Reading Strategies The first things that students need to know about reading are the three stages of the reading process. They are: before reading, during reading and after reading. Sequence     Rationale before reading = prereading to establish purpose, build background, sustain motivation and provide direction during reading = reader-text to promote an active interactions response to reading (ReQuest, etc.) after reading = postreading to reinforce and extend ideas from the text (taken from Content Area Reading (3rd Ed), Vacca and Vacca, Harper Collins (1989). I will focus this lesson primarily on reading strategies of the 2nd phase, the "during reading" step, although each of these strategies do involve preview and review steps. Please consider what you can do to encourage and promote the prereading and postreading phases in your courses in addition to the strategies presented here. When I ask students to describe what makes college-level reading difficult for them, they generally answer that they: have difficulty concentrating on the reading cannot remember what they read, even directly after finishing a passage or chapter do not understand what they are reading In the English Skills department, our reading courses teach students many skills and strategies for improving each of these, as well as other reading difficulties. However, since it is likely that many of your students will not have taken our courses or may not know any reading strategies to apply to their college level texts, I would like to share three reading activities you can teach your students that will specifically address these problems. (Please keep in mind, however, that there are no "magic" reading activities that will help the student who is reading far above his/her independent or instructional reading level, and no single one of these strategies should be considered to be the end-all and be-all of reading methods.) These first two methods promote an active rather than passive approach to reading and involve the students in creating questions from the text. To every answer you can find a new question. -Yiddish proverb ReQuest (modified) ReQuest was devised by Manzo (1969) primarily as a remedial procedure involving the teacher and student. However, I like to use a modified version of ReQuest that is geared for small groups of students reading together. Here is a completed outline of ReQuest that you can give to your students. Or, here is a blank outline of ReQuest you can give to your students to fill out. After using ReQuest, students are amazed at how much more effectively they are reading: they notice that they are focused, they can concentrate, they can remember details and they are aware of their comprehension of the text. ReQuest also gives them an effective way to study with others. Objectives of ReQuest: Learn how to formulate questions about material Develop questioning behavior Adopt an active and inquiring attitude about reading Acquire reasonable purposes about reading Improve independent reading comprehension skills Material Preparation and Choice: Students can work with a partner or in a small group (3-4 is preferable, but no more than 8). Groups predetermine where to make reading stops (large enough sections of text to write questions on, small enough sections that can be remembered). Appropriate reading level for the student Procedure: Group members all read the first section of their reading silently by themselves. Each group member then writes a question on what was just read (questions can be factual, vocabulary, sequencing, cause and effect, inference and opinion, etc). When everyone has finished reading and has written a question, group members close their reading. A group member begins by selecting another group member and asks him/her the question. Without referring to the text, the question is answered (by the person chosen) and evaluated (by the person asking). If the answer was correct, the person who answered becomes the next person to ask. All group members take turns asking and answering questions until all have had a turn. Section 2 is read in the same manner, then section 3, etc. until the entire reading is completed. Rules: "I don't know" is an unacceptable answer. You must answer something logical. Each reader must think up a question and ask it of someone in the group. The person who asks the question is the one who evaluates the answer. When answering questions, you cannot refer back to the material. Questions must be on the selection just read. SQ3R SQ3R is more geared for the student reading by him/herself. Again, it involves the creating and answering of questions, promoting active reading. I recommend using this method with your course textbooks, especially ones that use headings and subheadings. Students using SQ3R find it an effective way to stay focused on the main ideas and information in their texts. The (Very) Basic Philosophy of SQ3R Since the heading (or first sentence) usually gives the main idea of what a section will be about, when students create effective questions based on that heading or sentence and then read to find the answer to their question, their reading should become focused on the main idea of that passage. Procedure of SQ3R S = Survey Students skim through the reading passage, previewing the text (looking at pictures, charts, summaries, vocabulary, headings, etc.). Q = Question Students create a question (who, what, when, why, where, how, etc.) based on the heading of the first section. Note: If there are no headings, teach your students to create a question based on the first sentence of the section instead. R = Read Students read the section under the heading with the purpose of finding the answer to their question. When they find a part of their answer, they should underline it in the text. Note: you may need to remind your students that their answer may be in more than one area of the passage and to make sure and read the entire section R = Recite Students then repeat their question and the answer they found outloud, without looking back at the text. (The student then returns back to question and follows this procedure of reading and reciting until the entire text is completed.) R = Review The student goes back and reviews and recites all questions and answers from the text. REAP Please click on the following link to read about REAP. http://cctr.umkc.edu/~dmartin/hol.htm   Discover | Read | Explore | Apply | Measure