Introducing the Comprehension Strategies Student Book

Carol Brewer
Apr 05, 2010

LEARNING-FOCUSED has developed a resource for you and your students to use to deepen their understanding of the seven most prevalent Comprehension Strategies. The recently released Comprehension Strategies Student Book is an interactive resource for students to identify and make connections to comprehension while reading or writing. Each section of the notebook focuses on the most prevalently used Comprehension Strategies:

  • Main Idea and Details

  • Text Elements

  • Sequencing

  • Cause/Effect

  • Inferences

  • Compare/Contrast

  • Fact/Opinion

The Comprehension Strategies Student Book can be used before, during, or after any content lesson. It is perfect for center tasks! Many have recognized the power of small group instruction. Learning-Focused strongly recommends that schools change the classroom structure to include flexible groups. During Flexible Group time, the Comprehension Notebook can assist students in the understanding of the comprehension strategies. For instance, the Comprehension Corner will allow students to answer the following types of questions for fiction and non-fiction texts:

  • What is the main idea?

  • What is a detail?

  • What is the difference between a main idea and a detail?

Students are able to choose from a variety of appropriate graphic organizers that match each strategy. The notebook affords each student an opportunity to record their "favorite" graphic organizer.

The Great 8 signal words provide students with the most essential skills vocabulary to identify each comprehension strategy. Students are encouraged to use their own connections to enable retention of the vocabulary and the comprehension strategy. In addition, students are encouraged to write using each of the skill based vocabulary words.

This Student Notebook can also be a tool for parents to ask the "just right" question when reading with their child. When students are given an assignment that includes reading comprehension, parents will have a choice of questions to ask to reinforce the reading comprehension strategies. For example, after reading, parents ask, "What is the text mostly about?" or, "How do the characters compare or contrast?"