During Reading Strategies to Assess Student Understanding
Elizabeth Zandstra
Senior Instructional Designer | Curriculum Developer | I create meaningful learning experiences that engage the learner, change behavior, and meet organizational goals.
If you can't understand what you're reading, what's the point?
Students may be able to read a text aloud with perfect fluency and not be able to understand what they just read.
That's where during reading strategies come in.
If you’re here for the corresponding worksheets, click HERE .
Reason #1 - Increasing Reading Comprehension
During reading strategies (along with pre-reading strategies and after-reading strategies) help students not just read a text, but comprehend it, which can be especially helpful for English language learners.
These comprehension strategies help students share their thoughts to better understand them.
Reason #2 - Increasing Student Engagement
Not only do these comprehension strategies help students understand the text, but they also help them stay engaged. When students have a purpose for reading or a task they have to complete alongside the reading, they are more likely to actively interact with the material.
Using a during-reading strategy turns reading from a passive activity to a dynamic one.
Reason #3 - Enhanced Critical Thinking
Using during-reading strategies can help students with their critical thinking skills. Instead of passively listening to a story, students are expected to think critically about the text.
Reason #4 - Retention of Information
Students who passively listen to or read a story may have trouble remembering what they read. However, during-reading strategies get students involved in reading and therefore help them retain the information they learn. Developing a consistent strategy focus while employing during-reading strategies can significantly improve information retention.
Reason #5 - Note-Taking Skills
Note-taking is a skill that students need to learn to develop. Many during-reading strategies give students opportunities to practice taking notes with a purpose in mind.
During Reading Strategies
There are numerous during-reading strategies that you can use to improve your reading lesson.
Click HERE for worksheets, graphic organizers, and templates to go with the strategies below.
1. Cloze Reading
This strategy enhances reading comprehension by focusing on context and vocabulary. It encourages critical thinking as students must infer missing words based on surrounding text.
Implementation:
2. Column Notes
Column notes allow students to practice note-taking skills by encouraging them to extract key points. This strategy also enhances organization and understanding of text structure.
Implementation:
3. Directed Reading Thinking Activity
This strategy cultivates critical thinking by engaging students in active prediction and assessment of their predictions. It encourages interaction with the text for deeper comprehension.
The Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) strategy consists of 3 parts:
4. Graphic Organizers
Graphic organizers enhance critical thinking by helping students organize and connect information. It also improves comprehension by visualizing relationships and main ideas.
Graphic organizers, such as concept maps, Venn diagrams, and story webs, are a great way to provide a visual framework for students to organize the information from the text. Have students fill in the graphic organizer with relevant information from the text as they are reading to better understand it.
If you need graphic organizers for writing, check out THIS OPTION . If you’d like graphic organizers for the strategies listed in this post, go HERE .
5. The I-Chart Procedure
The I-Chart Procedure helps students practice note-taking and research skills.
To effectively implement this technique, have students follow these steps:
6. KWL (Know-Want-Learn)
KWL, or Know-Want-Learn, helps students organize their prior knowledge, questions, and learning. This strategy is not just a during-reading strategy, but can be used throughout the reading process.
Implementation:
7. Opinion-Proof Chart
This strategy develops critical thinking by requiring students to support their opinions with textual evidence. It also improves comprehension and argumentative skills.
Implementation:
8. Paragraph Shrinking
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This strategy enhances summarization skills and understanding of main ideas. It encourages critical thinking by requiring students to prioritize information.
Implementation:
9. Questioning the Author
Questioning the Author promotes critical thinking about the text's construction. It develops critical thinking skills by encouraging students to analyze the text's deeper meanings and authorial decisions.
Encourage students to ask questions about the author's choices, writing style, and intent.
Here are some examples of questions to ask:
10. Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal teaching develops critical thinking through peer-led discussions. It also improves comprehension as students actively engage with the text and its concepts.
Implementation:
First, separate students into small groups of 3-4. Give each student one of the following roles:
Next, have students read a section of the text at a time. Then, have them stop to discuss the text.
Then, students will rotate jobs and continue with the next section of text until the text is completely read.
If you’re looking for worksheets to implement these strategies, go HERE .
11. Say Something
"Say Something" enhances engagement by promoting regular interaction with the text and it develops critical thinking and comprehension.
Implementation:
Provide your students with sentence stems to help them come up with something to say. You may be surprised with some of the brilliant ideas they come up with.
12. Story Maps
A story map enhances comprehension by aiding visualization of story structure. A story map also develops critical thinking by analyzing story components.
Have students use a story map template to visually outline the story elements while reading narrative texts.
13. Text Coding
This strategy helps develop active reading habits and note-taking skills. It enhances critical thinking by encouraging interaction with the text.
Text coding involves teaching students to annotate the text using symbols, highlighting, and underlining to mark important information, connections, questions, and unfamiliar vocabulary.
For example, students might put a question mark next to something they don't understand or an exclamation mark next to something they found interesting. They can put a heart next to a favorite part or circle an unfamiliar word.
14. Text Structure (Skim & Scan)
Determining the text structure helps students with reading comprehension because students can better understand the relationship between the main idea and details. It also develops critical thinking by analyzing how authors present information.
Teach students to identify different text structures to better understand how the information is organized. Then, you can use a graphic organizer to take notes on the text based on the text structure.
Here are some of the most common text structures:
15. Think Aloud
During this strategy instruction comes from modeling. A teacher demonstration of thinking aloud can help make proficient readers because it shows students how to mentally process a text.
As you read aloud to your students, think out loud too.
Say things like:
After you model this for students, give them the opportunity to practice.
Thinking aloud helps students with reading comprehension because it encourages them to take an active part in reading.
Conclusion
Having a purpose while reading helps students stay focused during a reading lesson. These strategies provide students with this purpose.
Reading comprehension, engagement, critical thinking, information retention, and note-taking skills are critical factors for success.
If you’d like worksheets that help you implement these during-reading strategies, check out THESE .
Further Reading
Learning about active learning strategies HERE .
Senior Instructional Designer | Curriculum Developer | I create meaningful learning experiences that engage the learner, change behavior, and meet organizational goals.
8 个月https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/During-Reading-Strategies-for-Reading-Comprehension-12-Engaging-Activities-10722716