Intelligent Thinkers

We Blog to inspire teachers. “The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to think, than what to think.” James Beattie

Monday, September 22, 2014

Use This 3-part Process to Improve Reading Comprehension

These six proven reading comprehension strategies from Strategies That Work, Mosaic of Thought and Reading with Meaning, work well when taught explicitly to students.  


The Six Reading Comprehension Strategies

  1. Making Connections
  2. Questioning
  3. Visualizing
  4. Inferring
  5. Determining Importance
  6. Synthesizing
When practiced and applied to reading all types of content, students internalize what they read and begin to read better on their own. Teaching these strategies is especially important for young readers, for struggling readers and for ESL students. They also enable critical thinking and help all students understand on a deeper level what they read.

But what about those students who do read well and are looking for a way to comprehend large chunks of information in a short period of time?

Try using these reading strategies within this 3-step process. The process works well when trying to remember historical figures and the significance of their contributions throughout history.


THE PROCESS


1. Read the character’s name.
  • Read it out loud. Sound it out if you need to. Look for phonetic markings next to the name in parenthesis, in footnotes, or in indices. 
  • Make a connection. Ask yourself if you have ever heard a name like this. What sounds familiar? What makes this name different than anything you have heard? 
  • Question the origin of the name. Is the name a family name? Look for prefixes such as Mac or van or von; and suffixes such as son. Is this name from a royal family? Look for roman numeral indicators such as IV and XII that suggest lineage. Does the name indicate a warrior type? Look for descriptors such as The Lion-hearted and The Impaler following the first name.

2. Read what the character does.
  • Question the significance of the actions. What affect do they have on others, on countries, on changing the course of history? Determine the importance of the actions. How did the actions help or hurt others, countries, and the course of history? 
  • Make inferences about how opposite actions may have changed others, countries and the course of history. 
  • Make connections. Think about what you see in society today that may be similar to the actions of this character or how your own behavior has been affected by these actions.

3. Imagine the character doing it.
  • Envision what the character actually does. Imagine him/her leading a charge into battle, taking a stand against injustice with a sit-in or a boycott, and visualize character interactions who followed these characters or fought against them. 
  • Use your five senses to smell the sweat of the horses, hear the galloping on the fields and the clanking of swords, firing of guns and cannons, and the agony of  injury; smell the fires burning, feel the fire hose spraying water, hear the hateful shouts and terrified screams; or feel the exaltation of group consensus and the thrill of victory, or hear the applause of recognition and the rallying cries for freedom. 
  • Make connections. What have you seen, read about or been a part of similar to some of the actions taken by these characters. 
  • What is the significance of these actions on the world today? Reenact these actions in your mind step-by-step. What could have been done differently? Better? Why are these actions important to know about today?

Following this 3-step process holds knowledge in short-term memory long enough to use the six reading strategies to plug the information into long-term memory. The process will help students learn a lot of information fast, but it will also help develop a deeper understanding and appreciation for the relevance of how historical characters and events have shaped societies and world events.

*********************************************************************************

Adapt this process to fit with the Project Based Learning (PBL) unit from GoTeachGo, Comic-con; A New Series of Comics for the Sunday Funnies. In this unit, students apply what they learn in literature about characters and their actions and generate their interpretations within a comic strip structure. The unit can be adapted, however, to include historical characters as well, covering the nonfiction requirement of ELA Common Core State Standards. 


 This PBL unit, like all those from GoTeachGo, can be purchased on TeachersPayTeachers.

 Be sure to visit Kate's TeachersPayTeachers site for lots of great PBL units.

*********************************************************************************
Recommended Reading:
Strategies That Work, Mosaic of Thought and Reading with Meaning

Illustration credit: St. Joan of Arc School
*********************************************************************************
Posted by at
Labels: , , , , , , , , , ,