Suggestions and strategies for improving reading in a school setting

1. B Y
M I K E R E I S I N G E R
Addressing Comprehension for
our School

2. What main problems do our students have with
comprehension?
 Based on our most current comprehension
assessments, we find that many students are not:
 self- monitoring
 using previous knowledge
 going back to the text

3. How do we further assess comprehension?
 Include a variety of literal and inferential questions
 Informal reading inventories
 Cloze or maze passages
 Include appropriate reading dependency levels
 Make questions simple and easier to read than the
text
 Always use a variety of assessments
 Background knowledge and interest may vary

4. What is the cause of these comprehension
problems?
 Weak or incomplete comprehension strategies
 Poor self-awareness while reading
 Interest in subject
 Lack of purpose for reading

5. How can we address these issues?
 Think alouds
 Student generated questions
 Summary writing
 Graphic organizers
 Reading guides

6. Think Alouds
 Teacher modeled
 Stop and explain thinking
 Reread to clarify misunderstandings.
 Read ahead to find answers to predictions.
 Reflect for further inferences.
 Find more information in resources beyond the text.

7. Student Generated Questions
 Teach readers to be curious about their reading.
 Prompt questions creation before, during and after
reading.
 Teach students to look for words that point to answers to
who, what, when, where , why, how questions.
 Use question stems: Why might_______________?
Who was _______________? When did _____?
Where would __________________be found? How
is ______________similar to ______________?
 Encourage “I wonder” questions after reading.
 Include discussion.
 Allow students to ask each other the questions and share
answers.

8. Summary Writing with GRASP Whole Group
 Read text and close
 Recall information
 Share and combine
 Arrange information into categories
 Create topic sentence and detail sentences
 Reread
 Revise

9. Graphic Organizers
 KWL and KWLS charts
 Connect prior knowledge to interest
 Allow space for students to reflect on what they learned
 Give opportunities for students to ask further questions
 Semantic maps
 Relationships between ideas
 Use a key word
 Brainstorm ideas related to word
 Categorize shared ideas
 Share
 Add new terms
 Text structure maps
 Story maps guide readers to story elements and main ideas and
details

10. Reading Guides
 Made with advance preparation
 Printed guides for students to work independently
 Checklists or steps
 Based on specific, important elements of an assigned
text
 Questions are answered while reading in sequence

11. References
 McKenna, M. C., & Stahl, K. A. (2015). Assessment
for reading instruction. New York: The Guilford
Press.
 Cockrum, W. A., &Shanker, J. L. (2013). Locating
and Correcting Reading Difficulties. Upper Saddle
River: Pearson Education Inc.
 Tovani, Chris (April 4, 2016). Questioning What We
Read. Live talk and presentation. Aurora Academy
Charter School, Aurora, Colorado