 
• Integration of knowledge and ideas.
• The third close reading of a text should go deeper, requiring students to synthesize and analyze information from several texts or media. They may record their ideas on sticky notes, graphic organizer, or a thinking sheet. Focus the discussion on text evidence.

I use three colors of garage sale stickers (highlighters will work, but the stickers provide an additional layer to the interaction with the text) for each reading purpose. An important concept in this activity is to utilize, Think-Pair-Share, as a culminating activity with the whole class. Discussion provides opportunities for clarification and supporting text evidence.

Visualizing/Sketching

Visualization is important to reading comprehension and the ability to grasp increasingly complex pieces of text.  By allowing students to sketch their comprehension of the text, they are better able to grasp meaning and connections to the text. An extension of this activity would be to label sketches text-to-text, text-to-self, or text-to-world. An added benefit would be that students make additional connections between reading and writing.

Example Lesson Plan

Informational Text Introduction for Inside Out and Back Again by Thahhn Lai

TEKS: 8.5C- make, correct, or confirm predictions using text features, characteristics of genre, and structures.

Objective: Students will make predictions about the Vietnam War and check predictions during and after reading.

Overview: Teacher will introduce Anticipation/Reaction Guide:

Materials:The Vietnam War informational text, Anticipation/Reaction guide with five statements, three different colors of markers, large chart paper for culminating group discussions. 

I do: Describe how making predictions before reading may make reading more interesting, and how good readers make predictions about what a text could be about or what kind of information about a subject you will learn.

Introduce Anticipation/Reaction guide:

Demonstrate how to predict if you agree or disagree with a statement before reading. Read first statement aloud to students. Model how to look at text features such as pictures, titles, or use prior knowledge to predict whether the text will agree with this statement. 

We do: Fill out chart for the first statement together, talk in groups how to decide for the last four and fill out, monitor students conversations, then partner read or whole group read sections.

You do: Monitor group progress and redirect when necessary.

Closing: Check back in with groups, share with group any correct predictions, incorrect predictions, and discuss your reasons for choices. 

References

Burke, B. (2012). A Close Look at Close Reading. Retrieved 2012, from https://nieonline.com/tbtimes/downloads/CCSS_reading.pdf

Denner, P. R., Mcginley, W. J., & Brown, E. (1989). Effects of Story Impressions as a Prereading/Writing Activity on Story Comprehension. The Journal of Educational Research, 82(6), 320-326. doi:10.1080/00220671.1989.10885914

Kearney, V. (2016, July 21). Sentence Starters for Reader Response Essays and Journals. Retrieved August 10, 2019, from https://owlcation.com/academia/Sentence-Starters-for-Reader-Response-Essays

Marzano, Robert J.  (2004) . Building Background Knowledge for Academic Achievement: Research on What Works in Schools. Alexandria, Virginia: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

McLaughlin, M. (2015). Content area reading: Teaching and learning for college and career readiness (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson.

Reed, D. K., PhD. (2017). What can teachers do to improve students' comprehension of content-area text? Retrieved August 10, 2019, from https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/sec-rdng2/cresource/q3/p10/

Rothstein, D. & Santana, L. (2011) Make Just One Change: Teach Students to Ask Their Own Questions. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press.

Short, K. G., Burke, C. L., & Harste, J. C. (1996). Creating classrooms for authors and inquirers. Portsmouth: Heinemann.