Teaching Predicting, Summarizing, Connecting, Questioning, Inferring, Imaging
Booksource, partnering with the professional development firm Gretchen Courtney and Associates, selects titles based on the opportunities they present to directly teach the comprehension strategies most often identified in current reading research:
- Predicting – Using information from graphics, text, and experiences to anticipate what will be read and to actively enhance and adjust comprehension while reading.
- Summarizing – Identifying and accumulating key ideas in a text.
- Connecting – Engaging and applying background information to construct a deeper understanding of key ideas and themes while reading.
- Questioning – Posing and answering self-generated questions that clarify meaning and promote deeper understanding of text.
- Inferring – Forming a conclusion about the author’s meaning using background knowledge and clues from text.
- Imaging – More than just visualizing, imaging helps readers create and organized sensory and conceptual images to process and understand text.
Why Do Students Need Comprehension Strategy Instruction?
Proficient readers use a variety of specific comprehension strategies. In April of 2000, the National Reading Panel Report identified text comprehension strategies as one of the five major areas of reading instruction today. The National Reading Panel also emphasized the fact that comprehension is an active process between the reader and a text, a process that is both “intentional and thoughtful.”
In the years leading up to and following the National Reading Panel Report, much has been written about comprehension instruction. Hempenstall (2004) notes, “when teachers model their own active comprehension processes for their students, and provide encouragement, guidance, and regular practice opportunities, students make superior progress.”
Nearly all educators agree with the assertion that direct instruction for developing reading comprehension strategies is needed; the challenge comes with implementing strategic instruction successfully. With successful implementation, it helps students improve as readers, especially those who are low achieving (Block, Gambrell, and Pressley, 2002.)
Comprehension instruction begins by showing students in well-designed read aloud and shared reading sessions how proficient readers apply comprehension strategies before, during, and after they read. Booksource’s Comprehension Strategies Classroom Library collections provide teachers with the literature they need to successfully implement comprehension strategy instruction in their classrooms. The texts are selected to correlate with the comprehension strategies most often identified in current reading research: predicting, summarizing, connecting, questioning, inferring, and imaging.
These comprehension strategies are interwoven and used concurrently by expert readers without conscious effort. In order to help students develop and synthesize these strategies, they need explicit instruction. Content and chronology are equally important, as each strategy sets the stage for the next.
Booksource’s Comprehension Strategy Classroom Libraries are strategically organized scaffolding experiences so that students develop reading expertise successfully.
For information about Comprehension Strategy Professional Development visit
Gretchen Courtney and Associates, Ltd.
Article provided by Jerry Michel, Gretchen Courtney and Associates, Ltd.