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Collaborative Practices
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Best Practices-Reading Strategies
By: Leah Straschewski
The Purpose of Strategies In “Learning from Text: A Multidimensional and Developmental Perspective,” Tamara Jetton and Patricia Alexander write, “All learning demands strategic engagement in the construction of meaning” (par. 19). Without strategies, many student readers approach a text fearing they will not “get it”. Therefore, reading strategies can aid in the meaning-making process and help students “get” what they are reading. Jetton and Alexander define strategies as “procedural, purposeful, effortful, willful, essential, and facilitative in nature” (par. 20). Students must take certain steps to solve their reading difficulties and they must “consciously invoke [reading] strategies by employing mental time and energy” (par. 20). The first step in helping students overcome their reading difficulties is offering them multiple strategies they can draw from when working through reading. As Jetton and Alexander write, “One laudable goal of reading instruction is to enable students to become skillful readers who routinely apply procedures that contribute to interpretation — so routinely that they occur in a mindless or automatic fashion” (par. 21). However, what happens when the student encounters a particularly difficult text and her “old” reading strategies no longer seem to work? Jetton and Alexander note that “Even skilled readers must intentionally use remedies that will fix their reading problems. Thus, these readers must be strategic, as well as skillful” (par. 21). Therefore, proficient readers must not only know how to use the strategies that already work for them, but must also know when to try out new strategies and figure out new ways of working through texts. Having students define their reading strategies and their purposes for using those specific strategies may help them become the “skillful” readers that Jetton and Alexander mention. All Readers Use Strategies Most student readers innately engage in certain behaviors when working through a difficult text- behaviors that, no doubt, constitute reading strategies. Therefore, before offering students new strategies and tools for working through a text, teachers would likely find it beneficial to figure out what students already do when faced with a difficult passage, or any passage at all. The teacher may simply ask “How do you read?” Students can also be asked to articulate in writing their reading processes of a difficult text. In particular, having students reflect upon and write about what they do when they encounter a word or phrase that they do not understand may help the teacher recommend additional strategies designed to assist that particular reader. Also, offering students a multitude of strategies to draw from, such as those outlined below, makes it more likely that they will find one that works for them. Active Reading To fully engage with a text, students should be encouraged to “mark-up” what they are reading. I term this marking up of texts “active reading” and when I assign reading to my first-year composition students, I encourage them to read with “pens in hand.” Students should be encouraged to write in margins, to highlight, to underline, and to mark up their texts in a way that makes sense to them. This means that they may even develop their own set of symbols to indicate their various reactions to the text. For example, many students may use a series of exclamation points to indicate a particularly strong reaction to the text or question marks to indicate a point of confusion. Teachers can encourage students to become active readers by bringing in their own texts that they have “marked-up” out of an effort to better understand them. Fix-up Strategies The fix-up strategies listed below encourage students to actively read, though in a different way. While the strategies do not necessarily require students to write all over a text, they do call for a student’s active mental engagement with the text, and teachers can certainly encourage students to record their thoughts as they read. The fix-up strategies can be used in a number of ways. For example, students can be encouraged to try every strategy at least once and asked to record how effective they felt the strategy was in helping them work through their reading. Students are likely to discover one or two strategies that really “work” for them, and if they do not, they should be encouraged to adapt the strategies to suit their needs. The teacher might also model some or all of the strategies by bringing a difficult or unfamiliar text to class and working through it, either individually or collaboratively with the students. Sheridan Blau notes that this offers students the valuable opportunity of seeing “how a competent reader proceeds in moving haltingly and recursively toward a satisfactory reading and interpretation of a difficult text. Many teachers of writing at all levels do engage in such modeling of the writing process in front of, in collaboration with, and alongside their students” (The Literature Workshop 31). Therefore, if reading and writing are similar processes, why shouldn’t teachers also model the reading process? These strategies are not by any means all-inclusive, but they are likely to provide a useful starting place for students struggling with difficult texts. It is important to note, however, that these reading strategies are not meant just for readers who are struggling; students should be made aware that all readers enact certain strategies when working through a text, and this can again, be illustrated with the teacher modeling her own reading process. 1. Make a connection between the text (written material) and…
2. Make a prediction
3. Stop and think about what you have already read.
4. Ask a question
5. Write about what you read/have read
6. Visualize
7. Notice patterns in text structure; use text features
8. Retell yourself what you’ve read
9. Re-Read
10. Adjust your reading rate
Adapted from: Tovani, Chris. I Read It, But I Don’t Get It. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse, 2000. 49–56. “Glossing” Reading This reading strategy, used by some of my colleagues, requires not only active reading on the part of the student, but also holds the student accountable for that active reading. Glossing requires that students not only “mark-up” the text, but that they also take the time to reflect on why they chose to mark the passages that they did. With this activity, active reading becomes a more meaningful exercise, particularly if students are given the opportunity to discuss their readings of a text with their peers. Below are the directions for glossing, as they are given to students. Guidelines for Glossing As you read, I’d like you to underline or somehow mark in your text what you find important. Then, after you’ve finished reading, in the margins of your text respond in a personal way to what you find significant in each paragraph or passage you’ve marked, saying why you think it’s important. (This is called “glossing”: it’s one method for representing the way you read a passage, and for helping you to make your reading more critical.) Try to do two things while you’re glossing. First, as you re-read a paragraph you’ve marked, paraphrase it in the margin, noting what is being said about what. In addition, include questions for the authors about parts of the passage which may not be clear to you; you might add to the authors’ ideas, if you can, based on observations or experiences of your own, or you might agree with the authors – or disagree – saying why feel the way you do. These notes also might include commenting on what you find surprising in the authors’ perspectives. Bring your glossing to class, and be prepared to discuss your observations.
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