Preparing to Read
Before students begin reading a text for the first time, create opportunities for them to explore the ideas, concepts, or issues discussed in the text. We want students to access prior knowledge, make connections between their lives and what they are reading, and develop relevant content knowledge that will help them comprehend the text. You will want to guide students through some or all of the following activities: Quickwrites, Study a picture, Research a topic, Vocabulary journals or games, Surveying the text, Make predictions about the text, KWL Chart, 30-second expert and Before/After reflection.
Marking the Text
Marking the text is an active reading
strategy that asks students to identify
information in the text that is relevant to
the reading purpose. This strategy has
three distinct marks: numbering
paragraphs, underlining, and circling.
Marking the Text Marking the Text: Science Marking the Text: Math Word Problems (see video below) |
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Pausing to Connect
“Pausing to Connect” is an active reading strategy that asks students to pause at different times throughout the reading and think critically about the relationship between language and meaning. It asks you to connect ideas within the text, seeking to understand what the author says and how s/he says it. Highly proficient readers read top to bottom, from left to right, but also bottom to top and right to left; they stop mid-sentence to reread important ideas, consult reading aids like dictionaries and thesauruses while working through a difficult passage, find connections among words, and consider various other textual details with reading.
Pausing to Connect Paragraphs
Pausing to Connect Essential Words
Pausing to Connect: Questions and Methods
Pausing to Connect Paragraphs
Pausing to Connect Essential Words
Pausing to Connect: Questions and Methods
Writing in the Margins
Good readers will think about texts in very specific ways as they read. “Writing in the Margins” is an active reading strategy that identifies and defines six common ways highly proficient readers think about the texts they read. We know that comprehension of a text improves when readers visualize ideas, summarize ideas, clarify information, make connections, respond/react to ideas, and ask questions. Where is this work to be done? Readers will use the margins of their texts to record their thoughts while they read. “Writing in the Margins” can be used with textbook readings, articles, primary source materials, or classroom Cornell Notes. It is simply a way of interacting with written material to process the information.
Writing in the Margins: Six Strategies at a Glance |
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Charting the Text
There are two ways to chart a text. One way to chart a text is to analyze the macro-structure (or larger structure) of the text. A reader might want to chart the macro-structure of a text, analyzing its organizational features, in order to evaluate how the structure of the text influences meaning. A second way to chart a text is to analyze the microstructure. This type of analysis examines what an author is doing at the sentence and or paragraph level. When a reader charts what an author is doing, the reader focuses on the deliberate choices the author makes when constructing meaningful paragraphs.
Charting the Text Charting Verbs List |
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Other Reading Strategies
- Utilizing Sentence Starters and Templates
- Investigating Writers' Choices
For detailed information and worksheets on all strategies and tools listed, see RJ Williams for the CRITICAL READING: Deep Reading Strategies for Expository Texts Teacher Guide 7-12 (click link for an abbreviated sample can be found).