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Seven Strategies to Teach

Students Text Comprehension

Comprehension strategies are conscious plans sets of steps that


good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy
instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are
in control of their own reading comprehension. These seven strategies
have research-based evidence for improving text comprehension.

1. Monitoring comprehension
Students who are good at monitoring their comprehensions know
when they understand what they read and when they do not. They
have strategies to "fix" problems in their understanding as the
problems arise. Research shows that instruction, even in the early
grades, can help students become better at monitoring their
comprehension.
Comprehension monitoring instruction teaches students to:

Be aware of what they do understand


Identify what they do not understand

Use
appropriate
comprehension

strategies

to

resolve

problems

in

2. Metacognition
Metacognition can be defined as "thinking about thinking." Good
readers use metacognitive strategies to think about and have control
over their reading. Before reading, they might clarify their purpose for
reading and preview the text. During reading, they might monitor
their understanding, adjusting their reading speed to fit the difficulty
of the text and "fixing" any comprehension problems they have. After
reading, they check their understanding of what they read.

Students may use several comprehension monitoring strategies:

Identify where the difficulty occurs


"I don't understand the second paragraph on page 76."

Identify what the difficulty is


"I don't get what the author means when she says, 'Arriving in
America was a milestone in my grandmother's life.'"

Restate the difficult sentence or passage in their own words


"Oh, so the author means that coming to America was a very
important event in her grandmother's life."

Look back through the text


"The author talked about Mr. McBride in Chapter 2, but I don't
remember much about him. Maybe if I reread that chapter, I can
figure out why he's acting this way now."

Look forward in the text for information that might help them to
resolve the difficulty
"The text says, 'The groundwater may form a stream or pond or
create a wetland. People can also bring groundwater to the
surface.' Hmm, I don't understand how people can do that Oh,
the next section is called 'Wells.' I'll read this section to see if it
tells how they do it."

3. Graphic and semantic organizers


Graphic organizers illustrate concepts and relationships between
concepts in a text or using diagrams. Graphic organizers are known
by different names, such as maps, webs, graphs, charts, frames, or
clusters.
Regardless of the label, graphic organizers can help readers focus on
concepts and how they are related to other concepts. Graphic
organizers help students read and understand textbooks and picture
books.
Graphic organizers can:

Help students focus on text structure "differences between


fiction and nonfiction" as they read
Provide students with tools they can use to examine and show
relationships in a text

Help students write well-organized summaries of a text

Here are some examples of graphic organizers:

Venn-Diagrams (29K PDF)*


Used to compare or contrast information from two sources. For
example, comparing two Dr. Seuss books.

Storyboard/Chain of Events (29K PDF)*


Used to order or sequence events within a text. For example,
listing the steps for brushing your teeth.

Story Map (19K PDF)*


Used to chart the story structure. These can be organized into
fiction and nonfiction text structures. For example, defining
characters, setting, events, problem, resolution in a fiction
story; however in a nonfiction story, main idea and details
would be identified.

Cause/Effect (13K PDF)*


Used to illustrate the cause and effects told within a text. For
example, staying in the sun too long may lead to a painful
sunburn.

>Find more free graphic organizers.

4. Answering questions
Questions can be effective because they:

Give students a purpose for reading


Focus students' attention on what they are to learn

Help students to think actively as they read

Encourage students to monitor their comprehension

Help students to review content and relate what they have


learned to what they already know

The Question-Answer Relationship strategy (QAR) encourages


students to learn how to answer questions better. Students are asked
to indicate whether the information they used to answer questions
about the text was textually explicit information (information that was
directly stated in the text), textually implicit information (information

that was implied in the text), or information entirely from the


student's own background knowledge.
There are four different types of questions:

"Right There"
Questions found right in the text that ask students to find the
one right answer located in one place as a word or a sentence
in the passage.
Example: Who is Frog's friend? Answer: Toad

"Think and Search"


Questions based on the recall of facts that can be found directly
in the text. Answers are typically found in more than one place,
thus requiring students to "think" and "search" through the
passage to find the answer.
Example: Why was Frog sad? Answer: His friend was leaving.

"Author and You"


Questions require students to use what they already know, with
what they have learned from reading the text. Student's must
understand the text and relate it to their prior knowledge before
answering the question.
Example: How do think Frog felt when he found Toad? Answer: I
think that Frog felt happy because he had not seen Toad in a
long time. I feel happy when I get to see my friend who lives far
away.

"On Your Own"


Questions are answered based on a students prior knowledge
and experiences. Reading the text may not be helpful to them
when answering this type of question.
Example: How would you feel if your best friend moved away?
Answer: I would feel very sad if my best friend moved away
because I would miss her.

5. Generating questions
By generating questions, students become aware of whether they can
answer the questions and if they understand what they are reading.
Students learn to ask themselves questions that require them to

combine information from different segments of text. For example,


students can be taught to ask main idea questions that relate to
important information in a text.

6. Recognizing story structure


In story structure instruction, students learn to identify the categories
of content (characters, setting, events, problem, resolution). Often,
students learn to recognize story structure through the use of story
maps.
Instruction
in
story
structure
improves
students'
comprehension.

7. Summarizing
Summarizing requires students to determine what is important in
what they are reading and to put it into their own words. Instruction in
summarizing helps students:

Identify or generate main ideas


Connect the main or central ideas

Eliminate unnecessary information

Remember what they read

Effective
comprehension
instruction is explicit

strategy

Research shows that explicit teaching techniques are particularly


effective for comprehension strategy instruction. In explicit
instruction, teachers tell readers why and when they should use
strategies, what strategies to use, and how to apply them. The steps
of explicit instruction typically include direct explanation, teacher
modeling ("thinking aloud"), guided practice, and application.

Direct explanation
The teacher explains to students why the strategy helps
comprehension and when to apply the strategy.

Modeling
The teacher models, or demonstrates, how to apply the
strategy, usually by "thinking aloud" while reading the text that
the students are using.

Guided practice
The teacher guides and assists students as they learn how and
when to apply the strategy.

Application
The teacher helps students practice the strategy until they can
apply it independently.

Effective comprehension strategy instruction can be accomplished


through cooperative learning, which involves students working
together as partners or in small groups on clearly defined tasks.
Cooperative learning instruction has been used successfully to teach
comprehension strategies. Students work together to understand
texts, helping each other learns and apply comprehension strategies.
Teachers help students learn to work in groups. Teachers also provide
modeling of the comprehension strategies.

7 CRITICAL READING STRATEGIES


1. Previewing: Learning about a text before really reading it.
Previewing enables readers to get a sense of what the text is
about and how it is organized before reading it closely. This
simple strategy includes seeing what you can learn from the
headnotes or other introductory material, skimming to get an
overview of the content and organization, and identifying the
rhetorical situation.
2. Contextualizing: Placing a text in its historical, biographical,
and cultural contexts.
When you read a text, you read it through the lens of your own
experience. Your understanding of the words on the page and
their significance is informed by what you have come to know
and value from living in a particular time and place. But the
texts you read were all written in the past, sometimes in a
radically different time and place. To read critically, you need to
contextualize, to recognize the differences between your
contemporary values and attitudes and those represented in
the text.
3. Questioning to understand and remember: Asking questions
about the content.

As students, you are accustomed (I hope) to teachers asking


you questions about your reading. These questions are
designed to help you understand a reading and respond to it
more fully, and often this technique works. When you need to
understand and use new information though it is most beneficial
if you write the questions, as you read the text for the first time.
With this strategy, you can write questions any time, but in
difficult academic readings, you will understand the material
better and remember it longer if you write a question for every
paragraph or brief section. Each question should focus on a
main idea, not on illustrations or details, and each should be
expressed in your own words, not just copied from parts of the
paragraph.
4.
Reflecting on challenges to your beliefs and values:
Examining your personal responses.
The reading that you do for this class might challenge your
attitudes, your unconsciously held beliefs, or your positions on
current issues. As you read a text for the first time, mark an X in
the margin at each point where you feel a personal challenge to
your attitudes, beliefs, or status. Make a brief note in the margin
about what you feel or about what in the text created the
challenge. Now look again at the places you marked in the text
where you felt personally challenged. What patterns do you
see?
5. Outlining and summarizing: Identifying the main ideas and
restating them in your own words.
Outlining and summarizing are especially helpful strategies for
understanding the content and structure of a reading selection.
Whereas outlining reveals the basic structure of the text,
summarizing synopsizes a selection's main argument in brief.
Outlining may be part of the annotating process, or it may be
done separately (as it is in this class). The key to both outlining
and summarizing is being able to distinguish between the main
ideas and the supporting ideas and examples. The main ideas
form the backbone, the strand that holds the various parts and
pieces of the text together. Outlining the main ideas helps you
to discover this structure. When you make an outline, don't use
the text's exact words.
Summarizing begins with outlining, but instead of merely listing
the main ideas, a summary recomposes them to form a new
text. Whereas outlining depends on a close analysis of each
paragraph, summarizing also requires creative synthesis.
Putting ideas together again -- in your own words and in a
condensed form -- shows how reading critically can lead to
deeper understanding of any text.

6. Evaluating an argument: Testing the logic of a text as well as


its credibility and emotional impact.
All writers make assertions that they want you to accept as
true. As a critical reader, you should not accept anything on
face value but to recognize every assertion as an argument that
must be carefully evaluated. An argument has two essential
parts: a claim and support. The claim asserts a conclusion -- an
idea, an opinion, a judgment, or a point of view -- that the writer
wants you to accept. The support includes reasons (shared
beliefs, assumptions, and values) and evidence (facts,
examples, statistics, and authorities) that give readers the basis
for accepting the conclusion. When you assess an argument,
you are concerned with the process of reasoning as well as its
truthfulness (these are not the same thing). At the most basic
level, in order for an argument to be acceptable, the support
must be appropriate to the claim and the statements must be
consistent with one another.
7.
Comparing and contrasting related readings: Exploring
likenesses and differences between texts to understand them better.
Many of the authors we read are concerned with the same issues or
questions, but approach how to discuss them in different ways. Fitting
a text into an ongoing dialectic helps increase understanding of why
an author approached a particular issue or question in the way he or
she did.

TOPIC SENTENCE

A topic sentence is a sentence that captures the meaning of the entire


paragraph or group of sentences. It tells what the passage is mainly about.
First, try to find a topic sentence in the paragraph or section of the text to use
as a topic sentence. If you cannot find one, then write your own topic sentence
by combining important ideas from several sentences. In the following
example, the underlined sentence forms a good topic sentence for this
passage:
The Egyptian civilization was one of the most important
cultures of the ancient world. This civilization flourished
along the rich banks and delta of the Nile River for many

centuries, from 3200 B.C. until the Roman conquest in 30


B.C....
Topic sentences also need to relate back to the thesis of the essay. The thesis statement
is like a road map that will tell the reader or listener where you are going with this
information or how you are treating it.

TOPIC SENTENCES AND CONTROLLING IDEAS


Every topic sentence will have a topic and a controlling idea. The controlling idea
shows the direction the paragraph will take.
Here are some examples:

Topic Sentence: There are many reasons why pollution in ABC Town is the
worst in the world.
The topic is pollution in ABC Town is the worst in the world and the
controlling idea is many reasons.

Topic Sentence: To be an effective CEO requires certain characteristics.


The topic is To be an effective CEO and the controlling idea is certain
characteristics.

Topic Sentence: There are many possible contributing factors to global warming.
The topic is "contributing factors to global warming" and the controlling factor
is "many reasons."

Topic Sentence: Fortune hunters encounter many difficulties when exploring a


shipwreck.
The topic is exploring a shipwreck and the controlling idea is many
difficulties.

Topic Sentence: Dogs make wonderful pets because they help you to live
longer.
The topic is "dogs make wonderful pets" and the controlling idea is "because
they help you to live longer."

Topic Sentence: Crime in poverty-stricken areas occurs as a result of a systemic


discrimination.

The topic is "crime in poverty stricken areas" and the controlling idea is
"systemic discrimination."

Topic Sentence: Teen pregnancy may be prevented by improved education.


The topic is "teen pregnancy may be prevented" and the controlling idea is
"improving education."

Topic Sentence: Cooking requires a number of different skills.


The topic is "cooking" and the controlling idea is "many different skills."

Topic Sentence: It is important to be ready before buying a house.


The topic is "before buying a house" and the controlling idea is the importance
of being ready.

Topic Sentence: Graduating from high school is important for many different
reasons.
The topic is "graduating from high school" and the controlling idea is "many
different reasons."

Topic Sentence: Having a first child is difficult because of the significant


adjustments in your life.
The topic is "having a first child" and the controlling idea is "significant
adjustments in your life."

Topic Sentence: Remodeling a kitchen successfully requires research and a good


eye.
The topic is "remodeling a kitchen" and the controlling idea is "requires research
and a good eye."

As you can see, the topic sentence provides a focus for the reader or listener. It tells
what the paragraph is about. The controlling idea helps the audience understand what
you are saying.

SUPPORTING IDEAS OR SENTENCES

What are supporting sentences?


They come after the topic sentence, making up the body of a
paragraph.
What do they do?
They give details to develop and support the main idea of the
paragraph.
How do I write them?
You should give supporting facts, details, and examples.
Example:
There are three reasons why Canada is one of the best countries in
the world. First, Canada has an excellent health care system.
All Canadians have access to medical services at a reasonable
price. Second, Canada has a high standard of education.
Students are taught by well-trained teachers and are
encouraged to continue studying at university. Finally,
Canada's cities are clean and efficiently managed. Canadian
cities have many parks and lots of space for people to live. As
a result, Canada is a desirable place to live.

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