What and Why of Comprehension Strategies

In this video we teach you what the comprehension strategies are and why we teach them. Comprehending what we read is the GOAL of reading instruction.  It is why we do everything else!  Comprehension strategy instruction is one way to aide comprehension.

Strategies are "ways of thinking" made clear through modeling and thinking aloud.  These strategies happen in our heads mostly during reading so we have to stop during our lessons and talk about our thinking as we go or we have missed the opportunities to teach about the thinking that is occurring.

There are many strategies,but we have chosen to narrow our list down to a few that are most common.

Visualize

Question

Connection

Evaluate & Comment

Monitor & Clarify

Summarize

Predict
Infer 

As you pay attention to your own strategy use as a reader, you will find it easier to teach these strategies to your students.  We give many tips and helps for you to rely on our thinking until you are able to pay attention to your own thinking. It is our goal for you to be deep thinkers and to then get your students to be deep thinkers, using strategies when they are appropriate and helpful to understand the text they are reading!

FREE Comprehension Resources Handout
Comprehension Posters