Teaching reading comprehension strategies
Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension
1. Monitoring comprehension
Students who are good at monitoring their comprehension know when they understand what they read and when they do not. They have strategies to "fix" problems in their understanding as the problems arise. Research shows that instruction, even in the early grades, can help students become better at monitoring their comprehension.
Comprehension monitoring instruction teaches students to:
- Be aware of what they do understand
- Identify what they do not understand
- Use appropriate strategies to resolve problems in comprehension
2. Metacognition
Metacognition can be defined as "thinking about thinking." Good readers use metacognitive strategies to think about and have control over their reading. Before reading, they might clarify their purpose for reading and preview the text. During reading, they might monitor their understanding, adjusting their reading speed to fit the difficulty of the text and "fixing" any comprehension problems they have.
After reading, they check their understanding of what they read.
Students may use several comprehension monitoring strategies:
- Identify where the difficulty occurs
"I don't understand the second paragraph on page 76."
- Identify what the difficulty is
"I don't get what the author means when she says, 'Arriving in America was a milestone in my grandmother's life.'"
- Restate the difficult sentence or passage in their own words
"Oh, so the author means that coming to America was a very important event in her grandmother's life."
- Look back through the text
"The author talked about Mr. McBride in Chapter 2, but I don't remember much about him. Maybe if I reread that chapter, I can figure out why he's acting this way now."
- Look forward in the text for information that might help them to resolve the difficulty
"The text says, 'The groundwater may form a stream or pond or create a wetland. People can also bring groundwater to the surface.
' Hmm, I don't understand how people can do that… Oh, the next section is called 'Wells.' I'll read this section to see if it tells how they do it."
3. Graphic and semantic organizers
Graphic organizers illustrate concepts and relationships between concepts in a text or using diagrams. Graphic organizers are known by different names, such as maps, webs, graphs, charts, frames, or clusters.
Regardless of the label, graphic organizers can help readers focus on concepts and how they are related to other concepts. Graphic organizers help students read and understand textbooks and picture books.
Graphic organizers can:
- Help students focus on text structure differences between fiction and nonfiction as they read
- Provide students with tools they can use to examine and show relationships in a text
- Help students write well-organized summaries of a text
Here are some examples of graphic organizers:
4. Answering questions
Questions can be effective because they:
- Give students a purpose for reading
- Focus students' attention on what they are to learn
- Help students to think actively as they read
- Encourage students to monitor their comprehension
- Help students to review content and relate what they have learned to what they already know
The Question-Answer Relationship strategy (QAR) encourages students to learn how to answer questions better.
Students are asked to indicate whether the information they used to answer questions about the text was textually explicit information (information that was directly stated in the text), textually implicit information (information that was implied in the text), or information entirely from the student's own background knowledge.
There are four different types of questions:
- "Right There"
Questions found right in the text that ask students to find the one right answer located in one place as a word or a sentence in the passage.
Example: Who is Frog's friend? Answer: Toad
- "Think and Search"
Questions based on the recall of facts that can be found directly in the text. Answers are typically found in more than one place, thus requiring students to "think" and "search" through the passage to find the answer.
Example: Why was Frog sad? Answer: His friend was leaving.
- "Author and You"
Questions require students to use what they already know, with what they have learned from reading the text.
Students must understand the text and relate it to their prior knowledge before answering the question.Example: How do think Frog felt when he found Toad? Answer: I think that Frog felt happy because he had not seen Toad in a long time. I feel happy when I get to see my friend who lives far away.
- "On Your Own"
Questions are answered based on a student's prior knowledge and experiences. Reading the text may not be helpful to them when answering this type of question.
Example: How would you feel if your best friend moved away? Answer: I would feel very sad if my best friend moved away because I would miss her.
5. Generating questions
By generating questions, students become aware of whether they can answer the questions and if they understand what they are reading. Students learn to ask themselves questions that require them to combine information from different segments of text. For example, students can be taught to ask main idea questions that relate to important information in a text.
6. Recognizing story structure
In story structure instruction, students learn to identify the categories of content (characters, setting, events, problem, resolution). Often, students learn to recognize story structure through the use of story maps. Instruction in story structure improves students' comprehension.
7. Summarizing
Summarizing requires students to determine what is important in what they are reading and to put it into their own words. Instruction in summarizing helps students:
- Identify or generate main ideas
- Connect the main or central ideas
- Eliminate unnecessary information
- Remember what they read
Effective comprehension strategy instruction is explicit
Research shows that explicit teaching techniques are particularly effective for comprehension strategy instruction. In explicit instruction, teachers tell readers why and when they should use strategies, what strategies to use, and how to apply them.
The steps of explicit instruction typically include direct explanation, teacher modeling ("thinking aloud"), guided practice, and application.
- Direct explanation
The teacher explains to students why the strategy helps comprehension and when to apply the strategy.
- Modeling
The teacher models, or demonstrates, how to apply the strategy, usually by "thinking aloud" while reading the text that the students are using.
- Guided practice
The teacher guides and assists students as they learn how and when to apply the strategy.
- Application
The teacher helps students practice the strategy until they can apply it independently.
Effective comprehension strategy instruction can be accomplished through cooperative learning, which involves students working together as partners or in small groups on clearly defined tasks. Cooperative learning instruction has been used successfully to teach comprehension strategies.
Students work together to understand texts, helping each other learn and apply comprehension strategies. Teachers help students learn to work in groups. Teachers also provide modeling of the comprehension strategies.
Strategies for Reading Comprehension :: Read Naturally, Inc.
Comprehension: The Goal of Reading
Comprehension, or extracting meaning from what you read, is the ultimate goal of reading. Experienced readers take this for granted and may not appreciate the reading comprehension skills required. The process of comprehension is both interactive and strategic. Rather than passively reading text, readers must analyze it, internalize it and make it their own.
In order to read with comprehension, developing readers must be able to read with some proficiency and then receive explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies (Tierney, 1982).
Strategies for reading comprehension in Read Naturally programs
General Strategies for Reading Comprehension
The process of comprehending text begins before children can read, when someone reads a picture book to them.
They listen to the words, see the pictures in the book, and may start to associate the words on the page with the words they are hearing and the ideas they represent.
In order to learn comprehension strategies, students need modeling, practice, and feedback. The key comprehension strategies are described below.
Using Prior Knowledge/Previewing
When students preview text, they tap into what they already know that will help them to understand the text they are about to read. This provides a framework for any new information they read.
Predicting
When students make predictions about the text they are about to read, it sets up expectations based on their prior knowledge about similar topics. As they read, they may mentally revise their prediction as they gain more information.
Identifying the Main Idea and Summarization
Identifying the main idea and summarizing requires that students determine what is important and then put it in their own words.
Implicit in this process is trying to understand the author’s purpose in writing the text.
Questioning
Asking and answering questions about text is another strategy that helps students focus on the meaning of text. Teachers can help by modeling both the process of asking good questions and strategies for finding the answers in the text.
Making Inferences
In order to make inferences about something that is not explicitly stated in the text, students must learn to draw on prior knowledge and recognize clues in the text itself.
Visualizing
Studies have shown that students who visualize while reading have better recall than those who do not (Pressley, 1977). Readers can take advantage of illustrations that are embedded in the text or create their own mental images or drawings when reading text without illustrations.
Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Narrative Text
Narrative text tells a story, either a true story or a fictional story.
There are a number of strategies that will help students understand narrative text.
Story Maps
Teachers can have students diagram the story grammar of the text to raise their awareness of the elements the author uses to construct the story. Story grammar includes:
- 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 overriding lesson or main idea that the author wants readers to glean from the story. It could be explicitly stated as in Aesop’s Fables or inferred by the reader (more common).
Printable story map (blank)
Retelling
Asking students to retell a story in their own words forces them to analyze the content to determine what is important.
Teachers can encourage students to go beyond literally recounting the story to drawing their own conclusions about it.
Prediction
Teachers can ask readers to make a prediction about a story based on the title and any other clues that are available, such as illustrations. Teachers can later ask students to find text that supports or contradicts their predictions.
Answering Comprehension Questions
Asking students different types of questions requires that they find the answers in different ways, for example, by finding literal answers in the text itself or by drawing on prior knowledge and then inferring answers based on clues in the text.
Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Expository Text
Expository text explains facts and concepts in order to inform, persuade, or explain.
The Structure of Expository Text
Expository text is typically structured with visual cues such as headings and subheadings that provide clear cues as to the structure of the information.
The first sentence in a paragraph is also typically a topic sentence that clearly states what the paragraph is about.
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)
Teaching these structures can help students recognize relationships between ideas and the overall intent of the text.
Main Idea/Summarization
A summary briefly captures the main idea of the text and the key details that support the main idea. Students must understand the text in order to write a good summary that is more than a repetition of the text itself.
K-W-L
There are three steps in the K-W-L process (Ogle, 1986):
- 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.
After all of the students have read the text, the teacher leads a discussion of the questions and answers.
Printable K-W-L chart (blank)
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. Examples of graphic organizers are:
Tree diagrams that represent categories and hierarchies
Tables that compare and contrast data
Time-driven diagrams that represent the order of events
Flowcharts that represent the steps of a process
Teaching students how to develop and construct graphic organizers will require some modeling, guidance, and feedback.
Teachers should demonstrate the process with examples first before students practice doing it on their own with teacher guidance and eventually work independently.
Strategies for Reading Comprehension in Read Naturally Programs
Several Read Naturally programs include strategies that support comprehension:
| Read Naturally Intervention Program | Strategies for Reading Comprehension | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prediction Step | Retelling Step | Quiz / Comprehension Questions | Graphic Organizers | |
| Read Naturally Live:
| ✔ | ✔ |
| |
| Read Naturally Encore:
| ✔ | ✔ |
| |
| Read Naturally GATE:
| ✔ | ✔ |
| |
| One Minute Reader Live:
|
| |||
| One Minute Reader Books/CDs:
|
| |||
| Take Aim at Vocabulary: A print-based program with audio CDs that teaches carefully selected target words and strategies for independently learning unknown words. Students work mostly independently or in teacher-led small groups of up to six students.
|
| ✔ | ||
6–8.0)
Bibliography
Honig, B.
, L. Diamond, and L. Gutlohn. (2013). Teaching reading sourcebook, 2nd ed. Novato, CA: Arena Press.
Ogle, D. M. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository text. The Reading Teacher 38(6), pp. 564–570.
Pressley, M. (1977). Imagery and children’s learning: Putting the picture in developmental perspective. Review of Educational Research 47, pp. 586–622.
Tierney, R. J. (1982). Essential considerations for developing basic reading comprehension skills. School Psychology Review 11(3), pp. 299–305.
How to improve your ability to understand the text you read?
06.02.14
Strategies for autists, parents and teachers to overcome difficulties with reading
Source: Autism after 16
Many people can read, but after reading it is difficult for them to remember, about what they read. There may be several reasons for this. It is possible that a person puts so much effort into voicing words (out loud or to himself) that they lose their meaning.
In other cases, the topic is so uninteresting that it is difficult to focus on the information in the text. Many children and adults with autism spectrum disorders have severe reading comprehension difficulties, even if they have no problems with reading as such. This can make it very difficult to study at school even for children without intellectual disabilities, especially in high school, when the requirements for reading and understanding large amounts of text increase significantly, and texts become more complex. The following are strategies for improving text comprehension that adults with autism spectrum disorders and parents and educators of children with ASD can use.
Metacognition - thinking about how we think - is the basis for improving understanding while reading. In other words, to improve text comprehension, we must consciously stop while reading and analyze our opinions, perceptions, and thoughts related to what we have read. For example:
Before reading
- Determine the purpose for the upcoming reading.
Think in advance about what you should find in the text while reading.
Look at the title of the text and try to figure out what the text might be about.
Skim through the entire text without reading carefully, paying attention to headings and subheadings, bold words and illustrations. Think about what this text might be about.
- Try to remember what you already know about the topic, the author, or this story.
While reading
- Reflect on what you have read after each paragraph or chapter.
Consider whether you agree with ideas, characters, or facts.
- If you do not understand the meaning of some sentences or paragraphs, write down what you do not understand.
- Write down unfamiliar words to find out their meaning after reading.
After reading
- Think about what you learned while reading.
— Write your own questions for the author.
Think about how what you read relates to your own life.
- Formulate a summary of what you have read.
- Review your notes and try to find answers to your questions through repeated reading, searching the Internet, or talking to another person.
Talk about what you read
Discussing what you read with another person provides another source of information instead of rereading the text. This is especially useful if you don't really enjoy reading. While talking about what you read, you will be able to ask questions that you have, this will allow you to learn more about the point of view of other people and will provide you with the opportunity to put into words what you have read, which will help you remember and understand the text better.
Practice reading as often as possible
The best way to improve reading comprehension is to read as much as possible. It doesn't matter what the person is reading. The more you read, the better your comprehension skills will be. Here the “Matthew effect” takes place, when “he who has will be given and will be multiplied, and what he has will be taken away from the one who does not have.
” Students who enjoy reading read a lot and often, and their reading skills improve. Those who do not enjoy reading devote little time to it, as a result, their skills lag more and more behind their peers. That is why our first priority is to motivate children to read. If they enjoy reading comics, sports articles, or online magazines, then encourage them to do so as often as possible.
Take the children to the library as often as possible and let them look at any books they want. Do not try to force on children what you think they should read. We want them to read—as much as possible. And that's all. If they liked a book by a certain author, then find all the books by that author so they can pick something. If the children are interested in a topic, then find them reading material according to their interest.
Reading Motivation
The first task for the unmotivated reader is to find reading material that is directly related to what interests him outside of reading.
For example, if a child enjoys watching movies, they may enjoy reading movie reviews online or in movie magazines. You may think that this is not a "real" reading, but it is not at all the case. Many people believe that the only way to develop reading skills is with books. In fact, this is not necessary at all, especially in our age of the Internet.
Also, if children read often about things they are interested in, this will help them become better readers in general, especially if they practice reading comprehension skills in parallel. After the motivation to read begins to form, you can begin to practice reading less interesting materials. That said, if the strategies to improve comprehension have already been practiced on interesting texts, it will be easier to use them while reading on boring topics.
Strategies to improve reading comprehension
Start with the strategies that seem most attractive and try them one at a time. Don't try to master every single strategy, sometimes less is more.
In other words, it's best to master a few strategies to perfection, rather than practicing all the strategies without exception, which can make it unclear what to use right now. Strategies to improve reading comprehension include:
- Conversational reading: Ask questions, argue, clarify, summarize, and predict as you read.
- Stickers: Use stickers to write words you don't understand, or write exclamation marks on them to mark sentences you like, and question marks to mark phrases or paragraphs you don't understand.
- Reading in pairs: Reading aloud with another person one paragraph at a time. Discuss what you have read with each other after each paragraph.
- Thinking out loud: As you read aloud in pairs, voice out any thoughts, questions, or misunderstandings that come to mind. For example, if a character or event reminded you of something, stop and talk about that personal association.
This technique helps to remember what has been read in the future.
- Re-reading: Read the text again, trying to find answers to the questions that have arisen.
- Text connections: As you read, determine how this text relates to you, to other texts, and to the world in general. In connection with yourself, you need to think about how the read relates to you personally. In World Links, you can link text to what you already know. Finally, in text links, you can link what you've read to what you've read about before.
- The Three Bears Principle: When choosing a book from a library or bookstore, think about whether it is too simple or too complex. Too simple means that the reader will easily understand all the words or have already read this book many times. Too complex means that there are more than five unfamiliar words on one page or the meaning of the first page is not clear. If the book is just right, then this is a new book, where the reader may not know some of the words on the page, but in general understands what is at stake.
- Dividing the text into parts: Read only a few paragraphs or sentences at a time. Think about what you read using reading strategies before continuing.
- Visualization: While reading, always try to visualize how the characters and the scenes described look like.
- Blogs: Check if there is any blog or forum on the Internet where this topic or book is discussed online, read what other people think about it and try to write your own opinion.
- Journaling: As you read, write down your thoughts in a special journal.
- Graphic organization: Make a chart showing your understanding before, during and after reading.
Progressive Implementation Model
If you are a parent or educator, you can use the Progressive Implementation Model to help a student with autism develop strategies for reading comprehension. First, demonstrate to the student how you yourself read using this strategy.
Then use this strategy together, under your guidance. Then ask the student to apply this strategy again (in a different situation) on their own.
Make sure you discuss reading with the student and whether the strategy is helping or not. You may need to model this strategy for the student many times, or practice it many times together until it becomes a natural part of the reading process and the student can apply it completely on his own.
Availability of books to read
If reading skills are too low, use books on topics that are interesting to the student, but with very low reading requirements. As a rule, they have a lot of illustrations and little text. It can be children's encyclopedias and reference books. They keep the reader motivated, their topics are age-appropriate, and the reading isn't too difficult.
You should also pay attention to the following books:
- Books with many photographs and illustrations, which will greatly facilitate understanding.
- Books with fairly large letters.
- Books with a small amount of text on one page so that the amount of text on the page does not cause stress.
- Books that have titles, subtitles, clear definitions of words in the glossary. These books are the easiest to understand.
Relationship between reading and writing
You may be wondering why it is so common to write things down while working on reading comprehension. The reason is that this is another way to better understand and assimilate the material read. For example, if someone finds it difficult to speak verbally about what they have read, then keeping a diary, blogging, or graphing can help analyze what they read and update the information in memory, but without verbal dialogue.
Closing Thoughts
The goal of all reading is to understand the text, so it is hoped that these strategies and ideas will enable you to improve your reading skills or help your child or student reach that goal.
Remember that reading is a very complex individual process, and its development must be reflected in an individual educational program.
Autism in adults, Raising children with autism, Education and training
Methods for teaching the strategy of semantic reading and working with text
to its analysis, systematization and speed of processing put theorists and practitioners of education in front of the need to develop new approaches to teaching reading.
Problems:
- children have a low reading speed, as a result of which they spend a lot of time preparing homework,
- they often do not understand the meaning of what they read due to reading errors and incorrect intonation,
- they cannot extract the necessary information from the proposed text, highlight the main thing in what they read,
- find it difficult to briefly retell the content,
- when doing independent work, tests of different levels, students make mistakes due to misunderstanding of the wording of the task,
- they rarely refer to cognitive texts.
That is, a serious contradiction arises: on the one hand, the modern world brings down a huge amount of information on us, on the other hand, our children do not read much, do not have semantic reading skills, and do not know how to work with information.
It is not so important to read a lot, it is much more necessary to process what you read in your mind in a quality manner. Having comprehended and structured the text in a certain way, it is much easier to convey its content and learn the main thing.
The current interdisciplinary curriculum, provided for by the new educational standards, is the program "Fundamentals of semantic reading and working with text." The program is aimed at forming and developing the foundations of reading competence necessary for students to implement their future plans, including continuing education and self-education, preparing for work and social activities. Today, reading, along with writing and computer skills, is one of the basic skills that allow you to work productively and communicate freely with different people.
Reading is a universal skill: it is something taught and something through which one learns. As scientists have established, about 200 factors affect student performance. Factor #1 is reading skill, which has a far greater impact on academic performance than all of them combined. Research shows that in order to be competent in all subjects and later in life, a person needs to read 120-150 words per minute. This becomes a necessary condition for the success of working with information. Reading is the foundation of all educational outcomes.
2. Semantic reading in the context of the new Federal State Educational Standards
Federal standards include in the meta-subject results of mastering OOP as a mandatory component "mastering the skills of semantic reading of texts of various styles and genres in accordance with the goals and objectives."
Semantic reading is a type of reading aimed at understanding the semantic content of the text by the reader.
For semantic understanding, it is not enough just to read the text, it is necessary to evaluate the information, respond to the content.
In the concept of universal educational activities (Asmolov A.G., Burmenskaya G.V., Volodarskaya I.A., etc.) actions of semantic reading related to:
- understanding the purpose and choosing the type of reading depending on the tasks;
- definition of primary and secondary information;
- by formulating the problem and the main idea of the text.
For semantic understanding, it is not enough just to read the text, it is necessary to evaluate the information, respond to the content. The concept of "text" should be interpreted broadly. It can include not only words, but also visual images in the form of diagrams, figures, maps, tables, graphs.
Since reading is a meta-subject skill, its constituent parts will be in the structure of all universal educational activities:
- personal UUD includes reading motivation, learning motives, attitude towards oneself and school;
- in the regulatory UUD - the student's acceptance of the learning task, arbitrary regulation of activity;
- in cognitive UUD - logical and abstract thinking, working memory, creative imagination, concentration of attention, vocabulary volume.
- in communicative UUD - the ability to organize and implement cooperation and cooperation with a teacher and peers, adequately convey information, display subject content.
The diagram shows groups of meta-subject results related to semantic reading.
3. Strategies for semantic reading
To work with the text at each stage, the reader chooses his own strategies. Learning strategies are a set of actions that a learner takes in order to facilitate learning, make it more effective, efficient, faster, more enjoyable, aim and bring learning activities closer to their own goals.0003
The term "reading strategies" was born at the dawn of psycholinguistics, and its appearance is associated with the work of Kenneth Goodman and Peter Kolers (70s). (slide 14) The most general definition of J. Bruner became fundamental for all subsequent works: “A strategy is a certain way of acquiring, storing and using information that serves to achieve certain goals in the sense that it should lead to certain results.
”
If successful, the student remembers the ways of his actions, operations, resources used, transfers the strategy to other situations, makes it universal. The number of strategies and the frequency of their use are individual.
Strategy No. 1. Directed reading
Purpose: to form the ability to purposefully read the educational text. Ask questions and lead group discussions.
1. Update. Reception "Associative Bush": the teacher writes a keyword or title of the text, students express their associations one by one, the teacher writes down. The use of this technique allows you to update knowledge, motivate subsequent activities, activate the cognitive activity of students, set them up for work.
2. The students silently read a short text or part of the text, stopping at the indicated places.
3. The teacher asks a problematic question on what has been read.
4. The answers of several students are discussed in class.
5. The students make an assumption about the further development of the event.
Strategy #2. Reading in pairs - generalization in pairs
Purpose: to form the ability to highlight the main thing, summarize what was read in the form of a thesis, ask problematic questions.
1. The students silently read the text or part of the text chosen by the teacher.
2. The teacher puts the students in pairs and gives clear instructions. Each student alternately performs two roles: speaker - reads and summarizes the content in the form of one thesis; the respondent listens to the speaker and asks him two substantive questions. Next comes the role reversal.
3. The teacher invites all students to the discussion.
Strategy No. 3. Reading and asking
Purpose: to form the ability to work independently with printed information, formulate questions, work in pairs.
1. Students silently read the proposed text or part of the text chosen by the teacher.
2. The students work in pairs and discuss which key words should be highlighted in the reading. (Which words appear most often in the text? How many times? Which words are in bold? Why?
If you were to read the text aloud, how would you make it clear that this sentence is the main one? It is about highlighting the phrase voice, which hides an unobtrusive but reliable memorization.)
3. One of the students formulates a question using key words, the other answers it.
4. Discuss key words, questions and answers in class. Correction.
Strategy No. 4. Double entry diary
Goal: to form the ability to ask questions while reading, critically evaluate information, compare what is read with one's own experience.
1. The teacher instructs the students to divide the notebook into two parts.
2. In the process of reading, students should write down on the left side the moments that struck, surprised, reminded of some facts, caused any associations; on the right - write a concise commentary: why this particular moment surprised you, what associations it caused, what thoughts it prompted.
Strategy No. 5. Reading with notes
Goal: to form the ability to read thoughtfully, evaluate information, formulate the author's thoughts in your own words.
The teacher gives the students the task to write information in the margins with icons according to the following algorithm:
- V Familiar information
- + New information
- - I thought (thought) otherwise
- ? It interested me (surprised), I want to know more
The essence of semantic reading strategies is that the strategy is related to choice, functions automatically at the unconscious level and is formed in the course of the development of cognitive activity.
Teaching reading strategies includes the acquisition of skills:
- Distinguishing types of message content - facts, opinions, judgments, assessments;
- recognition of the hierarchy of meanings within the text - the main idea, theme and its components;
- own understanding - the process of reflective perception of the cultural meaning of information.
Mastering strategies occurs mainly in groups or pairs, which allows students to develop not only speech, but also communicative competence.
4. Techniques for teaching the strategy of semantic reading and working with text
The strategy of semantic reading provides understanding of the text by mastering the techniques of mastering it at the stages before reading, during reading and after reading. Working with any text involves three stages: pre-text activity, text and post-text activity
Stage 1. Work with text before reading.
1. Anticipation (anticipation, anticipation of the upcoming reading).
Determining the semantic, thematic, emotional orientation of the text, highlighting its heroes by the title of the work, the name of the author, key words, illustrations preceding the text based on the reader's experience.
2. Setting the objectives of the lesson, taking into account the general (educational, motivational, emotional, psychological) readiness of students for work.
Purpose of stage 1: development of the most important reading skill, anticipation, that is, the ability to guess, predict the content of the text by title, author's name, illustration.
Techniques of pre-text activity:
If earlier, according to the traditional method, only one task “Read the text” was given at the stage of pre-reading the text, and the main attention was paid to control of reading comprehension, now we know that the better organized the stage of pre-reading, the easier it is for the student to read the text and the higher the result achieved by him.
Pre-text orienting techniques are aimed at staging reading and, consequently, at choosing the type of reading, updating previous knowledge and experience, concepts and vocabulary of the text, as well as creating motivation for reading.
Most common techniques:
- Brainstorming
- Glossary
- "Landmarks of anticipation"
- Preliminary Questions
- "Dissection questions".
Brainstorming, Headline Forecast.
The goal is to update previous knowledge and experience related to the topic of the text.
The question is asked: what associations do you have about the stated topic?
Associations are written on the board.
The teacher can add various information.
Reading text. Comparison of information with that learned from the text.
"Glossary"
The purpose of is to update and repeat the vocabulary related to the topic of the text.
The teacher says the name of the text, gives a list of words and suggests marking those that may be related to the text.
Having finished reading the text, they return to these words (this will be a post-text strategy) and look at the meaning and use of the words used in the text.
"Landmarks of anticipation"
The purpose of is to update previous knowledge and experience related to the topic of the text. Students are given judgments. They should mark the ones they agree with. After reading, they mark them again. If the answer has changed, then the students explain why this happened (post-text strategy)
“Dissections of the Question”
The goal of is a semantic guess about the possible content of the text based on the analysis of its title. It is proposed to read the title of the text and divide it into semantic groups. What do you think the text will be about?
"Preparatory questions"
The purpose of is to update existing knowledge on the topic of the text.
Detailed reception algorithm:
1. Scan the text quickly. (Review reading.)
2. Answer the question posed in the title of the text.
Stage 2. Working with text while reading.
Purpose of stage 2: understanding of the text and creation of its reader's interpretation (interpretation, evaluation).
1. Primary reading of the text. Independent reading in the classroom or reading-listening, or combined reading (at the choice of the teacher) in accordance with the characteristics of the text, age and individual abilities of students. Identification of primary perception (with the help of a conversation, fixing primary impressions, related arts - at the teacher's choice).
2. Rereading the text. Slow "thoughtful" repeated reading (of the entire text or its individual fragments). Text analysis. Statement of a clarifying question for each semantic part.
3. Conversation on the content of the text. Summary of what has been read.
Identification of the hidden meaning of the work, if any. Statement of generalizing questions to the text, both by the teacher and by the children. Appeal (if necessary) to individual fragments of the text.
Methods of text activity include:
- Read aloud
- "Reading to yourself with questions"
- Stop Reading
- "Reading to yourself with a mark"
"Reading aloud"
The purpose is to check the understanding of the text read aloud .
1. Reading text paragraph by paragraph. The task is to read with understanding, the task of the listeners is to ask the reader questions to check whether he understands the text being read.
2. Listeners ask questions about the content of the text, the reader answers. If his answer is incorrect or inaccurate, the listeners correct him.
“Reading to yourself with questions”
The goal is to teach you to read the text thoughtfully by asking yourself increasingly difficult questions .
1. Reading the first paragraph. Questions are being asked.
2. Reading the second paragraph to yourself. Work in pairs. One student asks questions, the other answers.
3. Reading the third paragraph. They change roles. They ask questions and answer.
Stop Reading
Goals - managing the process of understanding the text while reading it.
Reading the text with stops during which questions are asked. Some of them are aimed at testing understanding, others - at predicting the content of the following passage.
“Reading to oneself with notes” (“Insert”)
The goal is to monitor the understanding of the text being read and its critical analysis . This strategy is most often used to work with complex scientific texts. It is used to stimulate more careful reading. Reading becomes an exciting journey.
1. Individual reading.
While reading, the student makes notes in the text:
- V – already knew;
- + - new;
- - thought differently;
- ? - I do not understand, there are questions.
2. Reading, the second time, fill in the table, systematizing the material.
| Already knew (V) | Learned something new (+) | Thought otherwise (–) | Questions (?) |
Records - keywords, phrases. After completing the table, students will have a mini-outline. After the students fill in the table, we summarize the results of the work in the conversation mode. If the students have any questions, then I answer them, having previously found out if one of the students can answer the question that has arisen. This technique contributes to the development of the ability to classify, systematize incoming information, highlight the new.
“Creating a question plan”.
The student carries out a semantic grouping of the text, highlights the strong points, divides the text into semantic parts and titles each part with a key question
Stage 3. Working with text after reading .
Purpose: correction of the reader's interpretation in accordance with the author's intention
1. Conceptual (semantic) conversation on the text. Collective discussion of the read, discussion. Correlation of readers' interpretations (interpretations, evaluations) of the work with the author's position. Identification and formulation of the main idea of the text or the totality of its main meanings.
2. Acquaintance with the writer. Story about a writer. Talk about the personality of the writer. Working with textbook materials, additional sources.
3. Work with the title, illustrations. Discussing the meaning of the title. Referring students to ready-made illustrations.
Correlation of the artist's vision with the reader's idea.
4. Creative tasks based on any area of students' reading activity (emotions, imagination, comprehension of content, artistic
Techniques for post-text activities.
- "Relationship between question and answer"
- "Time out"
- "Checklist"
- "Questions after the text"
"Relationship between question and answer"
The goal is to teach understanding of the text . One of the most effective post-text techniques. It differs from the rest in that it teaches the process of understanding the text, and does not control the result (understood - did not understand), shows the need to search for the location of the answer.
The answer to the question can be in the text or in the reader's word. If the answer is in the text, it can be in one sentence of the text or in several of its parts. To answer the question, you need to find the exact answer in one sentence of the text.
If it is contained in several parts of the text, such an answer must be formulated by connecting them.
If the answer is in the reader's head, then in one case the reader constructs it by connecting what the author says between the lines or in indirect form, and how the reader himself interprets the words of the author. In another case, the answer is outside the text and the reader is looking for it in his knowledge.
“Time out”
Objectives - self-test and assessment of understanding of the text by discussing it in pairs and in a group.
Reception implementation algorithm:
1. Reading the first part of the text. Work in pairs.
2. Ask each other clarifying questions. They answer them. If there is no confidence in the correctness of the answer, questions are submitted for discussion by the whole group after the completion of the work with the text.
Checklist
This strategy is quite flexible.
It lays down the conditions for the qualitative performance of any task. The “checklist” is compiled by the teacher for students at the first stages of applying the strategy.
Checklist "Brief retelling":
1. The main idea of the text is named. (Yes/No.)
2. The main thoughts of the text and the main details are named. (Yes/No.)
3. There is a logical and semantic structure of the text. (Yes/No.)
4. There are necessary means of communication that unite the main ideas of the text. (Yes/No.)
5. The content is presented in one's own words (language means) while preserving the lexical units of the author's text. (Yes/No.)
“Questions after the text”
The classification of questions, known as the “Taxonomy of questions”, involves a balance between groups of questions to:
- the factual information of the text, presented verbally;
- subtext information hidden between lines, in subtext;
- conceptual information, often outside the text.
These three groups of questions are now being supplemented with a fourth - a group of evaluative, reflective questions related to the critical analysis of the text.
"Thin" and "thick" questions
After studying the topic, students are asked to formulate three "thin" and three "thick" questions related to the material covered. They then quiz each other using tables of "thick" and "thin" questions.
| Thick questions | Subtle questions |
| Explain why….? | Who..? What…? When…? |
- Read the text.
- What words occur most often in the text? How many times?
- Which words are in bold? Why?
- If you were to read the text aloud, how would you make it clear that this sentence is the main one?
- Noun (subject).
- Two adjectives (description)
- Three verbs (action).
- Four-word phrase (description).
- Noun (paraphrasing of the topic).
- How many paragraphs of the text?
- Pay attention to the words in thin and bold type.
- Write down keywords.
- Coordinating conjunctions
- Intonation
- general minor member
- Explanatory words
- Comma
- Semicolon
- Dash
- No comma
- Reading 1 paragraph.
- We ask questions to the reader, he answers them.
- Reading in pairs to yourself 2 paragraphs, one student asks a question - the other answers.
- Reading 3, 4 paragraphs - students change roles.
- Give an example of a complex sentence, give a description according to the plan, draw up a diagram;
- make a mind map.
Question Tree
Krona - what? Where? When? Barrel - why? How? Could you? Roots - how to relate the text to life? With current events? What is the author trying to show?
"Bloom's Cube" (Benjamin Bloom is a famous American teacher, author of many pedagogical strategies = technician).
The beginnings of the questions are written on the sides of the cube: “Why?”, “Explain”, “Name”, “Suggest”, “Think up”, “Share”. The teacher or student rolls the die.
It is necessary to formulate a question to the educational material on the side on which the cube fell.
The “Name” question is aimed at the level of reproduction, that is, at the simple reproduction of knowledge.
The question "Why" - the student in this case must find cause-and-effect relationships, describe the processes that occur with a particular object or phenomenon.
"Explain" question - the student uses concepts and principles in new situations.
Question Tree
Options for working with text.
"Questions to the text of the textbook"
The strategy allows you to form the ability to work independently with printed information, formulate questions, work in pairs.
We are talking about highlighting a phrase with your voice. Here lies an unobtrusive but reliable memorization.
Cluster
I use clusters for structuring and systematizing material. A cluster is a way of graphic organization of educational material, the essence of which is that in the middle of the sheet the main word (idea, topic) is written or sketched, and ideas (words, pictures) associated with it are fixed on the sides of it.
"Keywords"
These are words that can be used to compose a story or definitions of some concept.
"True and False Statements"
U is a universal technique that contributes to the actualization of students' knowledge and the activation of mental activity.
This technique makes it possible to quickly include children in mental activity and it is logical to proceed to the study of the topic of the lesson. Reception forms the ability to assess the situation or facts, the ability to analyze information, the ability to reflect one's opinion. Children are invited to express their attitude to a number of statements according to the rule: true - "+", not true - "-".
"Do you believe..."
It is carried out in order to arouse interest in the study of the topic and create a positive motivation for independent study of the text on this topic.
Conducted at the beginning of the lesson, after the announcement of the topic.
Cinquain
Develops the ability of students to highlight key concepts in the reading, the main ideas, synthesize the knowledge gained and show creativity.
Sinkwine structure:
"Mental maps" (graphic technique for organizing text),
Mind Mapping is a mind visualization technique. The applications of mental maps are very diverse - for example, they can be used to fix, understand and remember the content of a book or text, generate and write down ideas, understand a new topic for yourself, prepare for making a decision.
In the center of a landscape sheet, one word indicates the subject, which is enclosed in a closed outline. Branches are drawn from it, on which keywords are located. Sub-branches are added to branches until the topic is exhausted.
Mind maps activate memory. Lists, solid text, trees, and diagrams are the same. Mind maps, on the other hand, use every possible means to activate perception through diversity: different line weights, different colors of branches, precisely chosen keywords that are personally meaningful to you, the use of images and symbols.
The technique of mental maps helps not only to organize and organize information, but also to better perceive, understand, remember and associate it.
5. Diagnosis of educational outcomes using semantic reading techniques
The network project "Semantic Reading Techniques" [1] describes the model of V.V. Pikan, in which all cognitive levels are illustrated by exemplary examples of key questions and tasks that make it possible to diagnose the quality of mastering knowledge and ways of students' activities. Each of the cognitive levels (knowledge, understanding, application, generalization and systematization, value attitude) is assigned the number of points received for completing the tasks of the mastered level. The table below shows examples of questions and tasks, assessment criteria.
| Cognitive levels and assessment criteria | Examples of key questions and tasks (beginning of formulations) |
| Knowledge - 1 point | Name. |
| Comprehension - 2 points | Do you understand… Explain the relationship. Why ... Connect in semantic pairs .... Show on the graph... |
| Application - according to sample 3 b. | Make an offer…. Identify Traits character…. Apply the appropriate rule.... Compare…. Draw conclusions.... Present your point of view... |
| Generalization and systematization | Make a summary…. Make a table. |
| Value attitude - 2-10 b. | What does it matter…. What do you think…. Do you like…. |
.., Define..., Formulate... . Retell ... List .... Choose the correct answer…. Complete the word…. Show…, Find out...etc. 
6. Implementation of semantic reading technology techniques
1. Work with text before reading. Reception dissection question.
It is proposed to read the title of the paragraph "Compound sentence", the title of the scientific style text, and divide it into semantic groups; answer the question: what do you think the text will be about?
2. Working with text while reading.
Primary reading . Review reading or introductory reading:
1. Compound
2. Communication
3.
Additional communications
4. Punctuation marks
Study reading . Rereading text
3. Work with the text after reading.
Work in groups: 1 group, using keywords, makes up a story about a compound sentence; Group 2, based on the plan for syntactic analysis of a simple sentence, draws up a plan for characterizing a complex sentence.
General reference:
Fig.1. Mind map "Compound sentence" of a 9th grade student Samara D.
7. Conclusion
Semantic reading forms cognitive interest, the ability to compare facts and draw conclusions, activates the imagination, develops speech, thinking, and also teaches how to work with information. The active implementation of semantic reading strategies, technologies by all teachers of various academic disciplines will make our graduates full members of the new information society.
References and references
- Project "Semantic Reading Techniques" Auth. Dozmorova E.V., Director of the Center for Innovations in Education of the Faculty of Education and Science of the TSPU, Ph.D. - https://www.planeta.tspu.ru/files/file/doc/1464065663.pdf
- Federal State Educational Standard for Primary General Education // http://standart.edu.ru/catalog.aspx?CatalogId=959.
