This document provides strategies for comprehending different elements of a text, including identifying the main idea, recalling facts and details, understanding sequence, recognizing cause and effect, comparing and contrasting, making predictions, drawing conclusions, finding word meaning in context, distinguishing between fact and opinion, summarizing, and interpreting figurative language. Questions are provided as examples for each strategy.

1. FD MP AP CC FO
reading
MI WM
strategies
US SU FL CE DC
Modified from STARS books.

2. FINDING THE MAIN IDEA
The main idea of a text is a sentence that tells
you what the passage is mostly about.
Questions about the main ideas might:
What is the text mostly or mainly about?
What is the best title for the text.
When answering ask yourself, What is the
passage mostly about?
MI

3. RECALLING FACTS AND
DETAILS
Every text has facts, details and information.
These facts tell us more about the main
idea.
Questions about facts and details ask you
something that was stated in the text.
Look back at the text to find the answer.
F

4. understanding sequence
A text can sometimes be told in sequence or
order.
Different things happen in the beginning/
middle and end.
Questions about sequence ask you to put
details in order.
Words often used, first, then, last, after or
US
before.

5. RECOGNISING CAUSE AND
EFFECT
A cause is something that happens.
An effect is something that happens because
of the cause.
“I forgot to set my alarm clock (cause), so I
was late to school (effect).
Cause and effect questions usually start
with why, what happened, because.
CE

6. COMPARING AND
CONTRASTING
These questions ask you how two things are
the same or different.
Likeness and differences.
Questions about C&C often contain: most
like, different, alike or similar.
C

7. making predictions
A prediction is something you think will
happen in the future.
What will (probably) happen next?
What is most likely to happen?
Use the clues in the text to answer these
questions.
MP

8. drawing conclusions and
making inferences
When you read, many times yo umsut figure
out things on your own.
The author does not always tell you
everythjing.
Look for the clues in the text.
Questions about drawing conclusions often
contain the key words: you can tell or
probably.
D

9. finding word meaning in
context
Sometimes you may not know a word when
reading.
Often you can tell the meaning of the word by
the way the word is used in the sentence. This
is called understanding word meaning in
context.
If you have trouble choosing an answer, try
each answer choice in the sentence where the
word appears in the passage.
See which answer choice makes the most
sense. WM

10. distinguishign between fact
and opinion
Find which statements in the text are fact.
Find which statements in the text are opinion.
A FACT is something true.
A FACT you can prove.
An OPINION tells you how someone feels
about something.
F
You cannot prove OPINIONS.

11. SUMMARISING
Questions about the best summary of a
passage ask you about the main points of the
passage.
Ask yourself what is the main idea about
the text.
A good summary is closer ot the main idea
than to any single detail found in the
passage.
SU

12. SUMMARISING
Questions about the best summary of a
passage ask you about the main points of the
passage.
Ask yourself what is the main idea about
the text.
A good summary is closer ot the main idea
than to any single detail found in the
passage.
SU

13. INTERPRETING FIGURATIVE
LANGUAGE
Writers use words in a way that their meaning
is different from their usual meaning.
Eg. ‘I spilled the beans.” is an example of
figurative language. - They mean not to tell a
secret.
F