Topic: Struggling Readers

10-second review: Students need explicit demonstration of what good readers do while they read…. Struggling readers must come to know that their job is not just to answer questions, but also to ask them. This may necessitate pointing out that skilled readers question as they read as a way to monitor their understanding and that...raising questions aids comprehension.

Source: Ganske, et al. The Reading Teacher (October. 2003), 123-124. A publication of the International Reading Association (IRA).

Comment: Interesting concept to share with struggling readers what good readers do. Probably true that good readers ask questions as they read. How teach it? Take a chapter in a textbook. Have students read the first paragraph, the first sentence of intermediate paragraphs and the last paragraph and have students raise questions about what they want to know. Then read to answer the questions. That’s a start.

Good readers probably intuitively question as they read. I’m not sure how to teach struggling readers to consciously raise questions while they read. I need to think about that one. And then, what else do good readers do when they read? RayS.