Reading Strategies

As part of this class, I will be teaching students strategies for reading in any content such as science or social studies as well as novels and literature. It is important that as children enter secondary school we do not neglect to teach them how to read the kinds of books they will find in adult life. Specifically, middle and high school students need instruction and strategies for reading non-fiction books, such as their content area texts. Science and history books are written much differently than story books, and many secondary students are not as successful with texts as they are with fiction and literature. We will apply these strategies to become more successful with different texts and genres.

As we learn to read through our science textbooks, Prentice Hall's Science Explorer Earth Science or Prentice Hall's Physical Science or Glencoe's Life Science, our Social Studies text and any literature or novels we choose, we will use a combination of strategies. We will begin by assigning reading jobs to members of a small group. By doing some kind of pre-reading activity, more is gained from reading a non-fiction or fiction books. KWL works well, and we will use it, but we will also use the SCAN & RUN strategy. Before reading, students will SCAN the chapter or section.

This is all part of the P-A-R set of strategies, or Prepare, Assist and Reflect.

Note: If you are familiar with or already use the SQR3 method, use it instead. All reading strategies are equally effective if you use them.