It is especially important that struggling students get in the habit of asking questions, assessing their own understanding, and thinking actively as they read. Remind students to look up unfamiliar words or use the “I don’t understand” flag, and tell them that anyone who does not do so is confidently asserting that they know every word and have fully comprehended every concept in the text.īy assigning these tasks to your students, you are promoting the reading strategies that students should use whenever they encounter an academic text.
#To scaffold meaning in education free#
If any students do show that level of confidence, feel free to ask them follow-up questions the next day to determine whether their self-assurance is valid or misguided. Remind students to look up unfamiliar words or use the “I don’t understand” flag, and tell them that anyone who does not do so is confidently asserting that they know every word and have fully comprehended every concept in the text. Tell students that they must answer one of their classmates’ questions or respond to a shared note. Ask them to do the same for their most insightful note.
Instruct all students to ask a question and share it with their peers. However, it’s beneficial for all students to encourage deeper engagement by assigning tasks that incorporate proven reading strategies. It’s tempting to leave this space blank, especially given that you will likely embed questions in the assignment and thus make it clear what students are expected to do. The beginning of every Actively Learn assignment includes a space for teachers to write instructions for students. Teaching these strategies is also tricky, because students may quickly forget to employ them and revert back to old habits of surface-level reading. Though some of these strategies come naturally to expert readers, they are often neglected by students who struggle with reading. There are several reading strategies that promote deeper engagement and comprehension, including questioning, monitoring comprehension, summarizing, making predictions, and thinking aloud. Encourage reading strategies by assigning tasks to students What exactly should students take away from this reading assignment? Should they focus on assessing the point of view of the writer? Is the purpose of this reading to evaluate the strength of the main argument? Struggling students in particular benefit from understanding the purpose of an assignment prior to reading. Students who do not read broadly often lack the background information to situate new ideas and comprehend the unstated knowledge that the author presumes his or her reader already knows.įinally, be sure to set the focus for student reading. Although you certainly do not have to define every challenging word in the text (because students can always look it up in a dictionary), discussing the meaning of “tyranny” in The Declaration of Independence or “guerilla warfare” in the context of the Vietnam War will help students comprehend these terms and connect to the larger themes of the text.
In setting the scene, you may also provide students with an explanation of major terms that come up repeatedly in the reading. What is the historical context? Who is the author? What ideas is he or she reacting to? The information you provide will vary depending on the text, but it should help situate the reading and hopefully pique the students’ interest in the material. Giving students a wider framework in which to situate the text will help to fill in some of these knowledge gaps.Ĭonsider the essential information that the reader should know before digging into the text.
Students who do not read broadly often lack the background information to situate new ideas and comprehend the unstated knowledge that the author presumes his or her reader already knows. One of the major challenges for struggling readers is lack of content knowledge. Pre-reading prep: Setting the scene for the text
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