Active Reading
Strategies
An introduction to the reading process,
strategies
for
comprehension
development, and ways you can help
your child at home.
“Reading is thinking.”
Presented by the Second Grade Team at Chartiers Valley Primary
School
What Parents Need to Know About Active Readers • Chartiers Valley Primary School • 2013-14 SY
What Parents Need to Know About Active Readers • Chartiers Valley Primary School • 2013-14 SY
What Parents Need to Know About Active Readers
In 1997, Congress asked the NICHD, along with the U.S. Department of Education, to
form the National Reading Panel to review research on how children learn to read
and determine which methods of teaching reading are most effective based on the
research evidence.
The National Reading Panel's analysis made it clear that the best approach to reading
instruction is one that incorporates explicit instruction in phonemic awareness,
systematic phonics instruction, methods to improve fluency, and ways to enhance
comprehension.
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Phonemic awareness: the ability to focus on and manipulate individual
sounds in spoken words
Phonics: the ability to match sounds to letters and use this knowledge in
reading and spelling (also know as the alphabetic principle)
Fluency reading text: the ability to read connected text with speed,
accuracy, and proper expression
Vocabulary: the ability to understand and use words
Comprehension: the ability to get meaning from text
The main focus at the primary level is within the first three steps of the reading
continuum in order to learn to read. Grades fourth-sixth continue with fluency
instruction, vocabulary development, and meaning-making or comprehension.
Children at this stage are evolving from learning to read to reading to learn. Students
at this developmental level have little or no struggles with the mechanics of reading
or “how to read.” Instead students, even capable readers, begin to have difficulty with
reading a social studies textbook because the meaning breaks down. Readers of all
abilities can benefit from practicing the use of comprehension strategies proven to be
habits of good readers. These strategies all fall under the umbrella of “reading is
thinking.” Students in every grade level must be thinking about the text while
reading. The strategies outlined on the following pages will allow for the
strengthening of a student’s independent reading habits and promote more enjoyable
reading.
What Parents Need to Know About Active Readers • Chartiers Valley Primary School • 2013-14 SY
Below is a list of behaviors commonly employed by good readers.
According to Duke and Pearson (2002) have established that good readers:
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Read actively by leaving “tracks” of their inner conversation.
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Preview the text prior to reading, noting the text organization and structure
to locate the sections most relevant to their reading goals
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Make predictions about what is to come in the text
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Construct, revise, and question the meanings they develop as they read
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Determine the meanings of unfamiliar of unknown words and concepts
in the text
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Draw from, compare, and merge their prior knowledge with the material
in the text
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Monitor their understanding of the text
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Read different kinds of texts differently
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Think about the text before, during, and after reading
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Feel satisfied when reading, even though comprehension is a complex
activity
What Parents Need to Know About Active Readers • Chartiers Valley Primary School • 2013-14 SY
Reading is an interactive process of constructing meaning. A three-part framework
built on before, during, and after reading strategies facilitates that reading-thinking
process and solidifies the learning.
Before Reading
Prior to beginning a reading assignment, engage your child in activities that include
generating interest in the topic, building and activating prior knowledge, and setting
the purpose for reading.
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Students who are motivated to read are more engaged and actively involved in the
process of learning.
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Motivated readers are more likely to have a better long-term recall of what they read.
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Your child has information stored in his/her brain like a file cabinet. Activate your
student’s prior knowledge or “schema” and open a “file” on the topic about to be read.
Tapping into what they already know or have experienced promotes efficiency of
comprehending the new material they will be reading.
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Students should set a purpose for reading. They need to know what their purpose is
as they read because it helps them to focus their efforts.
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“Look around the text” in order to introduce key concepts or vocabulary prior to
reading. This will help your child read more fluently, with greater automaticity, and
with greater comprehension, all of which lead to greater recall of the information.
Before-Reading Activities Examples of how you can support your child.
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Scan visual aids such as diagrams, photos, maps, illustrations, etc.
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Preview text structure for titles and subheadings, captions, and fonts
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Skim the reading to activate prior knowledge
Which animals in this section about endangered species do you already know?
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Review any unknown vocabulary or subject related words that your child may stop,
stumble or be stomped by while reading. Tell them the words and what they mean.
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Predict what will happen in the selection.
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Hold a purpose-setting conversation.
What can learning about frogs help us understand what is happening to the
environment we are living in as humans?
What Parents Need to Know About Active Readers • Chartiers Valley Primary School • 2013-14 SY
During Reading
During the reading, your child is actively reading silently. During this stage of the
reading process, children are engaged in answering questions (either self-generated
or teacher-generated), monitoring their comprehension of the text, clarifying the
purpose of the reading, visualizing the information, and building connections.
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Proficient readers self-question as they read to make sure they understand the
reading material. Read with a question in mind. Read until you get a satisfying
answer.
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As they read, your child should begin to infer the author’s message.
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A student must monitor his/her comprehension as he/she actively reads. If a section
of text is confusing, the student needs to know that he/she can reread the section, use
fix-up strategies to help understand what is confusing, or adjust the speed of reading
to match the difficulty of the text.
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Your student must also be “solving” words as they actively read. If he/she does not
know what words means, they use the context clues or word parts to decode the
meaning of the word.
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Proficient readers actively work to create images in their mind, or “movies” that
represent the concepts in the reading material. This promotes greater recall of the
information and engages the student in the reading process.
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The truest form of comprehension comes from connecting the new information to
existing schema or background knowledge. It can be connected to a personal
experience, a previous text read or media seen, or perhaps events happening in the
world, past or present.
During-Reading Activities Examples of how you can support your child.
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Reread to clarify the confusion. I don’t understand the difference between a turtle and
a tortoise, so let’s reread this section.
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Solve words. What is echolocation? Which parts of the word do you recognize?
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Monitor and regulate reading.
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Self-question to monitor understanding.
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Seek answers to questions. Why do I sometimes see the moon during the day?
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Observe text features. This subheading, “Desert Dwellers,” tells me we’re now going to
read about animals that live in the desert.
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Support predictions. I was right about…
What Parents Need to Know About Active Readers • Chartiers Valley Primary School • 2013-14 SY
During-Reading Activities Continued Examples of how you can support your child.
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Make connections between ideas and between new information and prior knowledge.
You thought that all sharks are large. Now we know that some sharks are actually small.
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Visualize content. Let’s make pictures of the forest in our minds. What do you see?
After Reading
During the final stage of the reading process, students build connections among the
bits of information about which they read, enabling them to depend on their
understanding and reflect on what they have learned.
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Your child can think about the new information, clarify new ideas, refine their
thinking, and connect what they learned to other ideas to synthesize the new
information.
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At this stage, students also find the main idea and determine the most important ideas
and details. This allows them to summarize what they have read.
After-Reading Activities Examples of how you can support your child.
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Reread to review the information and locate specific information.
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Confirm predictions.
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Talk about what was understood.
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Clarify meaning. Explain wrinkled.
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Relate the reading to your own life.
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Summarize what was read.
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Synthesize new information. Now I understand what happens to my recycling
items after they are picked up from my house.
Sources Used:
Duke, N.K., and P.D.Pearson. 2002 Effective practices for developing comprehension. In
What research has to say about reading instruction? 3rded. Ed.A.E. Farstup and S.J.
Samuels, 205-242 Newark, DE: International Reading Association, Inc.
Harvey, Stephanie and Anne Goudvis. 2007. Strategies That Work. Portland, ME:Stenhouse.
Macceca, Stephanie.2007. Reading Strategies for Science. Huntington Beach, CA:Shell
Education.
What Parents Need to Know About Active Readers • Chartiers Valley Primary School • 2013-14 SY