Reading Strategies and Techniques

Reading with a Purpose - Five-Step Process

• Prepare yourself and your environment for optimal reading.
• Preview the text to identify key information.
• Predict what will happen in the text.
• Paraphrase the text in your own words.
• Visualize the text by creating mental images.

Understanding Unfamiliar Words

• Use context clues (surrounding words and phrases) to determine the meaning of unfamiliar words.

Decoding Words

• Phonics: Sound out words.
• Morphemes: Analyze the smallest meaningful units of words (prefixes, root words, suffixes).

Understanding Multisyllabic Words

• Break down multisyllabic words using vowel and consonant patterns.
• Look for affixes (prefixes and suffixes) to assist with pronunciation.

Making Predictions

• Use story details, clues, and prior knowledge to anticipate what will happen next.
• Use the title, pictures, and synopsis as helpful clues.
• Be prepared to revise predictions if needed.

Visualization in Reading

• Create mental images of the text.
• Include details from all five senses and other relevant information in illustrations within your mind.
• Modify your visualizations as the story progress.
• Utilize visualization before, during, and after reading.

Clarifying Unclear Words or Meanings

• Review the title to refresh memory.
• Utilize keywords.
• Employ other surrounding words as clues.

Explicit and Implied Information

• Explicit information: Information directly stated in the text.
• Implied information: Information suggested but not directly stated; requires inference.
  • Use direct quotes or paraphrasing for explicit information.
  • Combine text with prior knowledge to infer implied information.

Making Inferences

• Identify missing information in a text or picture to draw conclusions.
• Use reasoning and knowledge from clues in the text.

Providing Textual Evidence

• Use explicit evidence to support arguments.
• Clearly state your arguments and support them with facts and evidence.

Paraphrasing

• Rewrite information in your own words.
• Properly attribute the original source.

Summarizing

• Condense information into a concise retelling.
• Include the who, what, when, where, why, and how.
• Include a topic sentence conveying the central idea.
• Omit unnecessary details and characters.

Analyzing and Synthesizing Texts

• Analyze: Understand each text separately, identifying:
  • Text type
  • Topic
  • Purpose
  • Main idea/argument
  • Supporting reasons/evidence
  • Unclear information
  • Critical questions
• Synthesize: Combine insights from both texts, focusing on:
  • Reviewing notes and texts
  • Comparing types, purposes, main ideas
  • Comparing reasons, evidence, and context
  • Identifying similarities and differences
  • Recognizing where each text fills gaps in the other and strengthens arguments.

Comparing and Contrasting

• Compare: Highlight similarities between subjects.
• Contrast: Highlight differences between subjects.
• Use a Venn diagram to visually represent comparisons and contrasts.

Distinguishing Facts from Opinions

• Fact: Proven true or verifiable statement.
• Opinion: Personal belief or judgment.
• Questions for determining fact versus opinion:
  • Can the information be proven?
  • Does the sentence reflect a personal belief?