Partner reading is a cooperative learning strategy in which two students work together to read an assigned text. Students take turns reading and provide each other with feedback in order to monitor comprehension.
Persuasive writing is a form of writing where the writer attempts to convince or persuade the audience to adopt a particular point of view or take a specific action through the development of logical arguments and a cohesive summary. Young children can be guided through a series of simple steps in an effort to develop their persuasive writing skills.
Questioning the author (QtA) is a strategy that engages students actively with a text. Rather than reading and taking information from a text, the QtA strategy encourages students to ask questions of the author and the text.
The question-answer relationship (QAR) comprehension strategy teaches students how to ask key questions about their reading, and then how to find the answers to their questions — whether it means locating a specific fact, drawing an inference, or connecting the reading to their own experience.
RAFT is a writing strategy that encourages students to write creatively, to consider a topic from a different perspective, and to gain practice writing for different audiences.
Teacher-created reading guides help students to comprehend the main points of the reading and understand the structure of a text. They are especially useful for navigating challenging reading material.
With reader’s theater students work together to present an oral reading of a script, typically adapted from literature, plays, or other written texts. Reader’s theater is a an engaging activity used to promote reading fluency, especially oral expression.
Reciprocal teaching is a cooperative learning strategy that aims to improve students’ reading comprehension skills, with four components: predicting, clarifying, questioning, and summarizing. A group of students take turns acting as the teacher in guiding the comprehension of a text.
Revising is the process of reviewing, refining, and improving written compositions. It is a crucial step in the writing process and goes beyond simply correcting spelling and grammar; it also involves rethinking and refining the content, structure, and style of a written piece.
Rhyme is found in poetry, songs, and many children’s books and games. Most children also love to sing and recite nursery rhymes. Words that can be grouped together by a common sound, for example the “-at” family — cat, hat, and sat — can be used to teach children about similar spellings. Children can use these rhyme families when learning to read and spell.
The semantic feature analysis strategy uses a grid to help kids explore how sets of things are related to one another. By completing and analyzing the grid, students are able to see connections, make predictions, and master important concepts. This strategy enhances comprehension and vocabulary skills.
Semantic gradients are a way to broaden and deepen students’ understanding of related words. Students consider a continuum of words by order of degree. Semantic gradients often begin with antonyms, or opposites, at each end of the continuum. This strategy helps students distinguish between shades of meaning. By enhancing their vocabulary, students can be more precise and imaginative in their writing.
Combining sentences encourages students to take two or more short, choppy sentences and combine them into one effective sentence — to make their writing more readable and engaging. Sentence combining is a skill that develops over several short practice sessions.
Shared reading is an interactive read aloud where the students join in or share the reading of a book while guided by a teacher. The shared reading model often uses oversized books (referred to as big books) with enlarged print and illustrations.
Story maps use graphic organizers to help students learn the elements of a book or story. The most basic story maps focus on the beginning, middle, and end of the story. More advanced organizers focus more on plot or character traits.
The ability to recall and retell the sequence of events in a text helps students identify main narrative components, understand text structure, and summarize — all key components of comprehension.
Summarizing teaches students how to identify the most important ideas in a text, how to ignore irrelevant information, and how to integrate the central ideas in a meaningful way. Teaching students to summarize improves their memory for what is read. Summarization strategies can be used in almost every content area.
Syllable games help young kids to hear the different parts of multisyllabic words, which supports decoding speed and accuracy as well as fluency. Understanding syllables can also help students learn to spell words correctly.
Think-alouds have been described as “eavesdropping on someone’s thinking.” With this strategy, teachers verbalize aloud while reading a selection orally. Their verbalizations include describing things they’re doing as they read to monitor their comprehension. The purpose of the think-aloud strategy is to model for students how skilled readers construct meaning from a text.
Timed repeated readings are an instructional practice for monitoring students’ fluency development. Repeated readings, under timed conditions, of familiar instructional level text can increase students’ reading speed which can improve comprehension.
Teaching students to use transition words helps them improve their writing. Transition words help stories flow more smoothly, by providing logical organization and improving the connections between thoughts.
Good readers construct mental images as they read a text. By using prior knowledge and background experiences, readers connect the author’s writing with a personal picture. Through guided visualization, students learn how to create mental pictures as they read.
Word hunts are a fun and engaging word study activity that encourages students to apply their knowledge of spelling patterns, sight words, or vocabulary words in a real-world context.
