Reading comprehension methods, strategies, and teaching tactics

• Page and paragraph↔Teacher or English language learner reads a page; English learner reads a paragraph; group discusses what has been read.

• Equal portions↔Student works in pairs, and each reads aloud the same amount of text.

• Silent with support↔Students form pairs and read the text to themselves and may ask each other for help as needed when they encounter a difficult word or phrase.

• Choral reading↔The text is divided into sections and different student groups read the various sections.

• Radio reading↔One student reads while others close their books and listen. After reading, the reader can question each student about what was read.

• Repeated reading↔Students read silently a book that has already been read aloud or independently reread texts of their choice.

• Interactive read-aloud↔Students pause to engage in dialogue as a whole class takes part in reading a text together.

• Echo reading↔For rhythmic text, students repeat lines.

• Cloze reading↔When reading big books, the teacher omits certain words and students try to guess the word in context.

• Nonprint media support↔Students can follow along with a recorded version of the book.

Strategies that readers can use when comprehension fails

• Rereading: text-based answers↔One can skim the text and find the answer.

• “Right there” answers↔Answer is easily found in the book.

• “Think and search” answers↔Reader needs to put together different parts of the reading to obtain solution.

• Rereading: reader-based answers↔The reader must infer the answer: Look for answers or clues from text.

• “Author and you” answers↔Solution lies in a combination of what is in story plus reader’s experience.

• “On my own” answers↔Answers come from one’s own experience.

• Visual imagery↔Before rereading, students discuss what pictures come to mind. Younger children can draw these pictures, and older children can use verbal descriptions. Ask students to form mental images while rereading.

• Thinking aloud↔Students self-monitor comprehension by asking, “Does this make sense?” as they read. What question can they ask that will help to focus on what they need in order for it to make sense? Sentence Stems For Formulating Questions

• Suspending judgment↔Students read ahead when a new concept is not well explained, seeking information to develop clarity.

• Reciprocal teaching↔Students predict, summarize, ask questions, and suspend judgment, using these techniques with one another. Sentence Stems For Formulating Questions

• Mine, yours, and ours↔Students make individual summaries and compare with a partner; then they write a joint paragraph outlining their similarities and differences.

• Summary pairs↔Students read aloud to one another and summarize what they have read.

• Shrinking stories↔Students write their own versions of a passage in twenty-five words or less.

• Simply put↔Students rewrite a selection so that students two or three years younger might understand it.

Tactics for teaching reading to students

• Novice language learners↔anticipating/predicting, skimming, gisting, scanning, extracting specific information, contextual guessing, prereading activities, simple cloze, filling out forms.

• Intermediate language learners↔Comprehension checks, guessing from context, clue searching, making inferences, scrambled stories, extracting specific information, skimming, scanning, paraphrasing, gisting/resume, note taking/outlining, passage completion, identifying sociolinguistic factors, understanding idioms, understanding discourse structures, understanding link words and referents

• Advanced language learners↔Comprehension checks, guessing from context, clue searching, making inferences, cloze techniques, reverse cloze, scrambled stories, extracting specific information, skimming, scanning, paraphrasing, gisting/resume, passage completion, identifying sociolinguistics factors, filling out forms, anticipating/predicting, understanding discourse structures, understanding link works and referents.

• Related link: Activities For Listening Comprehension