According to research, it’s important that teachers explicitly teach students how to use comprehension strategies even before students are reading fluently.
• Here’s a one page comprehension strategies “cheat sheet” that lists the strategies, definitions, and has a sentence frame for each to assist teachers and students in using the strategy.
Teaching students how to answer questions (take tests) related to comprehension is also an important related but slightly different skill. Frequently it is the inference questions that hang students up because they are used to simply finding their answer written out in the text.
• Here’s a QAR (question/answer relationship) worksheet for assisting students in taking comprehension tests and separating which questions ask for simple recall from the text and which involve interaction between the reader and the author (like inference and other think about it questions). This form was created by Francie Kugelman.
Here are additional comrpehension resources and feel free to add your own below.
Thank you, I found the “cheat sheet” really useful and the bookmarks and posters are a perfect for reminding/scaffolding students about the strategies.
Mathew,
Even though I teach teenagers and you teach younger kids, the resources you’ve created and shared here will definitely help me help my reluctant and struggling readers. Many of my students have so much difficulty comprehending the text and have no idea how to help themselves. They just stare at the words and don’t get it. They have no idea that they need to read between the lines sometimes let alone how to do it. Thank you once again.
Mathew,
I just had to tell you that I shared your cheat sheets with other teachers and they just loved it and are using it in their classrooms. These teachers teach grades 10,11, and 12.
Thanks so much.
Thanks Elona, I’m glad they were helpful.