Ep 105 // REPLAY: Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies

Inside This Week’s Episode: — Using reading comprehension strategies is a MUST-DO to help develop stronger, more proficient readers. But how can we approach reading comprehension strategy instruction in a way that will actually encourage students to use these strategies in a meaningful way? Tune in to this week’s episode for an interactive approach to teaching reading strategies.


WHAT MAKES SOMEONE A GREAT READER?

Ask any elementary student and you’d likely hear responses like:

“Great readers can read fast.”

“Great readers use expression.”

“Great readers can read all the words correctly.”

These answers are all correct, however, we want students to understand that reading is more than just being able to read the words on the page.  What we really want students to be doing while they read is thinking!

That’s where reading comprehension strategies come in.  Reading strategy instruction gives students a guideline for how to think about what they are reading.  Educational experts call this “metacognition,” which can be defined as “thinking about thinking.”  This concept is at the heart of why we teach and encourage students to use reading strategies.  Students need to understand that thinking is essential to reading.

This week’s episode is one of my most popular and downloaded episodes from the podcast, so I’m proving this encore performance. It’s the first episode in a series of episodes on reading comprehension strategies. So, if you’ve been struggling with how to approach reading comprehension instruction, this is your starting point!

I can’t wait to share with you some tools and some strategies that you can pass on to your students to help improve their reading comprehension.

Buckle up as I share with you some helpful tips, strategies, and resources for teaching your students reading comprehension. 

 

Here’s what You’ll Learn:

  • The difference between skill and strategy

  • Why we teach reading strategies

  • The 7 main reading comprehension strategies

    • Making Connections

    • Visualizing

    • Predicting

    • Asking Questions

    • Determining Importance

    • Inferring

    • Synthesizing

  • The book that basically taught me everything I know about reading comprehension strategies

  • How to introduce strategies (and why you should introduce them all together)

  • How to model reading strategies

  • What a mini lesson might look like

  • Which order to teach the 7 reading strategies

 

FREE READING STRATEGY CARDS

These reading comprehension strategy cards are the perfect visual for your students when teaching each strategy.

Each card comes with a kid-friendly definition of the strategy and make great teaching tools for mini-lessons or small-group instruction! Enter your name and email below and I'll send you your FREE set!

 

REVIEW & SUBSCRIBE TO THE CLASSROOM COMMUTE PODCAST

Don’t miss a single episode. Subscribe to the podcast and you’ll get notified each week when a new episode gets dropped! And - if you love what you hear, I’d be so honored if you took a quick moment to rate and review the podcast so that other awesome teachers can find the podcast!

Previous
Previous

Ep 106 // Digital Citizenship (Helping Elementary Students Understand Privacy & Security Online)

Next
Next

Ep 104 // Classroom Technology Tip: YouTube Hack for Teachers!