Before reading a text, students who are strategic often do the following:
- Activate background knowledge related to the text.
- Preview the text in order to make predictions and/or visualize the upcoming content.
- Ask questions about the text.
During their reading, students who are strategic often do the following:
- Predict future events/content in the text.
- Monitor their own understanding.
- Use fix-up strategies when they come to content they don't understand or remember (reread, use resources, decode, change speed, etc.)
- Generate questions about the reading.
- Make inferences.
- Make connections between ideas, concepts, and characters in the text.
- Synthesize by combining information from different sources, combining it with their background information.
- Visualize what is happening.
- Take notes.
- Evaluate the text: Is it believable? Is it interesting? Is it well written?
- Construct responses to the text.
After they have read the text, students who are strategic often do the following:
- Generate questions about the text.
- Summarize and identify the main idea of the text.
- Recall content.
- Extend the knowledge gained from text to other reading, writing, speaking, or art activities.
- Evaluate the content and ideas in the text.
- Outline the text.
- Use text as a stepping stone for further reading.
Excerpt from Reading Instruction for Students Who Are at Risk or Have Disabilities, by W.D. Bursuck, M. Damer, 2007 edition, p. 273.
© ______ 2007, Merrill, an imprint of Pearson Education Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved. The reproduction, duplication, or distribution of this material by any means including but not limited to email and blogs is strictly prohibited without the explicit permission of the publisher.
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