Importance Of Reading Strategies

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Introduction Approximately, 1.2 million students each year do not successfully graduate from high school; 7,000 students quit high school each day because they do have the basic literacy skills needed to be successful (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2006, p. 1). Over 8 million students in grades 4-12 struggle to comprehend texts in their academic content classes (Fang & Schleppegrell, 2010, p.587). This is a problem, which needs to be addressed within our classrooms in order to stop this trend from growing. In an effort to combat this problem, research has proven that when students are taught strategic reading instruction from “competent, caring, and qualified teachers” the students reading and comprehension skills improve (Ness, 2016, …show more content…

(Bryant, Linan-Thompson, Hamff, & Hougen, 2001, p. 252). Establishing a purpose is one way for students to start making a connection to the text they are about to read. Students need to know why they need to read a particular text. When the students are able to identify the purpose behind why they are reading it, they are better able to start making a connection to it. Another way to make a connection with the text before the student would read is through the activation of prior background knowledge. When students are able to make a connection before reading the text they are more likely to make inferences and elaborations that would lead to a deeper level of comprehension of the text (Massey & Heafner, 2004, p. 30). The way in which a teacher can activate prior knowledge is through discussion. When students activate their prior knowledge and make connections to background knowledge, comprehension is improved (Dymock & Nicholson, 2010, p. …show more content…

One way to synthesize information is through summarizing. Teaching students how to summarize what they just read has been proven to improve overall comprehension even though it may be challenging for the students (Boling & Evans, 2008; Neufeld, 2005). One way to create a summary is through the use of graphic aides. When students are able to create a mental representation of what they read, it helps them better synthesize the information (Massey & Heafner,

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