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.