Make and Confirm Predictions

Students are taught to use their prior knowledge to predict what will happen in the story.

This strategy gives the student a purpose for completing the text and teaches them that story results are sometimes unpredictable.

Make Connections.

Students are drawn into the text by relating its details to experiences in their own lives.

Research has shown this to be one of the most constructive ways to promote reading comprehension.

Create Mental Images.

By closing their eyes and imagining scenery, characters and action, students can expand the ways in which they draw meaning from a piece of text.

They create their own mental movies, which provides texture to their comprehension and further enhances their personal connection to the story.

Self Questioning.

Self questioning involves generating questions to guide thinking while reading. It helps students create their own motivation for reading.

The questions strategically pull out what the students are thinking, what they wonder, what they are curious about and what confuses them in the text. They write down these questions on the sticky notes to clarify on their own or with teacher assistance.

Determine Importance.

Students decide and remember what is important when they read. They look for the main idea, important details and sequence of events. This strategy assists students in identifying cause/effect and problem/solution. Students use the sticky notes throughout the text and write down the essential information to remember. Students should focus on first identifying important words, then important sentences and finally important concepts.

Author’s Message.

Here the students determine the author’s intention and apply that message to their own lives.

Teachers promote higher-level learning by encouraging the readers to analyze the message and make inferences to their own experiences.