Metacognitive Reading Strategies

When you read, you dont just use your eyes. Your brain does most of the hard work. Being aware of how you read, and strategies to help you read, will help you become a better reader and learner. Below are some of the basic reading strategies to be aware of and practice as you read. Connecting

A connection can be made from your background knowledge, personal experience, or simply reminds you of something. We can make a Text to Self connection (e.g. something that has happened to you, or that you can relate to in some way), a Text to Text connection, (e.g. something that makes you think about another book, a similar character, books by the same author, similar style of illustration, a movie), and Text to World connections (e.g. books that make you think of something similar that happens in the world).

Questioning

Grade 6 students practiced answering and asking questions in class. We all found that answering the quick questions (also known as closed, small, or thin questions) was easy for us. Answering, and

especially asking, deep thinking questions (also known as open, big, or fat questions) were a real challenge.

Visualizing

We found out that visualizing and connecting are closely related. Visualizing is most likely to happen when we read books that are filled with rich, descriptive and vivid language. When we imagine, the source of images comes from within our brain. When we visualize, the source for the images comes from the texts we read. The wonderful thing about the reading strategy of visualizing is that it has really helped us become better authors in our writing. We know that "picture words" help us create pictures in our minds as we read. Therefore we can try using "picture words" as we write so our own writing is full of lovely descriptions and is more interesting for the reader.

Inferring

Inferring is when you make an educated guess using evidence from pictures or the text. It may not be explicitly written in the text; you need to use the information provided or other evidence, to infer. In class we have practiced inferring from pictures, from simple texts and more difficult texts. Inferring is a challenging strategy to practice and think about, as many students often focus on the literal text. Inferring is a higher level thinking strategy because it requires not just reading the words on the page, but inferring from the text what is not written down. We have an expression in English calling this "reading between the lines."

Transforming

Some books can change the way we think; it transforms our ideas. Transforming "synthesizes" the other reading powers of connecting, questioning, visualizing and inferring, and combines it to create new thinking. This is a very challenging strategy as it involves synthesizing ideas and developing higher level thinking skills.

Summarizing

This is a short overview of the book, or sections in it. This should be brief and succinct. It could include information on the plot, characters, setting, genre etc.

Context Clues
Context means the sentence or paragraph in which the word appears. Clues are like hints to the meaning of the word you do not understand. Therefore you are trying to gain a general idea of what the unknown word means, not a specific definition, when you use context clues to help you read.

Try selecting a few of the many wonderful books in the MSMC, in our classroom, or from home, and practice your reading strategies! Which strategies do you find easy? Which strategies come naturally to you? Which strategies are more challenging for you? Why do you think that is?