This document outlines reading strategies that teachers can use before, during, and after reading with students. Some strategies mentioned include using K-W-L charts to activate prior knowledge, previewing text features and vocabulary, asking questions, thinking aloud, marking text, using graphic organizers to summarize learning, and having students work in pairs to summarize paragraphs. The goal of these strategies is to help students engage with texts, monitor comprehension, and reflect on key ideas.

1. Before, During, and After
Reading Strategies
Rachel Sparks
RED4348

2. Before Reading Strategies

3. •K-W-L Chart
•Preview the Text
•Preview Vocabulary
•Ask Questions
•Word Splash

4. K-W-L Chart
• A chart that has three columns
• What you know, what you want to know, and what you learned.
• Before reading, students fill in what they already know about the text.
• Helps students to activate prior knowledge.

5. Preview the Text
• Helps aid students in making predictions
• Students should focus on any text boxes, headings, maps, charts, and
captions.
• Helps prepare students on how to mentally organize the information
they are about to receive.

6. Preview the Vocabulary
• Helps students to become familiar with words
• Once students know vocabulary, it helps them to better understand
and comprehend the reading.
• Also helps to give more understanding to unfamiliar words

7. Ask Questions
• Activates students background knowledge
• Prepares them to read
• Activates topic specific knowledge, text organization, structure
knowledge, and general word knowledge
• Helps to get students thinking about what they will read

8. Word Splash
• Teachers pick vocabulary or other words from the text
• Students use these words to infer what they think will happen in the
story based off the words
• Helps students to brainstorm new ideas about the story
• Also help students to practice making inferences before reading.

9. During Reading Strategies

10. •Think Aloud
•Marking the Text
•Table Talk
•Clarify Unknown Vocabulary
•Double-Entry Journal

11. Think Aloud
• The teacher can stop at any time during reading to ask questions
• Students may answer individually
• Teacher can model what students should be thinking during reading
• Example: What do you think the author meant by this?

12. Marking in the Text
• Students identify information in the text that is important to the
reading.
• Students make notes on the text. Ex: underline, circle etc.
• Helps students to better summarize the text and make sense of what
they are reading.
• Helps to improve comprehension.

13. Table Talk
• Teacher can stop reading at any point and ask students a question.
• Students stop and talk in pairs, or with their entire table about the
questions.
• Encourages students to be listening, and be engaged throughout the
story.

14. Clarify Unknown Vocabulary
• Through the use of context clues, students can determine the
meaning of words.
• Students can use their inferencing skills to determine the context of
the word
• This helps students to connect unknown information from the text

15. Double-Entry Journal
• Students make two columns
• In one column, students write important facts, or quotes from the
text, they may have found important or interesting.
• The second column is used for students to write their reactions to the
facts or quotes they pulled from the reading.
• This helps students to be engaged through writing and critically
thinking

16. After Reading Strategies

17. •Exit Slips
•Graphic Organizer
•Summarizing
•RAFT
•Paragraph Shrinking

18. Exit Slips
• Helps the teacher to see how much students have comprehended
during reading.
• Students fill out a small sheet of paper with questions on it regarding
the text.
• Students turn in the slip for the teacher to review. The teacher can
then determine any kind of enrichment for struggling students

19. Graphic Organizer
• Helps students to reflect on what they read
• Can be used as a chart, such as, the K-W-L Chart
• Students can fill in the what they learned column

20. Summarizing
• Helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate
important details that support them.
• It enables students to focus on key words and phrases of an assigned
text that are worth noting and remembering.
• It teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it
to the main points for more concise understanding

21. RAFT
• Helps students to learn writing skills
• Helps students to think creatively
• Allows students to write about the text using these essential
questions.
• Role of the Writer: Who or what are you as the writer? A pilgrim? A
soldier? The President?
Audience: To whom are you writing? A friend? Your teacher? Readers
of a newspaper?
Format: In what format are you writing? A letter? A poem? A speech?
Topic and strong verb: What are you writing about? Why? What's the
subject or the point?

22. Paragraph Shrinking
• It helps students develop their reading comprehension skills.
• It allows each student to take turns reading, pausing, and summarizing the
main points of each paragraph.
• Students are paired up and take turns reading different paragraphs from
the text.
• After each paragraph the students should take turns summarizing the main
idea of the paragraph.
• In addition to the main idea, students should also answer the following two
questions when paragraph shrinking: The who or what of the paragraph,
and the most important thing about the who or what.

23. References
• Reading Rockets, (n.d.). Classroom Strategies. Retrieved from:
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies
• Bursuck, W., (2011). Teaching Reading to Students Who Are At Risk or
Have Disabilities: A Multi-Tier Approach (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River,
N.J.: Pearson
• Previewing the Text, (n.d.). Learn What Works. Retrieved from:
https://www.aea267.k12.ia.us/english-language-
arts/reading/comprehension/before-reading/previewing-text/