Strategic Reading

What is Strategic Reading?• Reading is a process of constructing meaning

by interacting with text; as individuals read, they use their prior knowledge along with clues from the text to construct meaning.

• A strategy is a plan selected deliberately by the reader to accomplish a particular goal or to complete a given task.

Strategies for Constructing Meaning

Inferencing• Inferencing, the process of judging,

concluding, or reasoning from given information, has been described by some researchers as the heart of the reading process.

prediction• The process that is involved as students make

_________ before and during reading.

Monitoring• Monitoring, the process of knowing when what

you are reading is not making sense and having some means for overcoming the problem, is an important part of students’ metacognitive development.

• Self-awareness while reading.• While reading, the reader makes judgments

(confirming, testing, sampling & hypothesizing).

• The reader takes a corrective action when comprehension fails.

Summarizing• Summarizing, pulling together the important

information in longer texts, has been shown to be an important strategy in helping readers improve their abilities to construct meaning.

• Pull out main ideas• Focus on key details• Use key words and phrases• Break down the larger ideas• Write only enough to convey the gist• Take succinct but complete notes

Skimming• In this strategy you can speedily get main

ideas, opinions, conclusions and answers to question.

Recommendation in Skimming• Main idea only• Ignoring large sections of content• Read only key words, omitting words of lesser

importance

Context Clues• When you encounter a word you don't know as

you are reading, you can choose to look It up in a dictionary, ignore it or use the surrounding words to help you determine what the word means. Using the words around it is using contextual clues.

Question Generating• In using this strategy, students generate their

own questions to be answered as they read. It improves their abilities to construct meaning.

The Role of Vocabulary

Direct Instruction and Strategy for Inferring Word Meaning• Direct instruction in vocabulary is only

effective in helping students improve their abilities to construct meaning when a few words key to the selection are thoroughly and meaningfully taught, when the words are integrated with the activation and development of prior knowledge, and when the teaching actively involves students in the learning.

The Goal…• The goal of all reading instruction is to help

students become expert readers so that they can achieve independence and can use literacy for lifelong learning and enjoyment. Learning to use strategies effectively is essential to constructing meaning.