Mrs. Maxwell

What does it mean to be proficient? Definition: Having or showing knowledge, skill and aptitude; well advanced or competent. (dictionary.com) Think: A PRO baseball player in the MLB or a PRO football player in the NFL. Proficient readers generally fall back on several good habits when reading.

Habit #1: Activating Prior Knowledge Readers use information they already know to relate to and understand the text. This is also called schema! Make connections!  Text to text: connections where readers are reminded of something they have seen, read, or heard.  Text to self: connections where readers are reminded of something they have experienced in their own lives.  Text to world: connections where readers are reminded of something they have noticed in the world such as events or settings.

Habit #2: Visualizing Forming mental images or pictures about what they are reading, such as characters, settings, or events. Creating images that include sensory details to deepen their understanding of the text.

Habit #3: Asking Questions As they read, readers ask questions in their head to clarify and focus their reading. Readers may ask questions about characters, motivation, reactions, settings, events or topics in the text. Examples –What are the character’s motives? –Why did the author include this? Questioning can cause students to infer, predict, determine importance, and gain new perspective.

Habit #4: Determining Importance Readers decide what is important in the text, while at the same time excluding unimportant details from their processing.

Habit #5: Making Inferences Readers use prior knowledge and information in the text to draw conclusions, make judgments, and form unique interpretations. »Anticipate events! »Make predictions! »Draw conclusions! What conclusions can you draw about the giraffe? What clues helped you reach this conclusion?

Habit #6: Retelling/Clarify When readers successfully make sense of the meaning of the text and can gain new perspectives based on their reading, they are able to communicate their comprehension of the text. »What are the important points of the story? »Based on the reading, what is your new perspective? »What is the order in which the events occur?

Habit #7: Monitoring for Meaning Readers use different strategies to understand what they don’t know in a text. »Context Clues »Re-Read »Skip Ahead »Structural or Visual Cues

What you should do while reading… Question the text and yourself Predict / infer Comment Visualize Connect Clarify Re-tell