c. Nurturing Response to Literature. Both cognitive and affective outcomes and assisting students in responding to literature in a variety of ways are leaded
by literature. d. Teaching Comprehension Strategies. By ensuring that they master strategies
such as predicting, summarizing, and being metacognitive, the students are assisting in becoming independent readers.
e. Promoting Higher-order Thinking. To engage in analysis, synthesis, evaluation, and other thought-demanding activities, the students are provided
by both instruction and rich opportunities.
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3. Reading Comprehension Strategies
Reading comprehension requires strategies usage before, during, and after reading.
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It is supported by Eagleton and Dobler who stated a few key comprehension strategies and their application to both print and Web-based reading:
activating prior knowledge, predicting, determining important ideas, synthesizing, monitoring, and repairing.
a. Activating Prior Knowledge Following
Duke and Pearson’s statement which was stated by Maya and Elizabeth in their book that by developing connections between the text and
themselves, the text and other text, and the text and the world, the prior knowledge is used by a good reader in order to check whether their
construction of meaning matches what they know about the topic and structure of the text. In addition, the readers can be able remember more,
determine the important information in the text, and then make conclusions from what they read and prior knowledge of the topic and the structure of the
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Raymond Philippot and Michael F. Graves, Fostering Comprehension in English Classes, New York: The Guilford Press, 2009, pp. 4-5.
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Lems, et al., p. 172.
text which provides a starting point from which to move forward through the comprehension process with their greater prior knowledge.
b. Predicting Making prediction before, during, and after reading is the way good readers
comprehend texts. Based on Presley who was stated by Maya and Elizabeth on their book, in order to make the predictions accurately, it should rely on a
sensitive balance of prior knowledge of the topic, a sense of wonderment or curiosity, and other experiences with similar types of text. There are three
steps in predicting, those are making the prediction, gathering information to confirm or disconfirm the prediction, then making a judgment about the
accuracy of the prediction. Following Beers who was stated by Maya and Elizabeth on their book, a reader feels a connection with the text and a sense
of understanding when accurate predictions are made, while a reader begins to feel disconnected or lost -which can break down meaning if this occurs
too often and is not corrected- when predictions are made that are not confirmed in the text.
c. Determining Important Ideas Through sifting out the important from the unimportant, the strong readers
reduce the text into manageable chunks of key ideas mentally. Then the reader combines the mental chunks of key ideas into one overall main idea
or several key ideas representing the text in general after the predictions are verified during the reading process. Yet it is particularly crucial when
reading informational text, this process of determining important ideas differs according to
a reader’s purpose for reading. d. Synthesizing
By thinking about what is being read and how this information enhances their understanding and supports the construction of meaning, skilled readers
learn to stop every so often in their reading and summarize. Additionally, in order to help create an understanding of what is being read, strong readers
