Reading Strategies

Wednesday - Purposeful Reading

Occasionally you will employ a reading comprehension strategy before you begin reading a text, such as setting a purpose for reading or generating questions.

To set a purpose for reading means to identify the reason for reading a text.

Generating questions means to ask and answer questions before, during, and after reading a text.

During reading, you might apply one or a combination of strategies that will help you feel confident as you read challenging texts.

Open Ended

In 2-3 sentences, what do you think is purposeful reading?

Reading Strategy 1 - Setting a Purpose

●What It Is: Deciding why I am reading a text—whether it’s to get information, to be entertained, or to analyze the author’s techniques.

●How It Helps Me: Knowing the purpose helps me focus on the most relevant
details.

●Example Activity: Before reading, I might state what I hope to learn or why I am reading a particular text, then reflect afterward on how well the text met that purpose.

●Example TCAP Question: If you are reading a mystery novel, what might be
your primary purpose for reading?

Multiple Choice

What is NOT one of the listed purposes for reading?

• Get Information

• Get a Test Answer Right

• Be Entertained

• Analyze Author's Techniques

Reading Strategy 2 - Generating Questions

●What It Is: Ask questions before, during, and after reading to clarify
understanding, explore deeper meanings, and engage more actively with the text.

●How It Helps Me: Questioning enhances my critical thinking & comprehension.

●Example Activity: I might generate questions about the text as I read, then use those questions to guide discussion or further exploration.

●Example TCAP Question: What question could you ask yourself after reading the first two chapters of a book to deepen your understanding of the plot?

Multiple Choice

What question could you ask yourself after reading the first two chapters of a book to deepen your understanding of the plot?

• What is the main idea of this story?

• How do the main character's actions so far set up future conflicts?

• What genre does this book belong to?

• How many characters have been introduced so far?

Reading Strategy 3 - Making & Confirming Predictions

●What It Is: Predicting involves anticipating what will happen next in a text based on clues provided by the author. Confirming predictions involves checking if those predictions were accurate as I read further.

●How It Helps Me: I can engage with texts actively, developing my
ability to draw inferences and understanding narrative structure.

●Example Activity: Before reading a chapter or text, I might predict what will happen based on the title, illustrations, or a quick preview. After reading, I will confirm or revise my predictions.

●Example TCAP Question: After reading the first paragraph of the
story, what do you predict will happen next? Support your prediction with evidence from the text.

Multiple Choice

Will your predictions always be correct?

• Yes

• No

Open Ended

What can you use to support your predictions?

Reading Strategy 4 - Visualizing

●What It Is: Visualizing involves creating mental images of the
scenes, characters, and events described in a text. This strategy helps me deepen my understanding by turning words into pictures in my mind. This is especially helpful when a story or poem contains a lot of descriptive or figurative language.

●How It Helps Me: Visualization supports my comprehension and
retention of details, which is crucial for interpreting a text.

●Example Activity: While reading a descriptive passage, I can draw or describe the scene as I imagine it.

●Example TCAP Question: Based on the description in the text, which of the following images best represents the setting?

Multiple Choice

Which kinds of language best help you visualize what's happening?

• descriptive and figurative

• pretend and imaginative

• thematic and smart

• flowery and pretentious

Reading Strategy 5 - Making Connections

●What It Is: This strategy encourages me to connect the text to my own experiences (text-to-self), to other texts (text-to-text), and to the world (text-to-world).

●How It Helps Me: Making connections enhances comprehension by
helping me see relevance and build on prior knowledge.

●Example Activity: After reading a section of a text, I might discuss or write about how a character’s experience reminds me of something in my own life.

●Example TCAP Question: This type of question would be an essay – How does the main character’s struggle in this story relate to a
challenge you have faced? Explain how this connection helps you
better understand the character's actions.

Open Ended

Why do you think that connection questions have to be essay-based rather than multiple choice?

Reading Strategy 6 - Making Inferences

●What It Is: Inference-making involves reading between the lines to understand what the author implies but does not directly state. This strategy requires me to use context clues and my own knowledge.

●How It Helps Me: This is crucial for understanding deeper meanings and themes, which are often not directly stated.

●Example Activity: I might read a passage where a character’s
feelings are not directly described but inferred from their actions, then explain what the character is feeling.

●Example TCAP Question: What can you infer about the character's feelings based on their actions in paragraph 3?

What can you infer about the text’s theme based on the main character’s actions in the passage?

Multiple Choice

What part of the text is rarely directly stated?

• The Character's Name

• The Title

• Theme

• Setting

Reading Strategy 7 - Evaluating Details

●What It Is: This strategy involves identifying and assessing the importance of details in a text to understand the main idea and supporting points.

●How It Helps Me: Evaluating details helps me analyze how elements
contribute to the overall meaning.

●Example Activity: I might identify the key details that support the main argument in a nonfiction text.

●Example TCAP Question: Which detail from the text is most important in understanding the main character's motivation?

Multiple Choice

What does evaluating mean?

• Making a guess

• Making a judgment

• Making a statement

• Making a friend

Reading Strategy 8 - Synthesizing

●What It Is: Synthesizing involves combining information from
different parts of a text, or from multiple texts, to form a new
understanding or to draw conclusions.

●How It Helps Me: Synthesizing supports higher-level thinking,
helping me to connect and integrate ideas across texts.

●Example Activity: After reading several articles on a topic, I could write a summary that combines the main points from each source.

●Example TCAP Question: After reading both the article and the
poem about the same historical event, what conclusion can you draw about how the event impacted the people involved?

Multiple Choice

Based on the TCAP question, "After reading both the article and the poem about the same historical event, what conclusion can you draw about how the event impacted the people involved?", what does synthesizing mean?

• It means to read two stories.

• It means to only read poetry.

• It means making a conclusion based on two or more texts.

• It means making a reference to texts.

Reading Strategy 9 - Monitoring Comprehension

●What It Is: Monitoring comprehension means being aware of my understanding while reading and recognizing when something doesn’t make sense. I then use strategies to fix my comprehension; basically, I re-read using the previous 8 strategies.

●How It Helps Me: This is self-regulation that I need when I am reading independently (on my own).

●Example Activity: As I read, I can pause to ask myself if I
understand what I just read and use strategies like re-reading or summarizing if I don’t.

●Example TCAP Question: This is something you should ask yourself –
Did I take the time to understand what I read?

Open Ended

What should I do if I'm reading too quickly?

Poll

This is YOUR opinion! What kind of activity would best help you understand the notes from today?

• A series of examples of different test questions and how to answer them

• practice with a story or two by using one or more strategies

• a quiz over the notes

• a project demonstrating each type of reading strategy