Reading Strategies in the High School Curriculum: Module 3

Module 3: Incorporating Active Reading Strategies in the Multidisciplinary Curriculum

Too often educators are reluctant to introduce Active Reading Strategies into their course matter because they feel that older students may reject using such a seemingly elementary strategie. Introducing Active Reading Strategies as a tool to help comprehension and understanding instead of yet another course requirement.

Module Objectives:

• Educators will develop ways to introduce Active Reading Strategies in a way that motivates students.
  • Educators will develop stategies to encourage the use of Active Reading Strategies in all academic disciplines.
    • Educators will demonstrate a firm understanding of the role of Active Reading Strategies in thier own discipline.

Questions for Discussion:

• What are some ways that you introduce problem solving strategies in your discipline?
• How do you encourage your students to try a new strategie in your academic discipline?

Method One:

Introduce Active Reading Strategies by modeling a sample reading for the students. Choose a short, but challenging text and using an LCD projector or overhead projector, have the students preview the text with you. Next, show students how to converse with the text and annotate. Ask the students to recall times when they have used similar strategies to help comprehend a difficult text. As you model the remaining steps of the process, ask students to write thier own solution or reaction to the problem. Conclude with asking students the following questions:

• Did you find the text to be more engaging?
• Do you think the strategies helped you to understand the text?
• Do you find yourself using some of the Active Reading Strategies on a daily basis?

Method Two:

Present students a new text. Without allowing students to preview the text, or gather background information such a lecture notes, ask the students to solve to the best of their capabilities. Once students have read the text, ask them to either solve the problem, or analyze the text using the literary elements. Ask the students the following questions:

• What did you find challenging about this text?
• What would have helped you to solve this text?
• Did you feel the need to take notes while reading?
• Have you learned any strategies to help you work with challenging text?

The final question is meant to provoke classroom dialogue. Students will, most likely, begin describing active reading strategies, although the terminoligy may differ from student to student. Begin to write the active reading strategies on the board or projector and ask students to try to give examples of how to use the active reading strategies while working with challenging text. Make certain that students realize the order that the active reading strategies are presented in. Remind them that they need to apply the reading strategies in sequencial order.

Method Three:

Another way to incorporate Active Reading Strategies into daily curriculum is to incorporate them into previoulsy introduced comprehension improvement strategies. The KWL chart allows stuents to identify what they know, want to know, and learned, but does not ask students to preview, actively converse, and extensively react to the text. Incorporating Active Reading Strategies into the KWL chart will ensure that the students are gaining information from the text while enhancing comprehension. To activate student dialogue with the text, it is suggested that the KWL add a letter. Activate comprehension (KWAL) will allow students to work with troublesome vocabulary while looking for facts, or information in the text. The following are suggested ways that Active Reading Strategies be included in KWAL charts:

Know:

• Text Identification
  • Prior Knowledge

Want to Know:

• Begin to annotate and converse wth text

Activate Comprehension:

• Continue annotating text
  • Work with troublesome vocabulary
    • Make Predictions

Learned:

• Make extended final reactions

Students only need to add one more colomn to their charts in order to bring thier comprehension to a new, and much more productive level.

Participant Project:

This mini-course has offered you the opportunity to learn how to differentiate between informational and narrative text, as well as to introduce and facilitate the implementation of Active Reading Strategies into any classroom curriculum. To review what you have learned in this mini lesson, please design a lesson plan that incorporates the use of active reading strategies in your own curriculum. Please make note of the following requirements:

• Lesson plan must include the labeling of informational/narrative text
  • Lesson must correspond with curriculum standards for the discipline
    • Lesson must include all Active Reading Strategies.

You will have two weeks to complete the project. Once completed, please post your lesson plan in the discussion area for student and instructor feedback. Please comment on the lesson plans of at least three other participants. Please review and comment on the lesson plans of participants in a variety of academic disciplines.

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