Why is text selection important in reading comprehension?

Teachers need to incorporate the use of objectives, strategies, modeling and pneumonic devices to teach students to read and learn from informational texts

Need to Know:

·      Strengths and needs of students

·      How to assess the level of text

·      Many varied texts

Stating and creating an objective is paramount- Students need to know the purpose of the reading/assignment

The Objective is the key to the success of any lesson. I put it in the middle of the graphic to demonstrate its central purpose to teaching comprehension. Surrounding the objective are a series of explicit lessons, strategies eventually leading to a students understanding and synthesis of the concepts presented. The readings presented specific examples of lessons, feedback to students and ideas for modeling.

An example of a strategy is using a 3-day cycle of lessons

            Day 1: Introduction or review purpose

            Day 2: Guided practice

            Day 3: Additional guided practice and independent practice

This cycle allows teachers to create an anchor lesson, create or activate background knowledge and model the conversation and thinking that you want the students to demonstrate when they read. Day 2 is an opportunity to help guide students and assess their ability to perform the strategies that were modeled the day before. Finally on day 3 the teacher can model again or use comprehension checks like: having students describe the visualization, what inferences did they make and demonstrate model questioning.

Ultimately we want students to think about the texts they are reading thus creating opportunities for more conversations, inferences and thoughts. The image of the cake is to reference to the analogy used in Cummins Close Reading of Informational texts referring to student’s ability to ascertain the purpose and synthesize the information.

We mix many ingredients to create a cake- synthesizing the material from an informational text and other sources to create a conversation and thoughts. Leading to the next image

Conversations rather than lectures…

The goal is to ask open-ended questions and create opportunities for a constellation of diverse responses, hence the image above as a reminder of the words that were so powerful! Creating opportunities for open-ended questions.

(I loved this imagery when reading about active literacy in “Strategies that Work” by  Harvey & Goudvis It made me think of the infinite possibilities of the universe).

PNEUMONIC DEVICES…

Create a bookmark, identify strategies where students can see them and incorporate them into lessons throughout the year. Ideally all teachers would use these same strategies so that students would receive many opportunities to practice throughout the year.

This is an example of the THIEVES pneumonic device used for previewing informational texts.

Creating opportunities for students to know the objective of a lesson, preview text, re-read text, utilize comprehension strategies like THIEVES, TELL, HIP, CATAPULT all while using explicit instruction and a variety of text  will help you , as a teacher, and your students create success lessons.                        


Textbooks can be extremely challenging for students because they are loaded with so much information. Students must be taught how to sift through and find the important information. Speaking of textbooks, districts spend a ton of money purchasing these huge books but it should never be used as a single source.

Synthesizing the information found in textbooks with other primary source articles or items will help them to make connections to the material, ultimately resulting in retention!

We want to be successful teachers therefore we owe it to our students to present information in the best way possible, arm them with strategies and incorporate modeling and explicit teaching practices all while clearly stating the objectives everyday!