What does current research say about the differences between skilled and struggling readers? How should we approach the type of reading we ask students to do? When and where have students ever been exposed to academic reading?
Research shows that skilled or expert readers possess seven strategies to construct meaning before, during, and after reading a text. When skilled students read, it is an active process. Their minds are constantly processing information extracted from the text, e.g., questioning the author, summarizing passages, or interpreting images. Contrarily, struggling readers often unthinkingly read the words on the page. For them, reading is an inactive activity. Constructing meaning from the text does not naturally occur in the mind of a struggling reader.
Source: Teaching Students the Skills of Expert Readers
Model for students your learning as you read aloud an article on a current event or a topic of study. For example, as you read, pause, asking questions and making comments and connections to things you already know or even things you've explored as a class. Then have students do the same with a partner, then eventually in groups of three or four. For high school students, I like Kelly Gallagher's Article of the Week he uses with his high school students. Building the prior knowledge of students is also part of our job -- and not just knowledge about the content we teach, but also about the world.
Source: 5 Ways to Give Your Students More Voice and Choice
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