Balanced Literacy - Comprehension Strategies

Comprehension Strategies

Children are taught to use comprehension strategies including:

• Sequencing
• Relating background knowledge
• Making inferences
• Comparing and contrasting
• Summarizing
• Synthesizing
• Problem-solving
• Distinguishing between fact and opinion
• Finding the main idea and supporting details

During the Reading and Writing Workshop teachers use scaffolded instruction as follows:

• Teacher modeling or showing kids what a good reader does when reading a text, thinking aloud about the mental processes used to construct meaning while reading a book aloud to the class.

• Guided practice gradually gives the students more responsibility with the teacher stepping in to help as needed. Students practice a comprehension strategy during discussion in a large group or in smaller groups with peers.

• Independent practice where children begin to work alone while reading books by themselves, conferencing individually or in small groups with the teacher to make sure they are using a comprehension strategy correctly.

• Application of the strategy is achieved when the students can correctly apply comprehension strategies to different kinds of texts and are no longer just practicing but are making connections between and can demonstrate understanding through writing or discussion.

Throughout this process, students progress from having a great deal of teacher support to being independent learners. The teacher support is removed gradually as the students acquire the strategies needed to understand the text by themselves.