lesson 1 | lesson 2 

Instructional Techniques

Reading Process Analysis 

Purpose/ Rationale:

Reading Process Analysis helps readers become aware of the demands of different texts and the strategies that they use to meet those demands in their efforts to make meaning as they read.  By sharing reflections on their own reading processes in a group, readers learn from each other’s processes and gain new strategies.  They also begin to see reading as a complex activity that requires flexible application of many strategies.  Metacognition is often an important new awareness for many readers.  This process  bears repetition, especially as readers encounter different types of text.

Materials:

• Various texts, photocopied (The first texts should be moderately challenging, without being frustrating.  As the class gains experience with Reading Process Analysis, more challenging texts may be used.)

• Pens or pencils with which students may write on the text

• Butcher paper entitled “Good Reader Strategies” and markers

Process:

1. Before reading, ask students what good readers do when they read.  Other prompts might be: “How can you tell when someone is a good reader?  What do you think teachers look for when they are trying to understand how well someone reads?”
   

2. Record all the answers on the butcher paper entitled “Good Reader Strategies.”  The idea is to construct a sense of what the students’ beliefs, or theories, of reading are.  Receive all answers, whether they support your notion of reading or not.  Later conversations will revise and elaborate this initial list.
   

3. Assign a piece of text to be read.  Ask students to read as they normally would, indicating there will be a discussion of how they read.
   

4. Following the reading, ask students to write briefly to prompts such as: What did you notice?  What was hard?  What did you do to make sense of the text as you read?
   

5. Ask students to share out.  It is important to validate the many different kinds of thinking that lead to the successful completion of the task.
   

6. Record students’ observations on the butcher paper as they share out.  Be sure to validate comments and point out strong comprehension strategies.  As you record, label students’ strategies so that your class will begin to build a common vocabulary about reading process.
   

7. As students share their list of strategies, revisit the initial items and ask if there is anything they might add or revise based on this reading experience.  For example, a common comment on many initial lists is, “Good readers read fast.”  If students share out that they had to slow down because the text was confusing, the revised list might read, “Good readers sometimes read fast, but they know to slow down when they need to.”

Helpful Ideas: 

• Prompt students gently with questions such as: “Did anyone notice that they had to re-read any part?”  or “Did anyone think of something else that they knew about that was kind of related?”
  

• If this still does not yield much conversation, model thinking aloud to give them a view of some strategies that they may recognize.

As noted above, this is a process that demands repetition. 

Strategic Literacy Initiative, WestEd, June 2000
Reading for Understanding

Think Aloud with Fuzzy Sticks (Pipe Cleaners) or Clay

Purpose/ Rationale: 

Causes students to become aware of their thinking process while completing a non-threatening fun activity.  Because the activity has a rather silly feeling to it, students are comfortable slowing down and taking their time to enjoy and relate their thinking process.

Materials:

Small cans of Play Doh or a “Fuzzy Stick” for each student

Process:

1.    Model the process of making an animal out of the chosen material.  While thinking aloud about the process, take three minutes to create an animal that will stand up independently. 

2.    Students are divided into pairs.  One person in the pair, while thinking aloud, has three minutes to make an animal.  The second person keeps track of the time and takes notes on the first person’s process. No discussion is allowed. 

3.   The second person repeats the process.  The first person keeps track of time and takes notes on the process.  Again, there should be no discussion.  

4.   The class shares observations about the
      process of think aloud: What they
      noticed, what was hard, what they
      learned from each other.  It is important
      to validate the many different kinds of
      thinking that lead to the successful 
      completion of the task.

Optional extension: 

5.  Create a list of “Good Problem
     Solver Strategies” which can
     then be displayed in the room.

(WestEd, June  2000)