Reading Strategies To Improve Comprehension Empowering Gifted Children

1. Monitoring Comprehension Metacognition is defined as "thinking about thinking" and is generally a strong capability of gifted readers. Gifted readers often use metacognition instinctively as they think about why they want to read certain materials and clarify their purpose before they begin. During reading they are likely to monitor how well they are understanding the material and adjust their reading speed to fit the difficulty of the text or "fix up" any comprehension problems they might feel they are having as they read.. After reading, they might check their understanding of what they read by "having conversations with themselves"..

2. Using Graphic and Semantic Organizers Graphic Organizers are known by many names, such as Thinking Maps, webs, graphs, charts, frames, or clusters. They illustrate concepts, and inter-relationships among concepts, using diagrams. Semantic Organizers, also called semantic maps or semantic webs, are a specific type of graphic organizers that look somewhat like a spider web. Lines connect a central concept to a variety of related events and ideas. Graphic organizers can help readers focus on concepts and their relationships with other concepts. They provide tools to gifted readers to visually represent relationships in a text..

3. Answering Questions Research shows that teacher questioning strongly supports and advances students' learning from reading. Questions: Give students a purpose for reading. Focus students' attention on what they are to learn. Help students to think actively as they read. Encourage students to monitor their comprehension. Help students to review content and relate what they have learned to what they already know. By using this strategy, gifted readers learn to answer questions from explicit text they have read, from implicit information in the text presented across many sentences, or from information combined from the text they have read and their prior knowledge..

4. Generating Questions The intent of this strategy is to teach readers to ask their own questions. Gifted readers are complex thinkers and can ask astounding questions. This is a capability that should be encouraged, and a skill that should be developed and needs to be taught. Gifted readers should learn to ask themselves questions that require them to integrate information from different segments of text and from multiple sources.

5. Recognizing Story Structure "Story structure" is the way that content and events in a story are organized into a plot. Gifted readers who can recognize story structure have greater appreciation, understanding, and memory for stories. With this strategy, readers learn to identify the categories of content (setting, initiating events, internal reactions, goals, attempts, and outcomes) and how this content is organized into a plot. Readers can use a story map, a type of graphic organizer, to show the sequence of events in simple stories.

6. Making Use of Prior Knowledge Gifted readers often draw upon prior knowledge and experience to help them understand what they are reading. Before reading, ask gifted readers what they already know about the content of the selection, what they know about the author, and how the author is likely to present the information.. Discuss important vocabulary used in the text and show readers pictures or diagrams to prepare them for what they are about to read. They will get more out of the reading selection by using these preview techniques that review their prior knowledge..

7. Making Use of Mental Imagery Gifted readers, especially those that have strong capabilities as visual thinkers, often form mental pictures and images as they read. Readers who visualize during reading understand and remember what they read better than readers who do not visualize. Help your gifted reader learn to form visual images of what they are reading. Urge them to picture a setting, character, or event described in the text.

Guidelines How We Teach Comprehension Strategies Effective Instruction is Explicit and Direct Teachers tell readers why and when they should use these strategies, what strategies to use, and how to apply them. The steps to explicity instruct these strategies are: Direct Explanation: Explain to your gifted reader why the strategy helps comprehension and when to use it. Modeling: Demonstrate, or model, how to use the strategy. Guided Practice: Guide and assist readers as they learn how to use the strategy. Application: Help gifted readers practice the strategy until they can use it independently.

Cooperative Learning Having students work together as partners or in small groups on clearly defined tasks is an excellent method of teaching the comprehension strategies. Help Readers Use a Combination of Strategies Teach gifted readers how to use the strategies in combination and in appropriate situations. For example, gifted readers can Ask questions about the text they are reading, and Summarize parts of the text, and Clarify words and sentences that they don't understand, and Predict what might occur next in the text, and Visualize the setting during reading.