The strategies we use with our reading program are:
Asking Questions
Clarifying
Predicting
Visualizing
Summarizing
Making Connections
Download Reading Strategy Posters
Nevertheless, in most classrooms students understand predicting and that’s about it. Or students can clarify when the teacher says, “Clarify” but they’ll rarely choose to use the strategy of clarifying on their own.
Where Are We Going Wrong?
1. We need to make sure that we are explicitly modeling how to use the strategy, naming it, defining it, and then using it.
2. We need to make sure students understand why we use a particular strategy. What I’ve noticed when coaching teachers and having my own lessons observed, is that what we forget is to explain why we use a strategy. So, for example, when we summarize we explain that summarizing is retelling what’s happened, we often forget to mention that good readers summarize to check for understanding and make sure we remember what we’ve read.
3. We need to give students opportunities to explicitly use strategies and remember to prompt them not just for the name of the strategy, but also for a reason why they are using it.
*Here’s an interesting post linking blog comments to the reading strategies by Gail “Blogwalker” Desler.
I think we do a similar thing in math when we teach kids an algorithm but don’t help them understand the underlying number sense and math behind it. We often think we have taught something even though we haven’t helped students see why or how they would use it.