reading comprehension

Strategies for Reading Comprehension

Comprehension, or extracting meaning from what you read, is the ultimate goal of reading.

​General Strategies for Reading Comprehension

• Using Prior Knowledge/Previewing

• Predicting

• Identifying the Main Idea and Summarization

• Questioning

• Making Inferences

Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Narrative Text

• Setting: When and where the story takes place (which can change over the course of the story).

• Characters: The people or animals in the story, including the protagonist (main character), whose motivations and actions drive the story.

• Plot: The story line, which typically includes one or more problems or conflicts that the protagonist must address and ultimately resolve.

• Theme: The lesson or main idea that the author wants readers to glean from the story. 

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Story Maps

Retelling

• WHAT HAPPENND IN THE BEGINNING OF THE STORY?

• WHEN AND WHERE DID THE STORY TAKE PLACE?

• WHO ARE THE MAINS CHARACTERS?

• WHAT HAPPENED IN THE MIDDLE OF THE STORY?

• RETELL THE MOST EXCITING PART OR THE WOW... EVENT?

Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Expository Text

Expository text also often uses one of five common text structures as an organizing principle:

Cause and effect

Problem and solution

Compare and contrast

Description

Time order (sequence of events, actions, or steps)

There are three steps in the K-W-L process

• What I Know: Before students read the text, ask them as a group to identify what they already know about the topic. Students write this list in the “K” column of their K-W-L forms.

• What I Want to Know: Ask students to write questions about what they want to learn from reading the text in the “W” column of their K-W-L forms. For example, students may wonder if some of the “facts” offered in the “K” column are true.

• What I Learned: As they read the text, students should look for answers to the questions listed in the “W” column and write their answers in the “L” column along with anything else they learn.

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers provide visual representations of the concepts in expository text. Representing ideas and relationships graphically can help students understand and remember them.