Talking+to+the+Text+Strategies

=__** STRATEGIES FOR ACTIVE READERS: TALKING TO THE TEXT **__=

**BASIC**S:

 * 1.** __**Frequency of Markups**__: Get students to mark up text actively as they read. Set a reasonable, meaningful goal for the number of markups that should be made while reading the article/ story/ excerpt. Keep in mind that while you want to maximize marking up/ annotating, there is a point of overkill as well. If a student is annotating too much, comprehension can actually go down, because fluency has interrupted so severely. Also, if a student is underlining excessively, important ideas will not stick out on their paper or in the student's mind.


 * 2.** __**Complete thoughts**__: Make sure students are recording complete thoughts (phrases and sentences). Push students to write more than "OMG" or "OMG. That's weird." The goal would be to get a student to write "That's weird. I never knew that 62,000 miles of blood vessels are found in the human body."

3. __**Readability**__: Students need to keep their comments neat, readable and organized, so they can refer back to them easily.

**PUSHING STUDENT THINKING**:

 * 1.** __**Previewing**__: Students look at the title, pictures, headings or subtitles, foreword, author's name and other things that stand out BEFORE reading. Students mark up these text features and record predictions about what the article will be about, raise questions, and make connections.


 * //WHY IMPORTANT?//** Good readers think about what they are going to read before they start. It prompts them to activate prior knowledge that they may have. By making predictions about the reading it allows them to anticipate what they might encounter in the reading.


 * 2**. __**Questioning**__: Students raise questions while reading. Some basic categories of questions would be: 1) questions that clarify understanding (example: Who is Aunt Queen? or What does the word forged mean?) 2) questions about why things happened in the reading (example: why didn't Monique go the hospital?) 3) questions about what will happen in the future (example: Will Gerald go to live with his Aunt Queen now?) 4) questions about the author's purpose (example: Was this supposed to be the hook?). Obviously, there are many other types of questions as well. You can further push students by having students take on a particular perspective while questioning (example: ask students to mark up the text based on questions they think the main character would raise as the action unfolds in this chapter) [examples from //Forged by Fire//]


 * //WHY IMPORTANT?//** Good readers actively think while reading and monitor their own reading. They question what happens in the story and what they think might happen next. They also think about what the author's message and main idea. When they encounter words or ideas they are unsure about, they make a note of it and try to figure it out given context or another strategy.

Push students to focus their markups and commenting on key ideas that they encounter in the reading. One way to comment on key ideas is to summarize. For example, a student might mark a sentence and comment, "President Obama lived in Somerville for a couple years when he attended Harvard." Another way is to react to key ideas. An example of this would be "I never knew Obama lived in Somerville. That's really close by. I wonder if he lived near Good Times." Both summary and reactionary comments to key ideas are pivotal to comprehension. They can be taught separately or in conjunction.
 * 3**. __**Focus on Key Ideas: 1) Summarizing 2) Reacting**__

//**WHY IMPORTANT?**// Good readers key in on important ideas within the reading. This serves as an important basis for comprehension. Good readers find these comments to be extremely useful when they refer back to the reading later to answer questions, write a response, or create an end product.

Push students to make connections between what they are reading and what they already know. A Text to Self connection relates something they are reading to their own life (example: I see homeless people on the way home everyday on my way home from school). This includes a student's experiences, thoughts, feelings, etc. A Text to World connection is a more global connection (extending beyond personal experience) and includes what a student has seen on TV, in movies, magazines, etc. (example: On the news, I saw that there has been an increasing number of homeless people in Boston). A Text to Text connection relates one reading to another (example: This character is desperate. This is a lot like what I read in //Down and Out in America//). These strategies can be taught separately or in conjunction.
 * 4.** __**Making connections: 1) Text to Self 2) Text to World 3) Text to Text**__

//**WHY IMPORTANT?**// Good readers make connections to their own lives and what they already know. They attempt to make sense of the reading by fitting it into their own life experience. This leads to greater engagement with the reading and greater understanding.