How can I improve reading comprehension?



Sourced from toefl-book.com

Enjoyed an amazing and very fast paced presentation at the superb setting of Remarks School in Frankton. Covered reading strategies of predicting and retell mostly, as well as some tools for learning, which was exactly what I was looking for.

New Ideas
Sketch the word then explain it to someone.
Pretend someone didn't know the letter and describe what you have done to someone.This develops oral language skills, vocabulary and extend comprehension and meaning.
Highlight small word or part of a word inside a word.
Write the rules to decode a letter or word.

Prove to me you know the word?

Reminders
Remember to teach what a sentence is!!!
Shared reading does not have to be whole class. Can be done with small group for more specific teaching.
Encourage asking and answering questions.
Make connections as you read all the way through the text and refer back to specific learning intention often.
Specifically teach a strategy
Use graphic organisers to help visual learners
Use maps and diagrams for shared reading. Very important they can read and comprehend these resources as well. 
PREDICTING
Predicting is the first step to self monitoring. Its a simple form of inference.

BEFORE
-write predictions down so you can refer back to it to 1 confirm, 2 adapt, or change or 3, reject.
-get children to explain to a partner how the illustration helped them to come up with their prediction.
-act or mime characters in picture then regroup to list adverbs and verbs and explain how they got their ideas.
-list descriptive words for vocab development in writing
-Use KWL to organise ideas
-Discuss who characters might be and relationship to each other.
DURING 
-provide tricky vocab and children draw what they think it means then use 1,2,3 (as talked about above) to check predictions after reading.

RETELLParaphrasing puts story into own words retell uses key vocab within the text. This needs to be taught at all levels!
-develops vocabulary
-develops sequencing and link words
-develops oral language

Ways to retell
-sketch
-question to retell "What did you read about?"
-sequence pictures in collage then orally tell it
-key words mixed up - order then retell
-teacher gives a keyword and they retell from that
-when using instructional text get them to give instructions to a buddy o complete task

Then there is the fun ways we've tried in our class...
-puppet show, donuts retell from different perspectives of characters in story, act it out, freeze frame a part of the story and storyteller explains what is happening.

Much of this is stuff we all know but its a great time to go back and review different strategies so it all comes back to us and creates a flood of enthusiasm for getting it right. It's important to remember to be creative and exciting in our teaching approach to keep kids engaged. Reading should be enjoyed and our own enthusiasm should always shine through.