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WHAT THEY ARE:
Reading strategies are metacognitive problem-solving
behaviors that enable children to read text independently. Children
bring background knowledge, experiences and language to the task of
reading. As they work to create meaning from text, they weave strands
of information together. These strands include visual print, the syntax
of the text, the semantics and pictures. The strategies good readers
use to weave this information together include predicting, self-monitoring,
cross checking, seraching for informaiton, self-correcting, and visual
analysis.
WHY ARE THEY IMPORTANT TO TEACH:
Teaching strategies allows children to become independent
problem solvers as they read increasingly difficult materials. As good
observers of reading behaviors, teachers are aware of which strategies
a child is using effectively and which strategies need to be taught
to allow the child to become a more efficient and fluent reader.
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Classroom practices that support
the acquisition of reading strategies:
- Observe students individually as they read to assess
what strategies they use to solve problems in reading unfamiliar text.
Taking a Running Record is a good way to record a student's reading
behavior. Determine from your observation if the student is using
any or all of the following strategies to read the text:
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applying his or her knowledge
of letter sound to the print on the page
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monitoring his or her reading
so there is an awareness of when an error is made
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searching for information in
the print or the picture
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predicting what an unknown word
might be based on three cues: meaning; syntax of the sentence
to that point; and the letters that are in the word.
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checking one source of information
against another and verifying his or her conclusion. ¨
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Model your use of background knowledge
and experiences to understand what you are reading during read alouds,
shared reading, guided reading and independent reading. Statements
such as, "This character reminds me of my grandmother" or "This
book is about a trip to the zoo. I wonder if the characters will
see the same animals I did when I went to the zoo?" can be used
to model your thought process.
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Model your use of strategies as you
read to students during a "read aloud" or a "shared reading". State
explicitly what you are thinking when you read something that doesn't
make sense or sounds grammatically incorrect and what you do to
check or verify the word or phrase. Explain how you decode an unknown
word. Model rereading the sentence or phrase after you have decoded
a word so you understand the meaning of the whole thought.
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Support students' use of reading
strategies by asking questions that help them to think about what
they are doing and how they might solve a problem when reading.
It is important that they have a repertoire of problem solving strategies.
For example, if a student always tries to sound out a word but rarely
questions if the decoded word makes sense in the sentence, he needs
support in asking himself, "Did that make sense?" If a student always
looks at the picture and ignores the visual information in the print,
she needs to be supported by asking "Does that word begin like_____
? Does it look right?"
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Praise a student's use of a particular
strategy during shared reading or guided reading so other students
in the group as well as the reader will know it is an effective
strategy that you value.
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Praise a student's attempt to use
a strategy even if the result is not a correct response so they
don't abandon the strategy entirely.
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Provide students with lots of opportunity
to develop an understanding of words and how they work (see sections
on phonemic awareness and phonics).
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Provide students with lots of time
to practice reading easy material so they can integrate strategies
and develop fluency. Students love to "read around the room", reread
poetry charts, read class stories, read books in individual book
boxes and read their own writing as well as the writing of classmates.
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