Kapel, Rochelle
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- Monroe Township Middle School
- Reading Comprehension Strategies
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Good readers think about their own thinking while they are reading. This is called being metacognitive, literally, self-thinking. As a reader is metacognitive, he or she uses the following cognitve strategies:
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Activating prior knowledge that is relevant to what we are reading helps to store newly learned information with ther related memories. This prior knowledge is referred to as "schema."
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Determine the most important ideass and themes in the text. This helps readers to focus on the most important ideas and eliminate less important details.
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Create visual and other sensory images from text during and after reading. This will deepen the readers understanding of the text.
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Readers may form new interpretations of the text, such as conclusions, predictions or new ideas based on personal experience.
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Retelling or synthesizing what is being read helps readers to attend to the most important imformation and to better understand what they have read.
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Use strategies to monitor thoughts, like a "fix-up" strategy to repair comprehension when it breaks down. Good readers monitor themselves as they read to make sure they understand what they are reading as they are reading.
Excerpted from Mosaic of Thought by Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmerman, c. 1997 -