Reading Strategies Reading Skill

c. Reading Strategies

Strategies, according to Wallace 2003, involve “ways of processing text which will vary the nature of the text, the reader’s purpose and the context situation.” In other ways, to comprehend a text, a reader must consider three aspects including the text, the reading purpose, and the context. There are many strategies that can be applied to accomplish reading comprehension. Evans Spears 2010 promotes six reading strategies for teaching reading comprehension skill. 1 Monitor Comprehension In this strategy, students learn to pay attention to their own reading process and notice when they are losing focus or when comprehension is breaking down. They then can employ another strategy to help them overcome their difficulty Evan Spears, 2010. Zwiers 2010 describes the basic elements of comprehension monitoring include establishing reading purpose, combining new information with previously stored information in the brain, realizing the current reading part clashes with the evolving main idea or expectation, controlling attention, commitment, attitudes, and motivation during learning, and using fix-up strategies when comprehension breaks down. Fix-up strategies include rereading the text, reading further to see if things clear up, sounding out words, adjusting reading rate slowing down or speeding up, noticing extra clues such as text structure, pictures, introductions, back cover, questions, and so on, asking for help and using additional resources such as dictionary. 2 Making connections Make connections to the text support the students to construct their comprehension. Zwier 2010 considers some strategies to make connections. First, connections can be made to the related background knowledge culturally, experientially and cognitively such as personal experiences or things the students have seen or read. Second, students can also modify the background knowledge to create new pattern of information. Third, students combine the previous experience with the text description to create useful pictures in mind. 3 Visualization Students make mental images of what they are reading. They visualize the reading text by making pictures or film in their mind. They learn to look for vivid language, including concrete nouns, active verbs, and strong adjectives. 4 Organization Students learn to find the organizational pattern of a text. This strategy helps them to focus on the author’s central message or important ideas. In addition, students are able to anticipate what they are reading without overlapping. 5 Determining Important Information Students learn to categorize information based on whether or not it supports an author’s central message or is important for specific purpose. Zwier 2010 claims that finding the main idea is the most vital type of thinking reads can do to comprehend a text. Main idea is defined as the important information in the text involving topic, description of the topic, and the text’s purpose. 6 Ask Question Students learn to ask questions before reading to set a purpose for reading, during reading to identify when their comprehension breaks down, and after reading as a way to check their understanding of a passage. Zwier 2010 believes that this strategy is effective to make the reader interact with the text by generating relevant implicit and explicit questions.

d. Teaching reading