Strategies Used by Proficient Readers

1. Making connections

2. Asking questions

3. Visualizing

4. Drawing inferences

5. Determining important ideas

6. Synthesizing information

7. Repairing understanding

1. Making connections between prior knowledge and the text

Readers pay more attention when they relate to the text. They comprehend better when they think about the connections they make between the text, their lives, and the larger world.

“R” for remind

Whenever we read parts that remind us of our own lives, thoughts, or experiences, stop, think, and code the text “R” for reminds me of….Then write a few words on a sticky note that explain the incident, thought, or feeling.

Making connections….

T-S T-T T-WText to Self

How does what you are reading

relate to your own life?

Text to Text

How does what you are reading

relate to another text?

Text to WorldHow does what you are reading relate to bigger

issues, events, or concerns of the world at large?

Our goal is to make meaningful and sophisticated connections. For example, you might make a connection between the fact that there is a grandfather in Eve Bunting’s A Day’s Work and that you have a grandfather also. A more meaningful connection would involve the relationship between the grandfather and the grandson. The story delves into that relationship and describes the boy’s embarrassment at disappointing his grandfather by telling a lie. A more sophisticated connection might be to a lie once told or to an embarrassing moment.

2. Asking questions

Questioning is the strategy that keeps readers engaged. When readers ask questions, they clarify understanding and forge ahead to make meaning. Asking questions is at the heart of thoughtful reading.

Questions can occur before reading, during reading, and/or after reading.

Some question categories might include:• Questions that are answered in the text• Questions that are answered from background

knowledge• Questions whose answers can be inferred from

the text• Questions that can be answered by further

reading or discussion• Questions that require further search, possibly

elsewhere

“Thick and Thin” questions

Thick Questions

These questions address large, universal concepts and often begin with Why? How come? I wonder? The answers are often long and involved.

Thin Questions

These questions are asked to clarify confusion, understand words, or access objective content. Questions that can be answered with a number or with a simple yes or no fit into this category.

3. Visualizing

Active readers create visual images in their minds based on the words they read in the text. The pictures they create enhance their understanding.

Make a movie in your mind!

Visualizing brings joy to reading! Visualizing also strengthens our inferential thinking.

Listen to this passage from E. B. White’s Charlotte’s Web….

Excerpt from Charlotte’s Web

The barn was very large. It was very old. It smelled of hay…It smelled of the perspiration of tired horses and the wonderful sweet breath of patient cows…It smelled of grain and of harness dressing and of axle grease and of rubber boots and of new rope…It was full of all sorts of things that you find in barns: ladders, grindstones, pitch forks, monkey wrenches, scythes, lawn mowers, snow shovels, ax handles, milk pails, water buckets, empty grain sacks, and rusty rat traps. It was the kind of barn that swallows like to build their nests in. It was the kind of barn that children like to play in.

Can you visualize the barn? Are you there?

4. Drawing inferences

Inferring is taking what is known, gathering clues from the text, and thinking ahead to make a judgment, discover a theme, or speculate about what is to come.

Inferring is the bedrock of comprehension. We infer in many realms (not only in reading). Inferring is about reading faces, reading body language, reading expressions, and reading tone as well as reading text. (For example, if your mom looks grumpy, it might not be a good time to ask for something!)

Prediction or Inference?

Predicting is related to inferring, of course, but we predict outcomes, events, or actions that are confirmed or contradicted by the end of the story. Inferences are often more open-ended and may remain unresolved when the story draws to a close.

Recognizing Plot and Inferring Themes

The plot is simply what happens in the story. The theme represents the bigger idea of the story. The plot carries those ideas along.

Themes are the underlying ideas, morals, and lessons that give the story its texture, depth, and meaning. Themes are rarely written out in the story. We infer themes.

Continued….

Themes often make us feel angry, sad, guilty, joyful, frightened. We are likely to feel themes in our gut.

What might be the theme of Goldilocks and the Three Bears? Of The Tortoise and the Hare?

When readers pose questions, an inference is rarely far behind. Inferring and questioning are next of kin…they go hand in hand.

Readers need to stay on their toes to make meaning, check for misconceptions as they go. Rereading is one of the best ways to check for meaning.

5. Determining important ideas

Thoughtful readers grasp essential ideas and important information when reading. Readers must differentiate between less important ideas and key ideas that are central to the meaning of the text.

When readers determine importance in fiction and other narrative genre, they often infer the bigger ideas and themes in the story.

Getting at what is important in nonfiction text is more about gaining information and acquiring knowledge than discerning themes.

When determining what is important in nonfiction text, you may want to use these or similar strategies:

• Highlighting• Circling key words• Two/Three column note taking• Determining main ideas/details• Noting headings and bolded words

6. Synthesizing information

Synthesizing involves combining new information with existing knowledge to form an original idea or interpretation. Reviewing, sorting, and sifting important information can lead to new insights that change the way readers think.

To help understand synthesizing, think about….

Baking a cake

A Jigsaw Puzzle

Legos

A lot of different parts mixed together and baked become a whole new thing.

Putting together assorted pieces make a complete picture.

Fitting together assorted pieces and parts make a completed model, a new creation.

When readers synthesize they…

Stop and collect their thoughts before reading on

Sift important ideas from less important details

Summarize the information by briefly identifying the main parts

Combine these main points into a larger concept or bigger idea

Make generalizations and judgments about the information they read

Integrate new information with existing knowledge to form a new idea, opinion, or perspective.

Synthesizing is the most complex of comprehension strategies. Interacting personally with the text is a good way to move towards synthesis. Personal responses give readers an opportunity to explore their evolving thinking. That’s why “journal responses” are so important.

7. Repairing understanding

If confusion disrupts meaning, readers need to stop and clarify their understanding. Good readers use a variety of strategies to “fix up” comprehension when meaning gets twisted.

We all can become better readers!

Becoming a better reader is like anything else you want to improve….

It takes practice!