Connections

The ultimate goal of reading is comprehension. Good readers have a purpose in mind and are actively engaged. There are many strategies support comprehension and most are done simultaneously:

Monitoring comprehension: Successful readers know when they understand a passage and when they don’t. When they don’t understand, they know to pause and utilize strategies to improve their understanding. Students need to:

Be aware of what they do understand
Identify what they do not understand
Use appropriate strategies to resolve problems in comprehension
- story maps
- summarizing
- think-alouds

• Using prior knowledge: Thinking about what is already known about the subject helps readers make connections between the story and their knowledge.

Metacognition- "thinking about thinking"
- know your purpose for reading
- check understanding as you read

• Making predictions: Good readers often make predictions as they read through a story, using both the knowledge they bring to a text as well as what they can derive from the text.

• Questioning: When children ask questions about what they read and subsequently search for answers, they are interacting with the text to construct meaning. Good questions are based on a child’s knowledge base and what further information she desires.

• Recognizing story structure: Children will understand a story better if they understand how it is organized (i.e., setting, plot, characters, and themes).

Questions are effective because:

they give students a purpose for reading
focus attention on what they are about to learn
help students think actively as they read
encourages students to monitor comprehension as they read
helps students to review and relate to the content

• Summarizing: When they summarize a story, readers determine the main idea and important information and use their own words to demonstrate a real understanding of the text.

Text-to-self - a connection between the text and something in your own life. Some examples are:

What does this remind me of in my life?

What is this similar to in my life?

How is this different from my life?

Has something like this ever happened to me?

How does this relate to my life?

What were my feelings when I read this?

Have I changed my thinking as a result of reading this?

What have I learned?