Mrs. Jensen’s Guide to Habits of Good Readers

Good Readers are ACTIVELY READING

Active Reading means

• there is a movie screen in your head filling with images, ideas, connections, etc. made by the words you’re reading.

Active Reading means

• When the screen goes blank or switches channels, good readers are aware of this and stop to fix the screen.

Active Reading means

• using tools to keep actively involved with the text (highlighters, marking the book with pencils, sticky notes, etc.)

Active Reading

requires YOU to make the picture screen in your head. This is harder than having the pictures, ideas, connections made for you already (that is called entertainment). It gets easier the more you do this.

Good Readers Limit Distractions

• Turn off visual distracters• Turn off auditory distracters• Work in a quiet place

• Limit physical distractions• Promote physical attention

Good Readers engage the text

• With conversations in the margins• With specially developed markings that keep

you thinking without stopping your reading

Good Readers learn new words

• They don’t stop every time they see a word they don’t know . . .

But they do

• Practice guessing words in context• Circle, underline, or note words as they’re

reading and go back to some of them• Notice if some words are used repeatedly

Good Readers Predict Before Reading

• Before reading, they ask questions that they seek to answer while reading

• Before reading, they predict where an idea is going, how a character is developing, guess what will happen next

Good Readers Comment During Reading

• Questions, comments, aggravations, hilarious moments, confusion

• They notice what they don’t get and readjust

Good Readers Summarize After Reading

• After a SUSTAINED effort, they stop and regroup

• They use the white space at the beginning and endings of text for summarizing, restating in their own words.

Good Readers set goals to meet when they read

• Goals may be finding the answer or looking for something in particular

• Goals may be time/page goals• Goals may be conceptual

What do Good Readers Do?

Read Actively

Limit Distractions

Engage conversationally with the text

Learn new words

Predict before reading

Comment during reading

Summarize after reading

Set goals for reading

As the texts in high school get longer and harder . . .

• You may need to develop some different

READING HABITS