MAKING MEANING, Fourth Grade Comprehension Strategies
Understanding Text Structure
Proficient readers use their knowledge of narrative and expository text structure to
approach and comprehend texts. For example, readers who understand that stories have
common elements, such as setting, characters, and plot, have a framework for thinking
about stories. Readers who understand that expository texts have common features,
such as headings and subheadings, use those features to help them unlock the text's
meaning.
 Students will use story elements to help them think about stories. They also
identify features of expository texts and use those features to help them
understand the texts.
Wondering/Questioning
Proficient readers wonder and ask questions to focus their reading, clarify meaning, and
delve deeper into text. They wonder what a text is about before they read, speculate
about what is happening while they read, and ask questions after they read to gauge
their understanding.
 Students will wonder and ask questions before, during, and after a read-aloud to
make sense of the text.
Visualizing
Visualizing is the process of creating mental images while reading. Mental images can
include sights, sounds, smells, tastes, sensations, and emotions. Good readers form
mental images to help them understand, remember, and enjoy texts.
 Students visualize to make sense of figurative language and deepen their
understanding and enjoyment of poems and stories.
Making Inferences
Not everything communicated by a text is directly stated. Good readers use their prior
knowledge and the information in a text to understand implied meanings. Making
inferences helps readers move beyond the literal to a deeper understanding of texts.
 Students make inferences to think more deeply about both narrative and
expository texts.
Determining Important Ideas
Determining the important ideas in texts helps readers identify information that is
essential to know and remember. What is identified as important in a text will vary from
reader to reader, depending on the purpose for reading and prior knowledge.
 Students explore which ideas in texts are important and support their thinking
with evidence from the texts.
Summarizing
Summarizing is the process of identifying and bringing together the essential ideas in a
text. Readers summarize as a way of understanding what they have read and
communicating it to others.
 Students identify the important ideas in a text and use those ideas to develop oral
and written summaries.
Using Schema/Making Connections
Schema is the prior knowledge a reader brings to a text. Readers construct meaning by
making connections between their prior knowledge and new information in a text.
 Students learn to connect what they know from their own experience to stories
before, during, and after a read-aloud.
Synthesizing
Synthesizing is a complex process that requires the reader to visualize, use schema,
question, infer, and summarize to develop new ideas and understandings based on
information in a text.
 Students synthesize to form opinions and make judgments about texts.
Thinking Tools
Students will use various "THINKING TOOLS" to help them implement the strategies
they are learning and delve more deeply into texts.
Stop and Ask Questions
The teacher will stop at various places during a read-aloud, and the students write
questions about what they are hearing. Students then have a record of their questions to
use during partner or class discussions.
Double-entry Journal
In one column, a student might write a quotation from a text, and in the other column
her reaction to the quotation. A student might write thoughts about a character at the
start of a story in one column, and in the other column her thoughts and the character at
the end of the story. This will help students to become more reflective about their
reading and build writing skills.