04/09/2019 Strategies - Teaching Reading Comprehension
Teaching Reading Comprehension
Reading Comprehension Instruction Strategies
Resources and References
Comprehension strategies:
Six strategies have been identified has being essential for improving reading comprehension. These are: making connections, predicting,
questioning, monitoring, visualising and summarizing.
Making connections:
Making connections to the texts they are reading, deepens students'
comprehension and , if the connection is to something in their lives,
personalises it. It 'involves building a bridge between what is in the
mind of the reader and what is in the book'(Hill, 2012, p.222)
Readers make three basic types of connections: text-to-self, text-to-text
and text-to-world.
Text -to-self connections: where the reader is able to make a
personal connection to the text, that is if the text reminds the reader of
something they have experienced, somewhere they have visited,
someone they know or emotions they may have felt. This results in a
better understanding of the text.
Text-to-text connections: where the reader makes a connection
between the text they are reading and one they have read previously.
Text-to-text connections can assist readers with determining the type
and purpose of text.
Text-to-world connections: where the reader makes a connection
between the text being read and something that is occurring or has
occurred in the world.
Teaching ideas to support making connections:
Coding strategy - as students read, they stop at each paragraph and
indicate their reactions to what they read using symbol codes
representing, I already knew this, this is new, or I don't understand.
After coding, students share with a partner, comparing and justifying
their codes.
Connection stems - after reading a text or passage aloud, students
are shown a sentence stem, for example, That reminds me of....and the
teacher thinks aloud the process used to complete it. Link to text-to-
self, text-to-text and text-to-world connections.
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Metacognition & Think-alouds
Predicting:
Predictions encourage active reading and maintain student interest,
whether or not the predictions are correct. 'As they read, good readers
frequently make predictions about what is to come' (Duke & Pearson,
2002, p.205).
Making predictions at the text level involves the reader considering
what they expect the text to be about and/or what they expect will
happen within the text. Predictions can also be made at the word level,
by asking students to predict what words they may read in the text.
Teaching ideas to support making predictions:
See Think Wonder - is a thinking routine, which can be used prior to
reading a text. It involves showing the students the front cover of the
text or an illustration from the text and asking students to state what
they see in the illustration, what they think the story is about and what it
makes them wonder about the story. It encourages all students to
verbalise what they are thinking about a text before it is read.
Questioning:
Questioning students before, during and
after reading supports the development of
comprehension. Proficient readers ask
questions as they read. Questioning gives
purpose for the text and aids
comprehension as the reader is thinking
about, and seeking answers to their questions as they read (Winch &
Holliday, 2012).
Comprehension questions can be categorised as literal (requires recall
of information written directly in text), interpretive (requires reader to
interpret information and make inferences by reading between the
lines) and inferential (reader needs to think beyond the text and links
text meaning to prior knowledge).
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Teaching ideas to support questioning:

Monitoring:
Proficient readers are able to pause during reading to think about the
text being read and to assess their understanding, that is they are able
to self-monitor their reading. When students have self-monitoring
skills and have knowledge of how to use these skills and strategies,
they are then able to problem solve on their own and find meaning
even in complex texts.
When meaning becomes lost, readers can:
- slow down their reading
- reread the section were meaning was lost
- look at the words surrounding (before and after) an unknown word to
problem solve its meaning
- use a dictionary for word meanings
- take notes if ideas presented in the text are difficult and/or complex
Teaching ideas to support monitoring:
Bookmark technique - during reading students record specific
information on bookmarks, including the page and paragraph where
that information is found, as well as listing unknown words and/or
a sketch of the most interesting part. The completed bookmarks can
be used to support students in a discussion about the text.
Visualising:
Visualising brings the text to life, engages the imagination and uses all
of the senses (NSW Department of Education & Training, 2010).
There is the old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words, this
can be related to comprehension by stating 'a visual display helps
readers understand, organise and remember some of those thousand
words' (Duke & Pearson, 2002, p.218).
The use of graphic organisers can support visualisation. The Go Read
pdf file below contains samples of the many different types of graphic
organisers which can be used within the classroom. Graphic
organisers support the development of comprehension by allowing
readers to access and organise the information that they have read.
They can also be used as a tool for supporting thinking and discussions
about texts.
Generating questions - encourage students to generate their own
questions as they read.
Ask why or how questions - 'asking why or how questions causes
students to think more deeply about their reading, and fosters both
better comprehension and increased retention' (Gunning, 2010, as
cited in Gunning, 2012, p.195).
I wonder - encourage students to continue to wonder about a text
while they are reading. These 'I wonder' statements can then provide
structure for further reading about a topic.
Summarising:
When summarising a text, the reader identifies the most important
ideas from the text and then restates them in their own words. Inorder
to summarise information, readers are required to 'sift through large
units of text, differentiate important from unimportant ideas, and then
synthesise those ideas' (Duke & Pearson, 2002, p.220).
Retelling challenges students to aim for complete retention.
Teaching ideas to support summarising:
Partner retelling - after reading a story to the class, divide into two
groups: storytellers and listeners. Each group is to reread the story,
storytellers remind each other of the focus points for retell and listeners
reflect upon what the important parts of the story were. Pair each
storyteller with a listener to retell the story.
Pass around retells - working in small groups, each student is given a
piece of paper and everyone begins writing a retell of the story on their
own paper. All students to begin writing at the same time, after a set
amount of time students are to stop and pass their paper to the student
sitting on their right. Students will need to read what has been written
before continuing to write from that point. Continue until the paper is
returned to the original writer.

goread.pdf
Download File

Teaching ideas to support visualising:

Sketch to stretch - as a text (story or passage) is read, students
sketch their visualisation and after reading share in groups their
sketches and discuss the reasons behind their interpretation of the text.
Visual/graphic organisers - read through a text and note key
concepts and ideas on a visual/graphic organiser. Students could work
in groups and then share their ideas with the whole class.

Teaching idea activities sourced from NSW Department of Education and Training (2010).

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