A great way to help students increase their understanding of content text is to get them talking and sharing with one another about a text.  Instead of asking simple knowledge and comprehension questions about the text, have students work with partners or small groups to answer 3-4 process or reaction types of questions over the [...]

One of the characteristics that separates  good readers from poor readers is what the reader does when s/he realizes that the text has stopped being meaningful. Good readers have “fix-up” strategies that they use to help reconnect with text and regain meaning. Poor readers, on the other hand, more often than not, become overwhelmed and [...]

Students can better understand the characters in a story by creating a character web. In the center of the web, write the story title then write the names of all of the main characters as spokes from the story title bubble. Once the main characters have been identified, then have students place at least 3 [...]

Teachers from all content areas continue to struggle with how to help students comprehend more of what they read in their content area textbooks.  These simple 8 tips can help content teachers better prepare students to comprehend more of what they read on a daily basis: Help students activate their prior knowledge on a topic [...]

Want your students to understand and retain more of what they read? Far and away the best way to do this is to ask students to summarize a piece of text. After students have read a passage, ask them to write a paragraph of 4 or 5 sentences summarizing the most important points in the [...]