During Reading Strategies
--Coding Text: Coding text involves teaching students a method of margin marking that helps them practice the metacognitive processes that happen naturally for independent readers. You might teach
students to place a question mark next to an underlined statement they don't understand, an exclamation
point next to something that surprised them, and a double-headed arrow and brief statement next to
something that prompts them to make a connection to something they already are familiar with. If the
book belongs to the school, students can use small post-it notes to meet the same objective. You
would not require students to use all of the margin marks in a particular text, but instead you should
choose a few active reading skills and corresponding marks for students to employ during the reading,
based on particular aspects of the text. The Coding Text strategy can be applied to all content areas and
a variety of texts, and it is a highly effective during-reading strategy to help students engage in
metacognitive comprehension strategies. A sample of codes are explained in the table below, but really
any can be used as long as they are appropriately symbolic and you teach them to your students.
--Say Something: This strategy builds in frequent but brief student-to-student conversations while reading. Per your directions, students stop after every stanza, paragraph, section, or set number of pages to engage in structured dialogue about what they are reading, to clear up any confusion before moving on, and to break the habit of reading without stopping to think. When implementing this strategy, students can work in pairs or small groups; either one person reads each section aloud, then “says something” to the group that others then respond to, or all students can read silently and a designated person must start the Say Something process. Kylene Beers recommends creating specific “rules” for participating in Say Something (rules which you should model, explain, and allow students to practice). Beers displays the following poster in her room:
Rules for Say Something
1. With your partner, decide who will say something first.
2. When you say something, do one or more of the following:
a. Make a prediction
b. Ask a question
c. Clarify something you misunderstood
d. Make a comment
e. Make a connection
3. If you can't do one of these five things, then you need to reread.
4. Your partner should comment on what you have shared, by doing one of the following:
a. Agreeing/disagreeing with your prediction
b. Answering your question or asking a follow-up question
c. Making an additional comment or connection
--Re-Read:
Consider the following dialogue between Kylene Beers and one of her students:
Me: What’s wrong, Ben?
Ben: I didn't get the story.
Me: Did you reread the parts you didn't get?
Ben: Why?
Me: To help you understand them.
Ben: Why would reading the same stuff again help me get it?98
Ben illustrates the viewpoint of many struggling readers: “Why would reading the same stuff again help
me get it?” However, independent readers often stop to reread sentences and passages that don’t
initially make sense. When we reread, we move at a slower pace, reflect on what we have read, and in
our effort to make meaning of the text, flip back a page or two to see where else that vocabulary word
was mentioned. Struggling readers first need their misconceptions about the value of re-reading broken
down—a great opportunity to reinforce the value that “hard work leads to success” as discussed in
Classroom Management & Culture. Struggling readers also need structured opportunities to reread (as
opposed to just giving them the vague instruction to “reread it”) in order to continually build
comprehension in the during-reading phase.
To help students see the value of re-reading, you might assign them a short passage and ask them to
read it three times. After each reading, ask them to rate their level of understanding of the text on a
scale of one to ten. Afterwards, debrief with students, asking them to share their comprehension levels
and why they think they increased from the first to the third reading. Most likely, students will share
statements such as, “the second time I already had a general idea of what the passage was about, so I
could pay more attention to the details” or, “I knew what the hard words were, so by the second or third
time I could focus on using the context clues to figure out what the words meant.” You might also relate
the re-reading process to the re-listening or re-watching process that students constantly—and
eagerly—engage in with music and movies. Adolescents will easily articulate why they listen to songs
repeatedly: with each new hearing they discern more of the words, master more of the melody, and are
able to focus more on the emotions the lyrics produce. Similarly with movies: adolescents don’t avoid rewatching
movies or music videos because they already know the ending. They re-watch them to catch
more details each time around and because they enjoy anticipating what is going to happen next.
--Story Mapping:
A Story Map is essentially a graphic organizer that helps students note and track the essential elements in a narrative while reading. In its traditional form, the Story Mapping approach is most applicable to an English class where students are learning about the basic elements of a story’s format (Setting, Characters, Mood, Events, Resolution, and Theme). However, content area teachers could modify the “story map” format in a variety of ways. In a math class, an Equation Map might require students to note the steps to solving an equation (with spaces for each step required to determine the solution and a box for the mathematical processes used); in social studies an Event Map could track the
sequence of events, major characters, and ultimate resolution of an event in history; biology students
could fill out a Process Map that charts the steps involved in transcribing DNA and noting the organelles
involved. As you may have gathered, all of these “maps” are simply graphic organizers that help students
actively process a sequence of events or actions described in either narrative or expository text,
something that struggling readers would tend to gloss over.
--Create a Timeline:
Timelines are graphic representations of the chronology of events in time. While they are often used as a way to display information in visual form in textbooks as an alternative to written narrative, students can also become more actively engaged in learning the sequence of events in history by constructing timelines themselves.
--Event Chains:
1. Read the passage out loud to the students, have the students read the passage alone, or pair the students and have them read it out loud to each other. They are to be listening for or looking for what happens first, second, and so on in the passage.
2. You may want to have the students write down the events that happen in the passage.
--Pick a Card, Any Card:
Pick a card, any card is a during reading strategy that provides thinking prompts for students while they read the story. You will need to create a deck of cards with the prompts below, one per card (You can add, take away or change the prompts as you so choose). Have each student draw one or two of the cards before they begin reading. Pile the rest of the cards in the center of the table. Give Each student will respond to their prompt on a sticky note whilte they read. They the share either with a partner, in a group or as a whole class.
Here is the list of prompts:
Steps to Using Pick A Card, Any Card:
1. Create a deck of cards using the prompts above. (One prompt per card)
2. Choose a content-rich narrative to pair with this activity.
3. Have students pick 1-2 of the cards from the deck.
4. Give each student 1-2 post-it notes, where they will write their responses to the prompts.
5. Explain to students that while they read, they will need to focus on the prompts they have selected and respond to them on the index cards.
6. Once they have read and responded pair students up, put them in a group or hold a whole-class discussion to share their responses to their prompts.
--Irregular Fold Response:
This is a strategy that students use while they are reading. They fold their paper into thirds. Each column is for something different:
Column 1: In this box students collect six words that “amaze, amuse or puzzle” them.
Column 2: In this box students summarize what they just read- and they get “extra credit” for using a word in the box above.
Column 3: In this box they draw a symbol or a picture of what they just read.
students to place a question mark next to an underlined statement they don't understand, an exclamation
point next to something that surprised them, and a double-headed arrow and brief statement next to
something that prompts them to make a connection to something they already are familiar with. If the
book belongs to the school, students can use small post-it notes to meet the same objective. You
would not require students to use all of the margin marks in a particular text, but instead you should
choose a few active reading skills and corresponding marks for students to employ during the reading,
based on particular aspects of the text. The Coding Text strategy can be applied to all content areas and
a variety of texts, and it is a highly effective during-reading strategy to help students engage in
metacognitive comprehension strategies. A sample of codes are explained in the table below, but really
any can be used as long as they are appropriately symbolic and you teach them to your students.
--Say Something: This strategy builds in frequent but brief student-to-student conversations while reading. Per your directions, students stop after every stanza, paragraph, section, or set number of pages to engage in structured dialogue about what they are reading, to clear up any confusion before moving on, and to break the habit of reading without stopping to think. When implementing this strategy, students can work in pairs or small groups; either one person reads each section aloud, then “says something” to the group that others then respond to, or all students can read silently and a designated person must start the Say Something process. Kylene Beers recommends creating specific “rules” for participating in Say Something (rules which you should model, explain, and allow students to practice). Beers displays the following poster in her room:
Rules for Say Something
1. With your partner, decide who will say something first.
2. When you say something, do one or more of the following:
a. Make a prediction
b. Ask a question
c. Clarify something you misunderstood
d. Make a comment
e. Make a connection
3. If you can't do one of these five things, then you need to reread.
4. Your partner should comment on what you have shared, by doing one of the following:
a. Agreeing/disagreeing with your prediction
b. Answering your question or asking a follow-up question
c. Making an additional comment or connection
--Re-Read:
Consider the following dialogue between Kylene Beers and one of her students:
Me: What’s wrong, Ben?
Ben: I didn't get the story.
Me: Did you reread the parts you didn't get?
Ben: Why?
Me: To help you understand them.
Ben: Why would reading the same stuff again help me get it?98
Ben illustrates the viewpoint of many struggling readers: “Why would reading the same stuff again help
me get it?” However, independent readers often stop to reread sentences and passages that don’t
initially make sense. When we reread, we move at a slower pace, reflect on what we have read, and in
our effort to make meaning of the text, flip back a page or two to see where else that vocabulary word
was mentioned. Struggling readers first need their misconceptions about the value of re-reading broken
down—a great opportunity to reinforce the value that “hard work leads to success” as discussed in
Classroom Management & Culture. Struggling readers also need structured opportunities to reread (as
opposed to just giving them the vague instruction to “reread it”) in order to continually build
comprehension in the during-reading phase.
To help students see the value of re-reading, you might assign them a short passage and ask them to
read it three times. After each reading, ask them to rate their level of understanding of the text on a
scale of one to ten. Afterwards, debrief with students, asking them to share their comprehension levels
and why they think they increased from the first to the third reading. Most likely, students will share
statements such as, “the second time I already had a general idea of what the passage was about, so I
could pay more attention to the details” or, “I knew what the hard words were, so by the second or third
time I could focus on using the context clues to figure out what the words meant.” You might also relate
the re-reading process to the re-listening or re-watching process that students constantly—and
eagerly—engage in with music and movies. Adolescents will easily articulate why they listen to songs
repeatedly: with each new hearing they discern more of the words, master more of the melody, and are
able to focus more on the emotions the lyrics produce. Similarly with movies: adolescents don’t avoid rewatching
movies or music videos because they already know the ending. They re-watch them to catch
more details each time around and because they enjoy anticipating what is going to happen next.
--Story Mapping:
A Story Map is essentially a graphic organizer that helps students note and track the essential elements in a narrative while reading. In its traditional form, the Story Mapping approach is most applicable to an English class where students are learning about the basic elements of a story’s format (Setting, Characters, Mood, Events, Resolution, and Theme). However, content area teachers could modify the “story map” format in a variety of ways. In a math class, an Equation Map might require students to note the steps to solving an equation (with spaces for each step required to determine the solution and a box for the mathematical processes used); in social studies an Event Map could track the
sequence of events, major characters, and ultimate resolution of an event in history; biology students
could fill out a Process Map that charts the steps involved in transcribing DNA and noting the organelles
involved. As you may have gathered, all of these “maps” are simply graphic organizers that help students
actively process a sequence of events or actions described in either narrative or expository text,
something that struggling readers would tend to gloss over.
--Create a Timeline:
Timelines are graphic representations of the chronology of events in time. While they are often used as a way to display information in visual form in textbooks as an alternative to written narrative, students can also become more actively engaged in learning the sequence of events in history by constructing timelines themselves.
--Event Chains:
1. Read the passage out loud to the students, have the students read the passage alone, or pair the students and have them read it out loud to each other. They are to be listening for or looking for what happens first, second, and so on in the passage.
2. You may want to have the students write down the events that happen in the passage.
--Pick a Card, Any Card:
Pick a card, any card is a during reading strategy that provides thinking prompts for students while they read the story. You will need to create a deck of cards with the prompts below, one per card (You can add, take away or change the prompts as you so choose). Have each student draw one or two of the cards before they begin reading. Pile the rest of the cards in the center of the table. Give Each student will respond to their prompt on a sticky note whilte they read. They the share either with a partner, in a group or as a whole class.
Here is the list of prompts:
- I never thought that.....
- I thought....
- I can't believe...
- I think the author...
- I wonder why...
- What if...
- I was surprised...
- It reminds me of...
- I really can't understand...
- I like the way...
- Is this character similar to any others) I have read about?
- Can I write a summary of this part of the story?
- What do I know so far?
- What did the author do to make me think this way?
- Am I satisfied with this story?
- How does this information differ from other things I know?
- Why is this difficult for me to understand?
- Does this information give me any clues as to what may happen later in the story?
- Why would his information be important for me to know?
Steps to Using Pick A Card, Any Card:
1. Create a deck of cards using the prompts above. (One prompt per card)
2. Choose a content-rich narrative to pair with this activity.
3. Have students pick 1-2 of the cards from the deck.
4. Give each student 1-2 post-it notes, where they will write their responses to the prompts.
5. Explain to students that while they read, they will need to focus on the prompts they have selected and respond to them on the index cards.
6. Once they have read and responded pair students up, put them in a group or hold a whole-class discussion to share their responses to their prompts.
--Irregular Fold Response:
This is a strategy that students use while they are reading. They fold their paper into thirds. Each column is for something different:
Column 1: In this box students collect six words that “amaze, amuse or puzzle” them.
Column 2: In this box students summarize what they just read- and they get “extra credit” for using a word in the box above.
Column 3: In this box they draw a symbol or a picture of what they just read.