Comprehension+Strategies


 * Within this page you can explore strategies to utilize within your classroom along with articles to peruse. Check out a strategy or two, try the one you like, then get back and put up a discussion as to what worked, what did not, and how you improved upon the technique based upon your teaching style.**

- This is an excellent method of diseminating a narrative, or story-like, text. A short passage should be used to model the strategy and you can have another short passage available for guided practice. Then students can start working in small groups!You can expand upon this technique by having a recorder, having students working in pairs and creating a wiki with their "job" posted on the site, and much more. Your imagination will be your only limit. One thing that I've tried and liked is when students create a question, have them question why the author used certain verbage or how the vocabulary affected their interpretation of the text. This can lead to an interesting discussion. i.e. We read a text where the author used 2000 pounds instead of one ton. Why? We could only assume that this was because the author wanted us to understand the enormity of the task at hand.

- This strategy helps students empathize with the characters they are reading about and help connect the text(s) to their own feelings.

- An example of Think Aloud using a chapter from Charles Dickens "A Tale of Two Cities."

- A few lessons to help students predict and set a purpose for what they are about to read.

- The use of questioning, from the traditional "who, what, when, where, why & how" to the choice of vocabulary that the author has utilized.

- Students can not summarize unless you teach them to do so. These lessons not only help students summarize, but pick out the pertinent information as well.

Using the "Gist" method to summarize at [] - there is a collection sheet where students can list who, what, when, where, why, and how and then write a 20 word summary that tells the "gist" of the selection read. Start off with a few paragraphs and then move into larger passages.

Summarizing Game - [] - students can select a destination to visit and then listen to a story about this destination. At the end, they write a short summary online and print it off. You can check for understanding through their responses.

- This set of lessons will help students unpack their adjectives.

Sample Documents - You will find some short passages to use with the above strategies. There are a variety of narrative and expository passages to chose from. Or you can go to the links page and download texts of your choice from a variety of free online sites.

**Comprehension Articles**