Content Area Reading

Introduction

Content Area Reading Self-Assessment

1. Understand the Reading Process

• Prepare to read by setting a purpose and choosing a strategy before reading
• Keep the purpose and plan in mind while reading
• Reflect on the results and reread as necessary to improve comprehension and memory after reading

2. Teach Students to Be Strategic Readers

• Preview the text in light of your purpose
• Use textual features to determine importance
• Examine text structures to identify main ideas and supporting details
• Summarize the text to aid understanding and retention

3. Use Background Knowledge and Make Connections

• Build and teach students how to access their prior knowledge before they read
• Enhance and apply background knowledge while they read
• Organize, store, and use prior knowledge afterwards to understand and remember what they read

4. Ask Questions to Improve and Deepen Comprehension

• Develop students' ability to generate and choose effective questions
• Teach students to ask a range of questions for different purposes
• Ask students questions throughout the reading process
• Teach specific question strategies

5. Visualize Texts

• Make abstract or unfamiliar topics comprehensible
• Summarize, analyze, and organize events, processes, and stories
• Reveal and communicate connections and big ideas in texts
• Synthesize and extend students' thinking about texts

6. Use a Range of Instructional Strategies to Enhance and Extend Comprehension

• Write About Texts
• Talk About Texts
• Read Aloud
• Think Aloud
• Use Graphic Organizers
• Create Visual Representations
• Develop Anticipation Guides
• Model
• Perform Texts

References