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Presents evidence-based strategies for teaching reading comprehension at the university level, with practical applications for diverse disciplines.

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ERIC is an online library of education research and information, sponsored by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) of the U.S. Department of Education.

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Understanding text structure is key to reading comprehension and also helps strengthen writing skills. In this section you'll learn about the 5 most common text structures and how to help students learn to identify and use text structures in their reading and writing.

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Meyer, B. J. F. (1975). The organization of prose and its effects on memory. Amsterdam: North -Holland.

Meyer, B. J. F., Brandt, D. M. & Bluth, G. J. (1980). Use of the top-level structure in text: Key for reading comprehension of ninth-grade students. Reading Research Quarterly, 16, 72-103.

Meyer, B. J. F., Middlemiss, W., Theodorou, E., S., Brezinski, K. L., McDougall, J., & Bartlett, B. J. (2002). Older adults tutoring fifth-grade children in the structure strategy via the Internet. Journal of Educational Psychology, 94 (3), 486-519.

Meyer, B. J. F., & Poon, L. W. (2001). Effects of the structure strategy and signaling on recall of text. Journal of Educational Psychology, 93, 141-159.

Meyer, B. J. F., Wijekumar, K., Middlemiss, W., Higley, K., Lei, P., Meier, C., & Spielvogel, J. (2010). Web-based tutoring of the structure strategy with or without elaborated feedback or choice for fifth- and seventh-grade readers. Reading Research Quarterly, 45, 62-92.

Wijekumar, K. K., Meyer, B. J. F., & Lei, P. (2013). High-fidelity implementation of web-basedIntelligent tutoring system improves fourth and fifth graders content area reading comprehension. Computers & Education, 68, 366-379.

Wijekumar, K., Meyer, B.J.F., Lei, P. (2012). Large-scale randomized controlled trial with 4 th graders using intelligent tutoring of the structure strategy to improve nonfiction reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Technology Research and Development. 60, 987-1013.

Wijekumar, K., Meyer, B.J.F., Lei, P.-W, Lin, Y., Johnson, L.A., Shurmatz, K., Spielvogel, J., Ray,M, & Cook, M. (2014). Improving reading comprehension for 5 th grade readers in rural and suburban schools using web-based intelligent tutoring systems. Journal of Research in Educational Effectiveness, 7:4, 331-357, DOI: 10.1080/19345747.2013.853333

Wijekumar, K., Meyer, B.J.F., Lei, P-W, Hernandez, A., August, D. (in press). Effects of web-based text structure instruction for 4-6 th grade Spanish Els reading comprehension. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal.

Williams, J. P., Hall, K. M., Lauer, K. D., Stafford, K. B., DeSisto, L. A., & deCani, J. S. (2005). Expository text comprehension in the primary grade classroom. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97, 538-550.

Williams, J. P., Stafford, K. B., Lauer, K. D., Hall, K. M., & Pollini, S. (2009). Embedding reading comprehension training in content-area instruction. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101, 1-20.

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Implementing the Text Structure Strategy in Your Classroom

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Learn how to implement a research-based text structure strategy that infuses text structures at every step of reading comprehension instruction, beginning with the introduction of the lesson, previewing of text, selecting important ideas, writing a main idea, generating inferences, and monitoring comprehension.

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Background

Text structure refers to how the information within a written text is organized. This strategy helps students understand that a text might present a main idea and details; a cause and then its effects; and/or different views of a topic. Teaching students to recognize common text structures can help students monitor their comprehension.

Benefits

Teachers can use this strategy with the whole class, small groups, or individually. Students learn to identify and analyze text structures which helps students navigate the various structures presented within nonfiction and fiction text. As a follow up, having students write paragraphs that follow common text structures helps students recognize these text structures when they are reading.

Create and Use the Strategy

To create the text structure strategy teachers should:

1. Choose the assigned reading and introduce the text to the students.

2. Introduce the idea that texts have organizational patters called text structures.

3. Introduce the following common text structures (see the chart below for more detailed information):

description

sequence

problem and solution

cause and effect

compare and contrast

4. Introduce and model using a graphic organizer to chart the text structure.

To use the text structure strategy teachers should:

1. Show examples of paragraphs that correspond to each text structure.

2. Examine topic sentences that clue the reader to a specific structure.

3. Model the writing of a paragraph that uses a specific text structure.

4. Have students try write paragraphs that follow a specific text structure.

5. Have students diagram these structures using a graphic organizer.

Examples

Problem-Solution
This type of structure sets up a problem or problems, explains the solution, and then discusses the effects of the solution.

References

Dickson, S. V., Simmons, D. C., & Kameenui, E. J. (1995). Text organization and its relation to reading comprehension: A synthesis of research. Eugene, OR: National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators. Retrieved March 26, 2008, from https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED386864

Dymock, S. (2005). Teaching Expository Text Structure Awareness. The Reading Teacher, 59(2), 177-181.

Simonsen, S. (1996). Identifying and Teaching Text Structures in Content Area Classrooms. In D. Lapp, J. Flood, & N. Farnan (Eds.), Content Area reading and Learning: Instructional Strategies (2nd ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

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Text structure refers to how the information within a written text is organized. This strategy helps students understand that a text might present a main idea and details; a cause and then its effects; and/or different views of a topic. Teaching students to recognize common text structures can help students monitor their comprehension.

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The content on this page is adapted from the Keys to Literacy blog post, Question Generation: A Key Comprehension Strategy , and reprinted with permission. Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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Question Generation: A Key Comprehension Strategy

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Use Bloom's Taxonomy to teach students how to generate questions while reading. Research shows that generating questions at different levels of thinking can strengthen students' memory, integration and identification of main ideas, and overall comprehension.

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For this post, I want to focus on teaching students to generate their own questions while reading to improve comprehension. There is significant evidence that learning to generate questions while reading improves memory, integration and identification of main ideas, and overall comprehension (Rosenshine et al., 1996; National Reading Panel, 2000; Trabasso & Bouchard, 2002). Question generation is one of the four student strategy activities in The Key Comprehension Routine. You can take an online professional development workshop about how to teach question generation by going to the Keys to Literacy Teachable website.

Good readers automatically engage in critical thinking by asking themselves questions to make sense of what they read. Students who have questions on their minds are really thinking critically, and the quality and level of the questions determine the depth of that thinking. However, the ability to generate questions does not come naturally to many students who are accustomed only to using who, what, where, and when questions that require relatively simple, factual information to answer.
Begin by Teaching a Continuum of Thinking
Factual questions are important, but students must also learn how to generate the kinds of questions that require them to go beyond readily available information if they are to engage in deeper critical thinking. Teachers should begin by teaching students that there are multiple levels of thinking that range from low-level remembering to high-level synthesizing and evaluating. At Keys to Literacy, we suggest using Bloom's Taxonomy (Bloom, 1956) to explicitly teach different levels of thinking. The chart below provides a brief description of the six levels of thinking represented in Bloom's Taxonomy.

The graphic below shows a poster available through Keys to Literacy that can be hung in the classroom as a reminder to students about the different levels of thinking.
Teach Question Terms
Some students are not able to generate or effectively answer questions, including those on standardized tests because they are not familiar with question terms. Thus, an important component of instruction for question generation is teaching question terms and phrases for prompts. A related scaffold for this is to provide a list (or hang a poster) of question terms and prompts that are typically associated with each level of thinking. The two handouts below can be downloaded from the free resources page at the Keys to Literacy website.

The poster version of the question terms shown below is also available at the Keys to Literacy website.
Classroom Examples
The examples below show questions at every level of Bloom's Taxonomy for different subject areas. At first, the teacher needs to model how to generate questions, then gradually release responsibility to students following this sequence:

1. Teach just one or two levels of questions at a time, starting with remembering and understanding.

2. Have students work in small groups to identify the level of thinking required to answer a set of sample questions provided by the teacher. Start with questions about familiar topics, then use questions about content reading.

3. Have students work in small groups to generate questions about a familiar topic.

4. Have students work in small groups to generate questions about content reading.

5. Have students work independently in class or for homework to generate their own questions.

References
Bloom, B.S. (1956). Taxonomy of educational objectives, Handbook I: The cognitive domain. New York, David McKay Co., Inc.

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction (NIH Publication No. 00-4769). Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.

Rosenshine, B., Mesiter, C., & Chapman, S. (1996). Teaching students to generate questions: A review of the intervention studies. Reviews of Educational Research, 66 (2).

Trabasso, T., & Bouchard, E. (2002). Teaching readers how to comprehend text strategically. In C.C. Block & M. Pressley (Eds.) Comprehension instruction: Research best practices. New York: Guilford Press.

Joan Sedita

Joan Sedita is the founder of Keys to Literacy and author of the Keys to Literacy professional development programs. She is an experienced educator, nationally recognized speaker and teacher trainer. She has worked for over 35 years in the literacy education field and has presented to thousands of teachers and related professionals at schools, colleges, clinics, and professional conferences.

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Question Generation: A Key Comprehension Strategy - Keys to Literacy

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For this post, I want to focus on teaching students to generate their own questions while reading to improve comprehension. There is significant evidence that learning to generate questions while reading improves memory, integration and identification of main ideas, and overall comprehension (Rosenshine et al., 1996; National Reading Panel, 2000; Trabasso & Bouchard, 2002).

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We have launched the new ReadWriteThink.org and we would love to get your feedback: Give Feedback

In this lesson, the teacher explains the difference between thin (factual) and thick (inferential) questions and then models how to compose question webs by thinking aloud while reading. Students observe how to gather information about the topic and add it to question webs in the form of answers or additional questions. Students practice composing thin and thick questions and monitor their comprehension by using question webs in small-group reading. This practice extends knowledge of the topic and engages readers in active comprehension.

NCREL: Reciprocal Teaching

Students who answer their own questions show improvement in reading comprehension.

When students know prior to reading that they each need to think of a question about the text, they read with an awareness of the text's important ideas.

With exposure to expository text, students learn how to summarize and how to use graphic organizers, such as question webs.

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.

3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).

7. Students conduct research on issues and interests by generating ideas and questions, and by posing problems. They gather, evaluate, and synthesize data from a variety of sources (e.g., print and nonprint texts, artifacts, people) to communicate their discoveries in ways that suit their purpose and audience.

11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.

1.

Select texts (print or online) to use for the read-aloud and small-group reading.

Read-aloud. Suggestions for the read-aloud include social studies and science content area texts. These may be difficult to find in traditional guided reading texts. If so, substitute with student textbooks or downloadable texts from websites. Make sure that the text is written at a level high enough to challenge students' understanding or is relatively new to their background knowledge.

Small-group reading. While you may normally look for texts that challenge students at their instructional reading levels in small-group reading, you may choose to select something a little easier initially as students first try the questioning strategy. If you think your students would perform well with instructional level texts, then, by all means, use those instead.

2.

Create a reference list of words that begin questions: who, what, where, when, why, how, what if, I wonder, etc.

3.

Make a T-chart on chart paper with the labels 'Thin' and 'Thick' to use when introducing thin and thick questions during Session 1.

4.

Locate and bookmark appropriate websites for further exploring the class topic. See Extensions for a list of sample websites.

Students will

Monitor comprehension by composing thin and thick questions as they read

Determine the difference between thin (factual) and thick (inferential) questions

Use graphic organizers effectively to collect information that answers questions

Participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of whole- and small-group activities

Session 1: Introducing Thin and Thick Questions

Note: If small-group guided reading is a regular routine for your students, the introduction to thin and thick questions could be done in that setting. However, carrying out the following steps is also viable in a whole-group setting.

3.

Display the T-chart that you prepared with the columns labeled as 'Thin' and 'Thick.' Write a sample thin question in that column of the T-chart. Develop a question from a text your students already know, preferably one you have read recently. If, for example, you have read a Captain Underpants book by Dav Pilkey, a thin question could be: 'Who is Captain Underpants?' (Answer: Mr. Krupp, the principal)

4.

Have students state more thin questions based on their knowledge of the book you have chosen. As you proceed, let other students answer the questions and discuss with students why these questions are thin ones.

Point out that some thin questions may only have one answer, such as 'Which legs do frogs use to jump?' (Answer: The rear) Some, however, can have multiple answers, such as 'What are the colors of some frogs?' (Possible answers: Green, yellow, spotted, etc.)

5.

Next, pose a thick question to the students. A good practice here is to change a thin question into a thick one. For instance, one could change the thin question 'Who is Captain Underpants?' into 'Why is the principal Captain Underpants so funny?' [Two possible answers: 1) Principals don't usually come to school in their underwear 2) It is funny to see a character who is normally an authority figure become ridiculous]

You might ask how we know that these are truly thick questions. With both sample responses, the answer is not found completely in the book; rather, the person answering the question would have to form an opinion or offer support in order to answer it.

8.

Let students know they should write questions on sticky notes (one question per sticky note) as you read aloud. Students are not to interrupt the reading with oral questions at this sitting, just to listen and write their questions.

Since they have some experience with thin and thick questions from the previous activity, they should be able to differentiate between the two types of questions; however, it is normally more difficult for students to compose thick questions initially as opposed to thin ones. Remind them that they can try changing their thin questions into thick ones.

11.

Have students give feedback to see if they agree with where classmates put the thin or thick questions (pointing thumbs up or down works well here). If repeated questions come up, organize them in groups so that when questions are answered, entire groups are addressed.

It is not necessary to answer all the questions at this time. The primary purpose of generating questions is to give students practice in forming questions, hearing the questions of their classmates, and giving and receiving feedback.

Session 2: Thin Questions in Small-Group Reading

It is recommended that you do the following activities with one group at a time. Once students are familiar with the routine of investigating what they read with questions, you might try having the entire class work in small groups simultaneously. Varying degrees of scaffolding may be necessary in order to ensure that all learners interact with text actively with questioning.

If your schedule dictates that you must move to Session 2 activities with small groups working simultaneously, then a cooperative-grouping situation is recommended where students can take a shared role in interacting with the text. For example, in groups of four, students could all work from the same selection of text. Four roles to facilitate the group could be: one student chooses the chunk of text to read (the longer the text, the bigger the chunk), another reads the chunk aloud, a third records questions and answers, a fourth is responsible for sharing questions and answers with the rest of the class.

Before working in small groups
Working in small groups

5.

Have students share with one another their questions and the information they found that best answers their questions. (If you are working with one group at a time, this sharing will be done amongst the group members. If groups have been working together simultaneously, the sharing will be done as reporting back to the whole class.)

Session 3: Thick Questions in Small-Group Reading

Before working in small groups
Working in small groups

Once again, the routines you established in the thin question activity apply to this thick question activity. Operate in the same way, either in small groups that you manage, or as multiple cooperative small groups.

Have students write in their notebooks reflecting on how question webs can help them understand what they are reading.

After students have investigated their reading material and have asked questions as they progressed, some lingering curiosities may still exist. Direct students to online texts and activities where they might answer any remaining (or new) questions. Possible websites to explore, should they align with your content area topic, include:

America's Story from America's Library
At this Library of Congress website, students can learn about famous Americans, explore American history, find out facts about the 50 states, and more.

Animal Planet
The Main Index Page under "Animals A to Zoo" leads to a categorical listing of many of the world's animals. For each animal, students can read about its geographic range, physical characteristics, food habits, reproduction, behavior, habitat, economic importance for humans, and conservation.

HowStuffWorks: Science Stuff
The Science Stuff page is home to numerous articles dealing with the earth, life, and physical sciences, as well as information on engineering, space, and more.

Social Studies for Kids
Students can find information on a wide variety of social studies topics at this site, including current or historic events, cultures, languages, geography, and archaeology.

Student Assessment / Reflections

In addition to classroom notes and observations, collect question journals to determine the following for each student:

Are the questions appropriate to the content area?

Do Session 2 question webs reflect an understanding of what thin questions are?

Do Session 3 question webs reflect an understanding of what thick questions are?

Did the student use the webs successfully in determining or demonstrating answers? (Note, though, that finding answers at this point is secondary to asking questions.)

Does the writing exercise from the conclusion of Session 3 show critical thinking about the use of questioning as a comprehension strategy?

As for students' participation in group activities, your assessment may vary depending on whether you managed the groups individually or if students worked cooperatively in simultaneous groupings. For either scenario, consider what each student's responsibilities were and the significance of his or her contribution to the group.

As a final assessment of students' abilities to determine the difference between thin and thick questions, you might conduct the following activity:
Read aloud a new text selection. Have 10 questions prepared on a sheet of paper. After students listen to the read-aloud, have them answer and label the questions as either 'thin' or 'thick' and explain why. Make the test worth 30 points (one point for the correct answer, one for the label, and one for answering why it is thin or thick). Include four bonus points for those who write two thin and thick questions on their own about the read-aloud.

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Questioning: A Comprehension Strategy for Small-Group Guided Reading

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We have launched the new ReadWriteThink.org and we would love to get your feedback: Give Feedback In this lesson, the teacher explains the difference between thin (factual) and thick (inferential) questions and then models how to compose question webs by thinking aloud while reading.

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The question-answer relationship (QAR) comprehension strategy teaches students how to ask key questions about their reading, and then how to find the answers to their questions — whether it means locating a specific fact, drawing an inference, or connecting the reading to their own experience.

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Question Answer Relationship (QAR) Strategy - Watson Institute

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Help students with learning disabilities become independent learners with comprehension strategies like Question Answer Relationship.

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Good readers construct mental images as they read a text. By using prior knowledge and background experiences, readers connect the author’s writing with a personal picture. Through guided visualization, students learn how to create mental pictures as they read.

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You are welcome to print copies or republish materials for non-commercial use as long as credit is given to Reading Rockets and the author(s). For commercial use, please contact info@readingrockets.org.

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Picture This! Using Mental Imagery While Reading

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One way to help a child comprehend what he is reading is to encourage him to visualize parts of the story in his mind. These "mind movies" help clarify information, increase understanding, and can include any of the five senses. Try these practices below when reading with your child.

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We have launched the new ReadWriteThink.org and we would love to get your feedback: Give Feedback

In this lesson, a three-pronged approach is used to help students create mental images while reading. The first approach develops schemata (prior knowledge) and visual awareness (the understanding and interpretation of visual images) by introducing content-related picture books and having students respond to the illustrations using a series of question prompts. The next approach capitalizes on existing visual comprehension using a strategy called Watch-Read-Watch-Read (W-R-W-R), where video clips build background knowledge and assist students in developing "memory pegs" as they read. Finally, students use a strategy similar to the think-aloud approach, creating drawings to illustrate and understand relevant information gleaned from print.

Picture Book Questions handout: Students will use this helpful handout to answer questions about the assigned picture book

Readers often lack the ability to create visual images when reading comprehension breaks down, resulting in fix-up strategies that focus entirely on decoding.

Many reluctant and low-ability readers are unable to describe images and pictures in their minds as they read.

Students are regularly confronted with images from television, video, and computer technologies, resulting in visual representations that are created for them as opposed to by them.

These lessons seek to capitalize on students' familiarity and comfort with visual imagery, while developing the independent skills needed to fully comprehend print using a visual process.

This resource has been aligned to the Common Core State Standards for states in which they have been adopted. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, CCSS alignments are forthcoming.

This lesson has been aligned to standards in the following states. If a state does not appear in the drop-down, standard alignments are not currently available for that state.

NCTE/IRA National Standards for the English Language Arts

1. Students read a wide range of print and nonprint texts to build an understanding of texts, of themselves, and of the cultures of the United States and the world; to acquire new information; to respond to the needs and demands of society and the workplace; and for personal fulfillment. Among these texts are fiction and nonfiction, classic and contemporary works.

3. Students apply a wide range of strategies to comprehend, interpret, evaluate, and appreciate texts. They draw on their prior experience, their interactions with other readers and writers, their knowledge of word meaning and of other texts, their word identification strategies, and their understanding of textual features (e.g., sound-letter correspondence, sentence structure, context, graphics).

6. Students apply knowledge of language structure, language conventions (e.g., spelling and punctuation), media techniques, figurative language, and genre to create, critique, and discuss print and nonprint texts.

11. Students participate as knowledgeable, reflective, creative, and critical members of a variety of literacy communities.

12. Students use spoken, written, and visual language to accomplish their own purposes (e.g., for learning, enjoyment, persuasion, and the exchange of information).

Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli (Little Brown, 1990) or another novel with a companion movie

Movie version of Maniac Magee (Nickelodeon Network, 2003)

Overhead projector or LCD screen

Related picture books with themes of homelessness or prejudice

1.

Gather the following picture books to be used before reading Maniac Magee to build students' background knowledge and help them visualize one of the themes of the novel:

Bunting, E. (1991). Fly away home. New York: Clarion Books.
This story is about a boy and his father who live in an airport.

Disalvo Ryan, D. (1991). Uncle Willie and the soup kitchen. New York: Mulberry Books.
This book tells the story of a boy who works for one day in a soup kitchen with his Uncle Willie, preparing food for hungry people.

Bunting, E. (1994). Smoky night. Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace & Company.
When the Los Angeles riots break out in the streets of their neighborhood, a young boy and his mother learn the value of getting along with others, no matter what their background or nationality.

2.

Read the novel Maniac Magee by Jerry Spinelli or another novel that has a movie companion.

3.

Preview the companion movie, and identify clips that can be used to enhance visual imaging in preparation for students reading the book.

Students will

Recognize that visual images aid in comprehension

Examine their own process for constructing visual aids, particularly when comprehension of a text breaks down

Demonstrate the effective use of multiple strategies for creating "mind pictures" and "memory pegs" while reading independently

The following websites can be used to find extension activities to use before, during, and after the reading of Maniac Magee.

Student Assessment / Reflections

Circulate around the room while students are working throughout this lesson and take anecdotal notes. Note students' reactions to the different visual strategies, their participation in class discussions, and any individual difficulties they encounter with the concept of using visual images to enhance reading comprehension.

Conduct individual conferences with each student to clarify any gaps in understanding gleaned from your review of his or her Draw Aloud Organizer and your anecdotal notes. Try to clarify understanding by pointing out and questioning missed concepts, ideas, or difficulties. As an example, you might say to a student:

It seems, based on your drawing, that you may not have fully understood , what does this represent or symbolize to you?

I notice that you didn't complete the last drawing. Do you know where Jeffrey was running at the end of chapter 32 and can you explain why?

I notice that your drawings weren't finished or captioned around the middle of the story. Why is that? How can we finish these?

Direct a whole-class discussion based on feedback gleaned from your student conferences, anecdotal notes, and review of the Draw Aloud Organizers.

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Mind Pictures: Strategies That Enhance Mental Imagery While Reading

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We have launched the new ReadWriteThink.org and we would love to get your feedback: Give Feedback In this lesson, a three-pronged approach is used to help students create mental images while reading. The first approach develops schemata (prior knowledge) and visual awareness (the understanding and interpretation of visual images) by introducing content-related picture books and having students respond to the illustrations using a series of question prompts.

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Jones, R. (2007). Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Summarizing. Retrieved 2008, January 29, from http://www.readingquest.org/strat/summarize.html.

Guthrie, J. T. (2003). Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction: Practices of Teaching Reading for Understanding. In C. Snow & A. Sweet (Eds.), Reading for Understanding: Implications of RAND Report for Education (pp. 115-140). New York: Guilford.

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Summarizing teaches students how to discern the most important ideas in a text, how to ignore irrelevant information, and how to integrate the central ideas in a meaningful way. Teaching students to summarize improves their memory for what is read. Summarization strategies can be used in almost every content area.

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Background

Summarizing teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to the main points for more concise understanding. Upon reading a passage, summarizing helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate important details that support them. It is a technique that enables students to focus on key words and phrases of an assigned text that are worth noting and remembering.

Benefits

Summarizing builds comprehension by helping to reduce confusion. Teachers train students to process the information they read with the goal of breaking down content into succinct pieces. This strategy can be used with the whole class, small groups, or as an individual assignment. Summarizing text by using writing activities builds on prior knowledge, helps improve writing, and strengthens vocabulary skills.

Create and use the strategy

Pre-select and introduce the text to be used in the Summarizing technique. Decide whether to have students use this strategy within one section, on one page, or with the entire book. Then, model the process of sifting out extra verbiage and extraneous examples within the passage. Give your students ample time and opportunities to practice.

1. Begin by reading OR have students listen to the text selection.

2. Ask students to write a summary of the target text based on the following framework questions:

1. What are the main ideas?

2. What are the crucial details necessary for supporting the ideas?

3. What information is irrelevant or unnecessary?

3. Guide students throughout the summary writing process. Have them use key words or phrases to identify the main points from the text.

4. Encourage students to write successively shorter summaries, constantly refining their written piece until only the most essential and relevant information remains.

What it looks like:

* To view this file, you'll need a copy of Acrobat Reader. Most computers already have it installed. If yours does not, you can download it now.

References

Jones, R. (2007). Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Summarizing. Retrieved 2008, January 29, from http://www.readingquest.org/strat/summarize.html.

Guthrie, J. T. (2003). Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction: Practices of Teaching Reading for Understanding. In C. Snow & A. Sweet (Eds.), Reading for Understanding: Implications of RAND Report for Education (pp. 115-140). New York: Guilford.

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Summarizing teaches students how to take a large selection of text and reduce it to the main points for more concise understanding. Upon reading a passage, summarizing helps students learn to determine essential ideas and consolidate important details that support them.