Pre-Reading	During Reading	Post-Reading
Discuss purpose of reading assignment	Take notes	Discussion
Preview	Answer focus questions	Complete and review notes
Activate prior knowledge	Annotate	Summarize
Generate or review focus questions	Work on focus questions	Complete focus questions
Discuss text patterns	Work on Outline	Complete outline
Review study guide	Work on study guide	Complete study guide
Review difficult vocabulary	Work on vocabulary log	Review new vocabulary
Group discussions/ build background	Work on Venn diagrams	Complete Venn diagrams
Brainstorming	Work on semantic feature analysis	Complete semantic feature analysis
Group mapping	Work on mapping	Complete mapping
Anticipation/reaction guide	Work on anticipation/reaction guide	Complete anticipation/ reaction guide
SQ3R	SQ3R	SQ3R
	Compare and contrast	Compare and contrast
	Work on concept circles	Complete concept circles
	Work on timeline	Complete timeline
	Mark text	Review new information or concepts

 

1.  Anticipation/Reaction Guide: These guides test prior and post knowledge.  Students mark a series of questions “true” or  “false” prior to reading the assignment and repeat the exercise after reading the assignment.

2.  Compare and Contrast: This strategy organizes and assimilates knowledge by forcing students to make judgments about concepts in text and the application of those concepts.

3.  Concept Circles: This strategy promotes brainstorming.  Students fill in a circle labeled with a specific topic with pertinent ideas and information relative to that topic.

4. Define Purpose for Reading: Readers need to be able to explicitly state the purpose for reading.  Students are more likely to pick out and retain important information if they are clear about the purpose for the assignment.

5. Graphic Organizers: These are effective tools for understanding the relationships between events or ideas (e.g. anticipation/reaction guides. concept circles, Venn diagrams).

6.  Marking Text: Marking text is an interactive reading activity useful when dealing with texts.  It requires students to analyze while they read and make some immediate decisions about he importance of what they are reading.  This technique is most effective when students return to the marked section and study it.

7.  Identifying Text Pattern: Knowing the format of a text can help students to analyze it. There are five predominant text patterns: description, sequence, comparison-contrast, cause-effect, and problem-solution.

8.  Modeling particular strategies by thinking aloud allows students to see the thought process necessary for particular skills.  There are five basic steps to modeling:  (1) make predictions; (2) visualize those predictions; (2) link new information to prior knowledge by using analogies; (4) monitor comprehension by verbalizing a confusing point; and (5) regulate comprehension by demonstrating fix-up strategies.

9.  Note Taking: Students should take enough notes so that they can formulate a useful summary for review purposes.  Too many notes will hide important information and too few notes may not be enough to make sense of or trigger information previously read.  It is also important to recognize when details are important enough to include in the summary or when they are inconsequential to the overall message.

10.  Outlining: This strategy generally consists of using Roman numerals for main concepts, letters for subordinate concepts and numbers for details. Outlining requires students to be able to analyze the structure of the text.  Outlining usually requires initial teacher direction.

11.  Semantic Feature Analysis: SFA establishes a meaningful link between students’ prior knowledge and words that are conceptually related to one another.  The strategy requires students to develop a chart or grid to help analyze similarities and differences among the related concepts.  Words related to the category are listed in a column down on the left side of the grid.  Features or properties shared by some of the words in the column are spaced across the top of the grid.

12.  Mapping:  This strategy can be used by a group as an interactive way of obtaining and reviewing information related (indirectly and directly to the text.  Semantic maps are created by brainstorming, writing ideas, details down, then connecting them as they relate by drawing lines between them.

13.  SQ3R or variant: here are a variety of reading strategies represented by acronyms.  One of the most popular is SQ3R.  It includes five different steps:  (1) survey the text heading quickly to acquire an overview material to be read; (2) ask questions about the text by turning each heading into a question;  (3) read the text with purpose to answer the question; (4) recite by making brief notes about the text or using self-recitation or both; and (5) review by re-reading notes and by generating and asking questions.

14.  Study Guides: Study guides keep students on track.   Students are able to look more closely at the material while focusing on specific items of importance, i.e. genre, style, author’s assumptions, foreshadowing clues etc.  Study guides establish a reading plan for students to focus on while reading -- it gives them a clear purpose for reading.

15.  Summary:  Summarizing involves reducing a text to its main points.  To become adept at summary writing, students must be able to discern and analyze text structure.  Some basic rules of summarization are do not include minor details, collapse lists, use topic sentences, and integrate information.

16.  Story Mapping: This is one way of bringing key elements to the surface.  Story mapping is a process of separating parts of a story to organize and understand how they interrelate.  Students break the story down into setting, theme, plot and resolution.

17. Timeline:  Students can write down sequences of events in an effort to visualize material and distinguish between important and inconsequential facts.   A timeline should be one of the first steps in organizing materials, but it is not enough for students to know the sequence of events by they must also be able to recognize the relationships between events.

18.  Venn Diagrams: These diagrams are constructed using two overlapping circles to compare and contrast two items. Each circle is labeled with a character or topic.  The student lists details, facts or characteristics specific to the topic in the non-overlapping portion of the circles.  Information that is pertinent to both topics is listed in the overlapping section.  This is especially useful when you are dealing with a lot of complicated interrelated material.

19.  Vocabulary Exercises: Pre-reading vocabulary exercises can help alleviate comprehension difficulties due to a lack of vocabulary knowledge.  The teacher or student (via skimming the reading assignment) can construct flash cards of key vocabulary words.  These words should be discussed immediately prior to reading so they are fresh in the minds of the reader and the reader can visualize these words in context.  There a re a variety of ways to enhance vocabulary.