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Reading Strategies
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Fall 2009-Day 10
Literacy-Reading
Students in Physics 111 are asked to read several science and teaching related articles throughout the course of the term. To promote engagement and learning from the text, a graduate assistant, Adam Devitt, and a literacy professor, Dr. Ken Winograd, developed several reading strategies for before, during, and after reading. This comprehensive list allows students to select strategies that work well for them for specific texts, while disregarding other strategies until they become applicable. Several Students' Notes - Writing About Reading are included here, in which many of the reading strategies have been employed.
Suggested Reading Strategies
Use these strategies selectively, only those that “work” for you and make sense for particular texts.
| Pre-Reading Strategies |
|---|
| * Scan the title, subheadings pictures and captions: generate questions |
| * List three or four pre-existing ideas you have about the topic |
| * Generate three or four questions you want to have answered about the topic |
| * With a partner, share your pre-existing ideas and questions |
| * Read the opening section, or introduction: rephrase main ideas |
| * Construct a semantic map of your prior knowledge of the topic |
| * Use topics represented in the title and sub-headings to guide the initial rendition of map |
| During-Reading Strategies |
|---|
| * Answer pre-reading questions |
| * Take notes, highlight, summarize the important idea in each paragraph in one sentence |
| * Notate key details |
| * Write down new vocabulary important to meaning of text |
| * Predict meaning based on structural analysis |
| * Generate new questions as you work through the reading |
| * Answer these new questions |
| * Write different question types: text-based questions; creative or critical questions |
| * With a partner, ask her/him about questions or ideas that are perplexing to you |
| * Notate responses and discussions in your science notebook |
| * Refine and continue developing semantic map |
| After-Reading Strategies |
|---|
| * Review your pre-existing ideas; verify and support this information |
| * Review your notes for the reading; sub-vocalize your reading of notes |
| * Ask yourself: what do I now understand that, before, I did not? What new information do I have about this topic? |
| * Review your questions: Of the questions unanswered, Seek out one of the questions and try to find the answer, or ask a partner |
| * Look up definitions of three or four words that were new to you. Learn these words |
| * Refine the semantic map |
| * Share your learning with a partner and also your lingering questions |
| * Think about new curiosities to explore |
