Teaching Comprehension Strategies: What are we teaching?
Children can be taught to improve their comprehension by:

thinking about what, why and how they will read before they start;

using a range of comprehension strategies while they are reading.
Comprehension Strategies
PICQLS
P = Prediction
I = Imagine
C = Check and Clarify
Q = Question
L = Look for Links
S = Summarise
Prediction
When reading a story, think ahead - what might happen next? Why? In an information
book - what might this next section be about? Be a detective, on the lookout for clues.
Beginnings and ending of sections often give important clues (e.g. titles, headings, cliffhanger endings).
Imagine
Use your senses to imagine yourself in the world of the text. What can you see / hear /
smell / taste / feel? You might like to draw what you think places and characters look like,
or just make a picture in your head.
Check and Clarify
Good readers don’t always understand everything they read – but they do know when they
don’t understand what they’re reading, and try to do something about it. They don’t just
carry on ‘saying the words’ regardless. They can try out different ways to help if they get
stuck – like reading on and then coming back; re-reading a section; breaking long sections
into smaller chunks; looking up or trying to work out the meaning of an unfamiliar word.
Sometimes, even good readers choose books that are too hard for them to understand at
that time, or try to read when they’re too tired or distracted.
Question
Ask questions, particularly ‘why?’ questions, and think about how they could be answered.
You could make up questions you’d like to ask the author, or the characters. You could
make up questions about the information in the book, or about the pictures.
Look for Links
Make links to:
 your own experience and knowledge (‘This reminds me of when we went to the
beach’).
 other parts of the same book (‘There was some other information about rivers a few
pages ago – let’s have a look back at that’)
 other books / stories / films (‘This is a bit like ‘Little Red Riding Hood’)
Summarise
At the end of a section, try to say in a few words what the gist / main points were.
Teaching Comprehension Strategies: How to teach them?
“The best way to teach comprehension strategies is to teach them one at a time, with a
great deal of time devoted to each one. Teachers should model the use of each strategy
with a wide variety of texts. Students should then practice each strategy with a variety of
texts, with the teacher encouraging student self-regulated use of the strategies by
gradually releasing control of the strategies from the teacher to the student.
An important step in becoming a good teacher of comprehension strategies is to become a
user of comprehension strategies. By learning to use and using the strategies, teachers
become aware of the positive effects of using them.”
“Classroom teachers implement comprehension strategy instruction by demonstrating,
modelling, or guiding their use during the reading of a text. Practice in their use with
teacher assistance leads to their gradual internalisation and independent mastery. The
bottom line is that readers who are given cognitive strategy instruction make significant
gains on comprehension compared with students who are trained with conventional
procedures.”
“Teacher explanations and modelling are used to introduce strategies to students, e.g.:

think alouds;

discussing own use of strategies;

modelling specific strategies;

explaining how and when to use a specific strategy;
Teachers then coach students to use strategies and reflect on their use, e.g.:

asking students to think aloud (no further prompt);

refer to display, cards, or other visual cues;

cueing to use specific comprehension strategy;

cueing to choose own comprehension strategy;

asking students to explain the reasoning behind their response;

praising use of strategies;

pointing out to students that they used a strategy;

asking if a strategy helped their understanding or enjoyment of a text.”
Extracts on this page from chapters 2, 12 and 13 of Comprehension Instruction: Research-based
Best Practices, (2002) edited by Cathy Collins Block and Michael Pressley. ISBN 1 57230 692 0