Strategies for Improving Reading Comprehension Skills PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS

By scaffolding reading instruction with various strategies, you will improve the reading abilities of most students, The explicit teaching of reading strategies helps students to become increasingly skillful at interpreting, understanding, and analyzing text.  As with any new skill, these reading strategies should be taught through a scaffolding method, which includes modeling the strategy, providing students with opportunities for guided practice with the strategy, and then having students independently apply the strategy. 

the eight most effective strategies are as follows:

• Comprehension monitoring
• Cooperative learning
• Graphic organizers
• Story structure
• Question answering
• Question generating
• Summarization
• Multiple Strategy

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS OF READING STRATEGIES

Comprehension monitoring

Reading activities can be divided into three categories, depending on when they take place: pre-reading, reading, and post-reading.

Pre-reading: Collecting and defining vocabulary terms from the text will assist students in understanding words that otherwise may interrupt their reading. It will also help them increase their vocabulary in a meaningful, relevant way. Students can record the terms in a notebook or on flash cards. Another strategy involves having students preview comprehension questions so that they can focus on answering those questions as they read.

Reading: Teachers can guide students' interaction with the text by asking questions about literary elements, having students present oral summaries of the plot, or asking them to collect details or write observations on post-it notes. If students have previewed comprehension questions, they can answer these questions as they read.

Post-reading: Summarizing (see below) is an effective strategy that can take many different forms.

Cooperative learning

Cooperative learning is a strategy that maximizes student engagement, reduces class tensions, and promotes student learning. Typically, students work in groups of four. If you plan to use cooperative learning frequently in classes, consider arranging your classroom to facilitate learning in small groups.

The following are examples of how students can work cooperatively to learn more about a narrative work of literature:

• Each group uses a plot diagram to locate and summarize a stage of plot development.
• Groups conference briefly with the teacher to ensure their answers are correct.
• Students reassemble into new groups comprising one "expert" from each of the previous groups.
• These new groups pool their expertise to fill out every stage of the plot diagram.
• The session concludes with a class discussion of the novel, short story, play, or narrative poem.

Graphic organizers and story structure

Graphic organizers, which provide a visual map for the reader, can be placed next to the text as learners read in groups or individually, aloud or silently. They are particularly useful in helping readers to understand the structure of a narrative or of an argument. Following are descriptions of three types of organizers.

Comparison/Contrast: These organizers can help students consider the similarities and differences between stories, plots, themes, and characters. An example of such an organizer is a Venn diagram (PDF), which consists of interlocking circles or ellipses. The area common to both circles shows similarities between two items, while the areas unique to each circle show differences between the items.

Hierarchy Diagram: This graphic organizer can assist students who are reading informational texts of all kinds, whether related to language arts or to other content areas. The hierarchy diagram (PDF) offers the opportunity to apply literary terms to the reading, make connections between the parts of a concept, or analyze the author's craft. For example, consider placing characterization at the top of the graphic organizer as the overarching concept. The next level of this graphic organizer can then be assigned to characters, and the last level can deal with methods of characterization, including the use of dialogue, author description, and action.

Matrix Diagram: This organizer is effective in representing comparisons and contrasts. For example, students can use the matrix diagram (PDF) to compare and contrast the styles of various authors by entering key elements of style at the top and then filling in the lower cells with the similar or different approaches of the authors they are considering.

Question answering

The typical approach to question answering is to answer comprehension questions upon completion of the selection, but questions can be a part of a reading lesson at many points. As mentioned before, previewing questions can help students focus their reading. In addition, story stems that prompt students to complete a question can organize a cooperative learning experience as students read. Partners can take turns using story stems to quiz one another on the reading.

Following are examples of typical story stems:

• Explain why….
• Explain how….
• How does…affect…?
• What is the meaning of…?
• Why is …important?
• What is the difference between … and…?

Question generating

Students can write questions about the story as a post-reading exercise. These questions can then be integrated into formal tests or informal questioning games. You might want to suggest that students generate questions by adapting sentences from the text. Students can also generate questions to identify their own uncertainties about the text. They can then try to answer these questions by consulting you or other students.

Summarizing

This is an effective strategy for readers who have difficulty remembering and writing about what they have read. A summary can take many forms, including travelogues, journals, double-entry journals, and letters. For example, students can create a travel itinerary that summarizes the action of a narrative, can write a journal from a particular character's point of view, can set up a double-entry journal about the theme of a work, or can summarize events in a letter that one character writes to another.

Multiple Strategy

This strategy addresses individual learning styles by having students use different media—such as text, images, or video—to analyze or comment on a work of literature. For example, readers can follow a procedure like this one:

• Begin analyzing a story by using a worksheet listing the elements to be identified.
• Use word processors and instructional software to create and fill in graphic organizers with clip art and fields of text.
• Refer to worksheets for definitions to be added to electronic graphic organizers.

If students have access to video cameras and editing software, they can also create videos that offer commentary on a literary work.

SUMMARY

Scaffolded learning experiences can support and improve the performance of students before, during, and after reading. Such experiences help students develop essential skills for understanding and extracting meaning from text and boost their performance on reading comprehension assessments. In addition, students who benefit from scaffolded learning are better able to function as independent readers and to express ideas in a variety of ways.

strategy is best used before reading (B), during reading (D), and/or after reading (A).

Annolighting A Text (D/A)
This active reading strategy links concept of highlighting key words and phrases in a text and annotating those highlights with marginal notes.  

When to use this strategy:

Before Reading
During Reading
After Reading

Targeted Reading Outcomes:

• Formulate questions in response to text
• Analyze and interpret elements of poetry or prose
• Draw conclusions and make inferences based on explicit (literal) and implicit (figurative) meaning

Purposes/Goals of Annolighting

• Capture main ideas / key concepts / details of a reading
• Target, reduce and distill the needed information from a text
• Improve efficiency in reading and reviewing text 
• Strengthen reading comprehension

Annotating A Text (D/A)
Annotating a text is an effective strategy to promote active and critical reading skills; this strategy provides a number useful acronyms that students can use to remember different elements of writer's craft when reading and annotating a tUse this strategy:

Before Reading
During Reading
After Reading

Targeted Reading Outcomes:

• Formulate questions in response to text
• Analyze and interpret elements of poetry or prose
• Draw conclusions and make inferences based on explicit (literal) and implicit (figurative) meaning

How could I use, adapt or differentiate it?

 

• Have students complete this activity individually or with a partner as a way to prepare for a discussion and/or a writing prompt.
• To differentiate, teachers can annotate some of the more difficult parts of a text to aid the students, begin the annotation with the entire class to get them started, or form heterogeneous or homogeneous groups based on skill levels and the teacher’s discretion for the best way to proceed.

Anticipation Guide (B)
Anticipation guides are typically used as a pre-reading strategy and help to engage students in thought and discussion about ideas and concepts that they will encounter in the text.
Checking out the Framework (B)
This strategy provides students with suggestions for previewing texts of different genre in order to read strategically based on their purposes for reading the text.
Collaborative Annotation (D/A)
This strategy engages students in a process of co-constructing their interpretations of a text through a collaborative annotation activity.
Conversations Across Time (B/D/A)
This reading strategy helps students to develop deeper insights by making connections between and across texts from different time periods in response to a common topic, theme, or essential question.
Dense Questioning (D/A)
The dense questioning strategy can be used to help students pose increasingly dense questions as they make text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world connections.
Frame of Reference (B/D/A)
The frame of reference strategy teaches students how to create a mental context for reading a passage; this is accomplished by helping students to consider what they know about a topic and how they know what they know.
Inferential Reading (D/A)
The inferential reading strategy provides a list of the various types of inferences that readers make while reading even seemingly straightforward text; recognizing that there are different types of inferences helps students to analyze text more consciously and strategically.
Interactive Notebook (B/D/A)
This highly adaptable strategy encourages students to use a two-column note-taking strategy.  In the right column, they take notes to synthesize essential ideas and information from a text, presentation, film etc.; in the left-hand column, they interact with the content in any way they choose (personal connections, illustrations, etc.).
Key Concept Synthesis (B/D/A)
The key concept synthesis strategy helps students to identify the most important ideas in a text, put those ideas into their own words, and then make connections between among these important ideas.
Listening to Voice (D/A)
This strategy helps students to analyze and interpret writer's voice through the annotation of a passage, with particular emphasis on dictions, tone, syntax, unity, coherence, and audience.
Metaphor Analysis (D/A)
This adaptable strategy teaches students how to analyze a complex metaphor and substantiate interpretive claims using textual evidence.
Parallel Note-taking (D/A)
The parallel note-taking strategy teaches students to recognize different organizational patterns for informational texts and then develop a note-taking strategy that parallels the organization of the text.
QAR: Question-Answer Relationships (B/D/A)
The QAR strategy helps students to identify the four Question-Answer Relationships that they are likely to encounter as they read texts and attempt to answer questions about what they have read.  These include "right there" questions, "think and search" questions, "author and you" questions, and "on my own" questions. 
Questions Only (B/D/A)
The questions only strategy teaches students how to pose questions about the texts they are reading and encourages them to read actively as they work to answer the questions they have posed.
RAFT: Role, Audience, Format, Topic (A)
This is a flexible post-reading strategy that helps students to analyze and reflect upon their reading through persona writing.  Based on suggestions provided by the teacher or generated by the class, students choose a Role, an Audience, a Format, and a Topic on which to write in response to their reading.
Reciprocal Teaching (B/D/A)
The reciprocal teaching strategy enables students to activate four different comprehension strategies - predicting, questioning, clarifying, summarizing - which they apply collaboratively to help each other understand a text they are reading.
Sociograms (D/A)
A sociogram is a visual representation of the relationships among characters in a literary text.  Students can make use of pictures, symbols, shapes, colors, and line styles to illustrate these relationships, to understand the traits of each character, and to analyze the emerging primary and secondary conflicts.
Think Aloud (B/D/A)
Skillful readers unconsciously use a range of strategies to make meaning from text.  The think aloud strategy involves modeling these strategies by "thinking aloud" while reading and responding to a text.  By making explicit for students what is implicit for more expert readers, it becomes possible for students develop and apply these strategies themselves.
Transactional Reading Journal (D)
The name of this reading strategy is inspired by the work of Louise Rosenblatt (1978), who explained reading as a transactional process that occurs between the text and the reader.  The Transactional Reading Journal builds on this concept (via Jude Ellis) and provides a flexible framework for engaging students in a process of active and personally meaningful interaction with a text.
Writer's Craft Seminar (B/D/A)
This reading strategy teaches students how to analyze text through close reading in order to formulate a interpretive thesis that is supported through assertions and textual evidence.  Students present their interpretations to the class through a seminar format.