More on Reading Comprehension

The Ticket to the Future

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In our last edition, we highlighted three reading comprehension strategies that can be used in a variety of classroom settings and content areas.  Determining Importance in Non-Fiction Text and Synthesizing are the most complex of the strategies that help your students think critically and understand text as they read it.  It is best to work on Making Connections, Questioning, and Visualizing and Inferring before tackling these vital comprehension strategies.

• Determine Importance in Non-Fiction Text – show students how to sift and sort essential information to make sense of reading and find the important ideas.
  • Use sticky notes to indicate information the reader knows = K and has just learned = L
  • Use two column chart to identify non-fiction conventions like headings and sub-headings, typeface, cue words, graphics, text structures and give examples from text
  • Use two column chart to record questions prior to reading and answers during reading
  • Use a set number of sticky notes to code important information with a *
  • Discriminate between important ideas and details with a two or three column chart.  Column one records the topic/important idea, column two includes the details related to the topic/important idea, and column three gives the student’s response to the topic/important idea and details.
• Synthesizing Information – show students how to take pieces of information and combine them with our own knowledge to discern patterns and develop a new visual or idea.
  • Have teacher model writing the essence of one or two paragraphs in his/her own words, then ask students to work in pairs to practice writing phrases that give a brief description of the most important information
  • Use a three column format to compare and/or contrast the content/concept.  The first column lists the properties of one content topic/concept, the third column lists the properties of the second content topic/concept, and the middle column provides space to record information on similarities or differences
  • Divide a notebook paper in half horizontally and use the top half to summarize the important ideas in the text briefly, then use the bottom half to record the reader’s personal response to the text
  • Use a two column format to have the reader list story events in the first column and his/her thinking about these events.  In the second column, students record their questions, predictions, important ideas and visual images as they read
  • Ask students to record the comprehension strategies they use and monitor their thinking as it evolves over time
  • Use provocative and disturbing texts, such as fiction and non-fiction books on the Holocaust and ask students to record their questions as they read and view photographs then use their own questions to generate conversations an synthesize their thoughts and feelings

For more information and explanation about these strategies, please read Mosaic of Thought by Keen and Zimmermann and Strategies that Work by Harvey and Goudvis.  We also recommend When Kids Can’t Read by Beers.