Connecting and Expanding Strategies in Guided Reading

Teaching for Strategies That Expand Meaning

The use of the strategies summarized in this chapter take the reader deeper into the complexities and meaning of the text.

Strategies -

• Both conscious and unconscious
  Used simultaneously
• Access, use, and modify knowledge the reader already has (prior knowledge).

Schema - Storage and organization systems

Helps readers...

• Seek and select information
• Make inferences, anticipate content, make predictions
• Organize text information...Retain and remember
• Ex. Diagram, outline, mental image
• Elaborate information

"Readers bring information to their processing of the text, and these connections set the scene for higher-level comprehension." Pg. 358

Connecting -
Personal Connection (Text to Self)

• Made before, during, and after reading of the text.
• Especially important before reading text to establish personal link.

World Experiences (Text to World)

• May require more modeling.
• "Think aloud about background info. Make students aware of what they already know about the subject.
• Discussion, KWL charts, photographs, Informational text
• May need to frontload essential vocabulary/meaning.

Connections between texts (Text to Text)

Make connections to: Content, Genre, Author, Illustrator, Setting, Characters, Illustrations, Plots, Structure, Theme, Language, Tone

Inferring - Your connections + information from the text = tentative theory

• Go deeper than connection to infer what was NOT stated.
• Visualizing; Feel like you know the characters.

"Inferring involves going beyond the literal meaning of a text to derive what is not there but is implied."

Summarizing - Take select important information & create a concise statement.

• DRA reading assessment calls for retelling sequential details.
• We must model/teach students how to summarize.

Synthesizing - Meshing together of information from text and connections

• To gain a deeper understanding- different from the text & readers' previous understandings.
• Getting the 'big picture.'
• Looking for overall themes.

Analyzing - Reader becomes 'examiner'.

• Look at elements and how they fit together.
• Learn about crafting a text.
• Identify characteristics of a genre'
• Analyzing Fiction - Study description of characters, setting, and problem and how characters react.
• Analyzing Nonfiction - Learn how texts are organized. Includes: diagrams, maps, charts, photographs, headings, labels, signal words, bold print.

Critiquing - Evaluating or judging a text based on knowledge.

• Use your connections/knowledge to determine whether a statement/account is believable.
• Become thoughtful consumers of print - not believing that because it was in print, it was true.
• Question what they read.

Examples of teacher questions/prompts and student discussions are included for each comprehension strategy.

"A collective gain comes from a literate citizenry composed of competent readers who also think critically about what they read. Being a 'critical' citizen means questioning what one hears or reads and evaluating those texts for accuracy." pg. 368