What is a strategy for helping students to improve their reading comprehension skills?

A key strategy for improving students' reading comprehension skills is to actively engage them in monitoring their understanding while reading and prompting them to use comprehension strategies.

Here's a breakdown of the strategy:

• Active Monitoring: Encourage students to consciously think about what they are reading. This involves:

  • Pausing periodically to summarize what they've read.
  • Identifying points of confusion or uncertainty.
  • Making connections between the text and their prior knowledge.
  • Predicting what might happen next.

• Strategic Questioning: Implement strategic questioning to guide students' understanding:

  • During Reading: Ask questions that direct their attention to key details, main ideas, and important arguments. Examples include:
    • "What is the main idea of this paragraph?"
    • "What evidence supports the author's claim?"
    • "How does this relate to what we discussed earlier?"
  • After Reading: Encourage deeper analysis and critical thinking with questions like:
    • "What inferences can you draw from this text?"
    • "What is the author's purpose in writing this?"
    • "How does this text relate to other things you've read?"

• Focusing on Inference: Deliberately direct attention to sections of the text that require inferential thinking. This could involve:

  • Modeling the inference-making process. (e.g., "The text says X, and I know Y, so I can infer Z.")
  • Providing opportunities for students to practice making inferences independently.
  • Discussing the evidence that supports different inferences.

• Comprehension Strategy Reminders: Consistently remind students to use various reading comprehension strategies, such as:

  • Making predictions: Guessing what will happen next based on clues in the text.
  • Visualizing: Creating mental images of what they are reading.
  • Summarizing: Briefly restating the main points of the text.
  • Clarifying: Asking questions to resolve confusion or uncertainty.
  • Making connections: Relating the text to their own experiences, other texts, or the world around them.

By consistently employing these techniques, educators can foster a more active and engaged approach to reading, significantly enhancing students' comprehension abilities.