Quote: "Another important difference between capable and less capable readers and writers is that those who are less successful aren't strategic. They are naive. They seem reluctant to use unfamiliar strategies or those that requre much effort. They don't seem to be motivate or to expect that they'll be successful. Less capable readers and writers don't understand or use all stages of the reading and writing processes effectively. They don't monitor their reading and writing. Or, if they do use strategies, they remain dependent on primitive ones. For example, as they read. less successful readers seldom look ahead or back into the text to clarify misunderstandings or make plans."
Comment: I think that this is very true. Strategic reading is the only way to really understand what you are reading and make connections to other knowledge and events. Students who are not strategic readers will find reading harder than those who are even if they have the same vocabulary and fluency levels. We need to help students become strategic readers so that they will enjoy thier reading expierence more and be more motivated to continue becoming better readers.
Question: How can we help students who are struggling to become strategic readers?
That's a tough question! It seems that students who are struggling with strategies don't want to learn new comprehension strategies or use them. This makes it hard because it's important to teach them comprehension strategies so they'll learn to enjoy reading, but at the same time learning strategies can be discouraging and tedious, and might drive the students away from reading entirely. So I think it's important to give struggling students a little bit of both assigned and pleasure reading. With the assigned reading, make sure that it's at their skill level, and have them keep track of their thought processes with colorful sticky notes, drawing pictures, writing on organizers, or talking about it with you in a one-on-one conference. Then those students can go back and read something of their choice to enjoy. Hopefully the strategies learned in the assigned reading will transfer over to the pleasure reading so the students will begin to feel more successful and enjoy their reading more.
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