Reading strategies: Previewing

What It Is

Previewing is a strategy that readers use to recall prior knowledge and set a purpose for reading.
It calls for readers to skim a text before reading, looking for various features and information that
will help as they return to read it in detail later.

Why Use It

According to research, previewing a text can improve comprehension (Graves, Cooke, &
LaBerge, 1983, cited in Paris et al., 1991).

Previewing a text helps readers prepare for what they are about to read and set a purpose for
reading.

The genre determines the reader’s methods for previewing:

 Readers preview nonfiction to find out what they know about the subject and what they
want to find out. It also helps them understand how an author has organized information.
 Readers preview biographies to determine something about the person in the biography,
the time period, and some possible places and events in the life of the person.
 Readers preview fiction to determine characters, setting, and plot. They also preview to
make predictions about story’s problems and solutions.

When To Use It

Previewing is a strategy readers use before and during reading.

How To Use It

When readers preview a text before they read, they first ask themselves whether the text is
fiction or nonfiction.

 If the text is fiction or biography, readers look at the title, chapter headings, introductory
notes, and illustrations for a better understanding of the content and possible settings or
events.
 If the text is nonfiction, readers look at text features and illustrations (and their captions)
to determine subject matter and to recall prior knowledge, to decide what they know
about the subject. Previewing also helps readers figure out what they don’t know and
what they want to find out.
How to preview

 Previewing a text is similar to watching a movie preview.

 Think of previewing a text as similar to watching a movie trailer. A successful preview

for either a movie or a reading experience will capture what the overall work is going to
be about, generally what expectations the audience can have of the experience to come,
how the piece is structured, and what kinds of patterns will emerge.

 Previewing engages your prior experience and asks you to think about what you already
know about this subject matter, or this author, or this publication. Then anticipate what
new information might be ahead of you when you return to read this text more closely.

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active reading strategies: making connections

What is Making Connections?

Making connections is linking what the students read, to what they already know.  This strategy
helps students comprehend text, by activating their prior knowledge and making meaning of
what they read. A good readers make connections as he/she reads.  They can relate the book to
their personal experiences (text-to-self), to information from other texts (text-to-text), or from
what they know about the world (text-to-world).  

How to make connections

Text-to-Self
  What does this remind me of in my life?
 How is this different from my life?
 How does this relate to my life?
 What were my feelings when I read this?

Text-to-Text

 What does this remind me of in another book I've read?

 How is this text similar/ different to other things I've read?
 Have I read about something like this before?
Text-to-World

 What does this remind me of in the real world?

 How is this book similar/ different to things that happen in the real world?
 How did that part relate to the world around me?

Summarizing

Summarizing is when we take large selections of text and reduce them, making sure to include
the main points and the general idea of the article . The purpose of this strategy is to pull out the
main ideas out of the passage and focus on the key details.

Examples of summarizing

An example of where this strategy could be found would be in a textbook. At the end of almost
every chapter there is a short half-page summary that gives you the main ideas that was
introduced within the chapter.

Another example of summarizing in the real world would be if you read a story out loud to
students and stop in the middle of the story and ask a student what has happened so far in the
book. The student is summarizing it verbally to you and giving you an idea of what the student
as learned thus far. A student could summarize a text both orally and visually.

In this story a young boy named Rami Johnson tells the tale of how his father, Sun-Sun,
has lost his entire fortune and business to his chief rival, Jake Hibberston. At the story's
conclusion, Sun-Sun sacrifices his life for Hibberston's. Sun-Sun Johnson, who once was
very wealthy, has a habit of making very bad business decisions. These decisions cost him
his money, his home and his family, with the exception being his son Rami. He loses these
to the benefit of rival businessman Jake Hibberston, who claims Sun-Sun's home and
marries Sun-Sun's ex-wife. Due to his losses, Sun-Sun must move his son and himself to a
new home, River Bottom. While they are there, Sun-Sun begins to start over. He goes on to
live a fulfilling life despite continuing to make poor business choices. One day, a gut feeling
takes Sun-Sun to Hibberston's home, where he sees that a fire has broken out. Sun-Sun
saves Hibberston's life, but dies in the blaze.

This summary was about "My Father, Sun-Sun Johnson" that was written by C. Everard
Palmer in 1984.