Comprehension Strategies
Reading strategies are the deliberate, cognitive acts used by readers to derive meaning from the text. Competent, proficient readers use a wide range of strategies and are more flexible when using them than less proficient readers. Proficient readers also know when and how to use a strategy and how to integrate it with other strategies. According to Pritchard and Breneman (2000) Strategic Readers typically exhibit the following characteristics:
•They are actively involved in the reading.
•They often have a running dialogue with the text.
•They visualize scenes and characters.
•They make predictions about what they are reading.
•They relate their prior knowledge to the topic they are reading about.
•They read with a specific purpose in mind.
•They monitor their comprehension, and when necessary, apply appropriate fix-up strategies (metacognition).
•They accept ambiguity and push on; that is, when they come to a portion of the text that they do not understand and they go on, confident that they will eventually figure it out or be able to comprehend the overall meaning.
Research in strategy instruction furnishes educators with the information they need to help student with difficulties comprehending. It is our responsibility to first understand these strategies ourselves as teachers and then provide on-going strategy lessons for our students.
This handbook is created for students in Kindergarten through eighth grade, because strategy instruction should be integrated into comprehension instruction at all grade levels.
The strategy lessons are divided into six categories: Vocabulary, Activating Prior Knowledge, Determining Most Important Idea and Inferring, Creating Visual & Other Sensory Images, Retelling and Synthesizing, and Generating Questions. There is a brief introduction to each category along with the contents and web sites for that category. The subheadings in the Lesson Plans for each category are coded with the color that is used for that category.
Each Lesson plan is organized with these features: a brief description of each strategy, rationale, instructional procedures, helpful hints, relevant standards, and further resources with an overhead, student chart or prompt following most lesson plans.
This handbook is intended to be a useful resource for educators to secure literacy for all students. If you have any questions, you can email me at [email protected]
Sincerely,
Aileen Carew
Reading Specialist
Bel Aire Elementary School
Tiburon, CA
•They are actively involved in the reading.
•They often have a running dialogue with the text.
•They visualize scenes and characters.
•They make predictions about what they are reading.
•They relate their prior knowledge to the topic they are reading about.
•They read with a specific purpose in mind.
•They monitor their comprehension, and when necessary, apply appropriate fix-up strategies (metacognition).
•They accept ambiguity and push on; that is, when they come to a portion of the text that they do not understand and they go on, confident that they will eventually figure it out or be able to comprehend the overall meaning.
Research in strategy instruction furnishes educators with the information they need to help student with difficulties comprehending. It is our responsibility to first understand these strategies ourselves as teachers and then provide on-going strategy lessons for our students.
This handbook is created for students in Kindergarten through eighth grade, because strategy instruction should be integrated into comprehension instruction at all grade levels.
The strategy lessons are divided into six categories: Vocabulary, Activating Prior Knowledge, Determining Most Important Idea and Inferring, Creating Visual & Other Sensory Images, Retelling and Synthesizing, and Generating Questions. There is a brief introduction to each category along with the contents and web sites for that category. The subheadings in the Lesson Plans for each category are coded with the color that is used for that category.
Each Lesson plan is organized with these features: a brief description of each strategy, rationale, instructional procedures, helpful hints, relevant standards, and further resources with an overhead, student chart or prompt following most lesson plans.
This handbook is intended to be a useful resource for educators to secure literacy for all students. If you have any questions, you can email me at [email protected]
Sincerely,
Aileen Carew
Reading Specialist
Bel Aire Elementary School
Tiburon, CA