Conclusion

In conclusion to all three categories of reading strategies they all help students develop reading skills. Many times it is impossible to apply each of these strategies every time a reading is assigned. With that said I believe you could at least apply a shorten version of one of these strategies every time students have to read. This will help them get more out of their daily reading. There is no reason that teachers cannot apply some strategies to every reading. Varying which one you use will be important for students as well. Students will get bored if you use the same one too much. That is why using strategies wisely is important while teaching. It can have an immediate and huge impact on the reading students do if used right. I would love to see more reading strategies in classrooms and have our students become life long readers and learners.

Works cited

                  Beers, G. Kylene. When Kids Can't Read, What Teachers Can Do: A Guide for Teachers, 6-12. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2003. Print.

After Reading Strategies

Many students will finish reading and then move on to the next task in their life. They do not take time to analyze and process what they have just read. They believe they have finished the reading process and are done with it. This is a thought that desperately needs to be changed. Students must know that reading the text is not the end because of all of the possible learning that comes afterward. We need students to understand that "just closing a book doesn't close off the thinking that shapes our understanding of a text."(Beers 139). The closing of the book is just an opening for more discussion and comprehension of what just been read. What students do after they read can determine how much they comprehend and get out of the reading that just took place. Many times as teachers we just ask basic questions and that is how we determine if the students read and understand. These questions intend well but do not get to the point of finding meaning in the text. Students just find the answers and write them down instead of thinking about them and discovering meaning from them. That is why we as teachers need to engage students in after reading strategies as well. We also need these to be meaningful and creative for it to grab students attention.
Some of the things these strategies need to do is "comment on the text or their understanding of the text, connect what they are reading to other texts or personal experiences, [...] compare one part of the text to another, summarize the text, [...] and distinguish between fact and opinion"(Beers 139). These are just some of the things but  they show the importance and impact after reading strategies have. After reading strategies can change a students view of the book and make them find new meaning after reading. Some Strategies that could be implemented are now going to be shown.
Semantic Differential Scales:
Semantic different scales are a way to get students thinking and coming up with their own opinions. These scales let students "decide how much of the trait a character possesses"(Beers 141). This lets them decide on what the character really is like after reading. It can make them think deeply about attributes that we all have. Some books can dive into deeper discussions than others so it is open for how deep you want them to go. These also affect their lives since most of your students want to develop good characteristics in life. Filling out the charts will make them question their own traits and get down to the root of what each trait really means in life. This also allows for students from different backgrounds to discuss why they think differently about different traits. That is a great way to have students voices heard and considered in the classroom. A simple Semantic scale would look like this:

You can create your own scale based upon the questions the text brings up. It is very accessible and easy to change and use for varying texts. This will lead to good discussion and thought from a text and create an open environment in the classroom.
Somebody Wanted But So (SWBS):
This strategy looks at specific characters in a book and evaluates what happened to them throughout the book. Many times teachers will look for a class to just summarize a book after reading it. This becomes boring and repetitive for students. They know exactly who will answer and who won't and that won't change. That is why a SWBS is a good change up for students to see. A SWBS "offers a framework as [the students] create their summaries"(Beers 145). This helps student get over the daunting feeling of summarizing the book where they likely will say everything or nothing. Setting it up in a SWBS lets student focus on a character and summarize the story from that characters perspective. This gets students more involved and more likely to participating in the discussion of summarizing a story. The set up is simple but making the categories and putting them up on the board. It will look something like this:

This makes it easy to write down what students are thinking and have everyone see it. Also writing it on the board and having the class discuss it can provide some varying opinions on what the characters really wanted. This leads to a wide variety of possible answers and great discussion. This strategy also makes it possible to summarize the story from multiple viewpoints. This is good for students because it helps them see things from varying angles. This will help them in life in general when they are making decisions. They can see that their decisions effect other people by seeing how different a SWBS looks like for two separate characters. This will help students get more out of what they have read and be able to apply it to their daily lives.

During Reading Strategies.

Many times students will read a passage and learn absolutely nothing. This is distressing for teachers everywhere. How can we make what students read help them learn something. It is also a struggle to find a way for students to remember what they read. If the reading is forgotten as soon as it is read it is useless. That is why we need to find ways to make what students read important to them and help them learn. Some of the things we need our students to do while reading is
"predict what will happen, question[the text], monitor their understanding of the text, [...], clarify what has confused them, [...], connect what they are reading to other texts or personal experience, and visualize the text"(Beers 105). When students are engaging in these strategies while reading they get more out of what they read. Without these strategies students will continue to glance over readings and not be able to remember anything from them. This is why it is so important to apply these strategies to actual readings. Now I will show some examples of good during reading strategies.
Say Something:
Say something is a strategy that sounds quite simple by its name. This strategy makes students respond to the text by talking through the text with a partner. While this seems too simple to really help reading it can be the difference maker for some students while reading. If they are able to verbalize their thoughts and have someone react and engage in their thoughts with them it can lead to deep discussions about the text. This is really helpful for audio learners because they get to hear things instead of just reading them. This strategy is especially helpful in that it does not let students just read over sections and then be done with it. It makes them think about what they are reading and create their own thoughts about it. Their are some much needed rules when constructing and implementing a say something in your classroom though. It would be wise to display them on an overhead, poster board, projector, or just hand them out to the students at the beginning of class. It should look something like this:
Rules for Say Something Reading Strategy 
1. With your partner, decide who will say something first.
2. Take turns reading the selection aloud (stop about every two or three paragraphs)
3. Pause to say something about what was read.
4. When you say something, do one or more of the following:
a. Make a prediction
b. Ask a question
c. Clarify something you had misunderstood
d. Make a comment
e. Make a connection
5. If you can’t do one of those five things, then you need to reread.
6. Your partner offers a response to what was said.

Starters for Say Something Comments

Make a Prediction: 
 I predict that…
 I bet that…
 I think that…
 Since this happened then I bet the next thing that is going to happen is…
 Reading this part makes me think that this is about to happen…
 I wonder if…


Ask a Question: 
 Why did…
 What’s this part about…
 How is this (fill in detail) like this (fill in detail)
 What would happen if…
 Why…
 Who is…
 What does this section (fill in detail) mean…
 Do you think that …
 I don’t get this part here…


Clarify Something: 
 Oh, I get it…
 Now I understand…
 This makes sense now…
 No, I think it means…
 I agree with you, This means…
 At first I thought (fill in detail), but now I think…
 This part is really saying…


Make a Comment: 
 This is good because…
 This is hard because…
 This is confusing because…
 I like the part where…
 I don’t like this part because…
 My favorite part so far is…
 I think that…

Make a connection: 
 This reminds me of …
 This part is like…
 The character (fill in name) is like (fill in name) because…
 This is similar to…
 The differences are…
 I also (name something in the text that has also happened to you)…
 I never (name something in the text that has never happened to you)…
 This character makes me think of…
 This setting reminds me of…

This list will help the students know what to say and make the conversations more meaningful for both of them. without the list some students will just make short statements that have no meaning to them. That is why the list is helpful for them students to have. While this strategy may still seem simple it has been proven to help students a lot by getting them more engaged in the texts they read.

Rereading:
Another during reading strategy is Rereading. I know real simple, yes, but very effective if used correctly. Many times when students are assigned the reading they just read through it once and are done(if they read it at all). While they technically finished the assignment they probably got very little if any meaning from reading the text. Often times students also feel like they won't get anything out of reading the same passage once. Their thoughts go something like this, "Well I've already read it and don't understand so reading the same thing again will be just as confusing, so why read it again". See that is why just getting a student to reread once can change their view of reading forever. Most of us would immediately go back and reread something if we don't understand it because we have learned that rereading is helpful. Many of our students don't know this and so we have to demonstrate it and show its importance to them. It is helpful to have students look for something different every time they reread a passage. This gives them something specific to do during each reading of the text. It will help them focus while reading and get more out of the reading. This strategy is used in all sorts of readings and even when we watch something. We simply cannot see everything the first time so rereading helps us see more deeply into a text. This will help students see how much their is in reading and make them understand it better as well.

These were just two simple examples of during reading strategies. I think that these two show how simple a strategy can be and still be effective. That is why we need to not be intimidated by the term reading strategies. They can be simple and effective when we use them right. Integrating these strategies into the classroom will improve students reading and get them more engaged. That is what we want form our students and will help make them life long readers and learners.

Before Reading Strategies

Many times students will just go straight to reading without any pre-reading activity. This can be very troublesome for  a lot of readers. They just go in and read without knowing anything about it. This leads to very shallow reading and confused students. That is why pre-reading activities can help a student a lot while reading. there are many types of activities that you can do with your students before they start reading. Five things that pre-reading strategies should do are "access their[the students] prior knowledge, interact with portions of the text prior to reading, practice sequencing, find cause and effect relationships, draw comparisons, make inferences, and predict, identify vocabulary that might be a problem, and construct meaning before they[the students] begin reading the text"(Beers 74). These are all ideas that will help students read better. Now I want to show some of these strategies that will be useful.
Anticipation guides: 
These are simply a set of statements that make students think hard about them. These texts also help them "make a personal connection to what they will be reading"(Beers 75). Using them to start class based discussion can be very beneficial. Instead of some questions you make up on the spot these guide students to higher thinking and more connectivity to the reading. It is important to have controversial statements on the anticipation guide. If they are questions with no controversy the conversations will be dull and uninspiring. The controversy makes students more passionate and willing to dive into discussion to defend their opinion.
Here is an example of an anticipation guide used in a history class before reading Anne Franks diary. While it is not a perfect example it has good points to make and is used before and after the reading.

Probable Passage:
This strategy is used to help students find out what a story could be about. Many times students will have trouble even opening a book. This is because they have no idea what it is about. Probable passage "helps stop those passive reading habits by encouraging students to make predictions, to activate their prior knowledge about a topic, [...], to make inferences, and to form images about a text" (Beers 87). All of these make the student more engaged in the reading. To use one you just take a summary of the text and take out some of the words and give them to the students. They get to infer what think it will be about form those few key words they have. This makes it more fun for them and they get to see if what they thought would happen actually happens in the book. Here is an example of a sheet that you would use for a Probable passage.

These are just two of the many pre-reading strategies you can use with students. The focus on helping the reader be more engaged with what they are about to read. It helps activate prior knowledge and encourage the student to read more actively. This will help readers get more out of what they are reading in and outside of class.