Step for Reading Nonfiction

Want an easy guide to reading difficult text.  Here are steps to follow.

1.  Skim the entire article FIRST
2.  Look at the title, headings, subheadings, and bold print
3.  Does the introduction give facts or just get the reader engaged?
4.  Visualize and make connections
5.  Stop and think. Ask yourself, “does this make sense?”
6.  Reread sentences, paragraphs, or the whole article to help you understand
7.  Focus, know when you don’t know
8.  Wonder, ask questions, predict and confirm
9.  Look for capitalization of names and other proper nouns
10. Find the W’s (who, what, when, where, why, and how)
11. Mark out and substitute hard words
12. Cross out words that don't matter
13. Highlight only the important parts (BIKINIS ONLY)

What Tools are in Your Reading Toolbox?

If you were building a house, would you use a hammer for every task?    It would be more than a little difficult to measure a board with a hammer.  Cutting it in two would be even more challenging.  Imagine finishing the cement in the garage with only a hammer.  House construction requires a variety of tools, each appropriate for a given task.  

Similarly, reading requires many tools, each which helps in a certain way, with different situations.  Recently in Reading Workshop, we have been focusing on reading difficult, nonfiction text.  We have focused on what matters and what doesn't.  We have also looked at specific skills that contribute to comprehension.

What is Important
1. W's (who, what, when, where, why, how)
2. Main Points
3. Ideas that relate to the gist

What is Not
1. Supporting Details
2. Examples
3. Interesting Stories or Opinions
4. Most Adverbs and Adjectives

But remember anything that helps you understand what you are reading is ALWAYS IMPORTANT!

Strategies for Reading Nonfiction

1.Skim

2.Adjust your reading speed/slow down when needed

3.Read and highlight only the essential information

4.Substitute easy words for more difficult ones.

5.Think about the writer and the writer's purpose
6.Connect to prior knowledge
7.List W’s
8.List facts

What should be added to the list?  What strategies do you use when reading difficult text?

For more information on reading check out these posts:

What's the Deal With Details?

How Fast Do You Read?

Reading Strategies, Using Prior Knowledge

Learning to Read Adult Style

Connections When Reading

Image from http://www.stockvault.net/photo/107135/hammer

Learning to Read, Adult Style

For the next several weeks, we will be focusing on learning how to read. I am not talking about your overused, "sound out the words, and go back and reread when you don't get it," but real skills that readers of higher level essays use to comprehend.

Learning to read is the main focus throughout elementary school. However, the style of reading must change as students enter Jr. High School and above. By sixth grade, figuring out all of the words is a small part of the reading process. Students must learn to decipher meaning, especially in difficult text. Reading for the gist, understanding the W's (who, what, when, where, why, and how), and comprehending important details becomes the focus.

Although comprehension strategies are taught in the primary grades, the techniques should change as students enter the intermediate grades. That is our objective currently in language arts class.

Over the next few weeks, students will be taught to follow these steps when reading nonfiction.

1.Skim

2.Read and Highlight

3.List W’s

4.List facts

5.Write a topic sentence/Gist Statement

Today we focused on skimming for key words.  As we move forward we will break down nonfiction articles trying to glean the most important facts and information.  In the weeks to come, we will focus on how the parts of speech help determine meaning, what to highlight, and what to ignore, pace of reading, word substitution, and several other skills that will prepare students as critical readers in the years ahead.

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Why Skimming Matters Most

Is skimming the most important skill needed by readers today? In the technology driven, Web 2.0 world, readers are faced with information overload. Just the number of words thrown out at readers on the Internet causes an overload for struggling readers. Web pages are jammed with facts, opinions and statistics. Links to everywhere just wait to lead the reader astray.

Just looking at the main page of the Reading Workshop blog must be daunting for someone struggling to get through the words. On top of that, you have the words in different colors and in different places. The day of just reading from top to bottom and left to right is over. Now readers must know, at a glance, what is relevant.

This week as we began reading and writing persuasive essays, the challenges of just a simple Google search overwhelmed some struggling readers. Limited vocabulary made for unsuccessful or irrelevant searches for many students. Even when provided with key words, the need to quickly skim the results and evaluate for relevancy, was quite a challenge.

Determining whether or not an article was just on topic, or if it provided information to support a persuasive essay was another challenge. Students searched for facts to support their opinions. Just this part of the writing/reading process was hard work.

In order to search successfully, students needed to follow these steps:

1. Choose appropriate search terms,

2. Skim the search results,

3. Find links that most likely fit the topic,

4. Determine if the web pages provided appropriate information,

5. Decide if sites might include facts to support their opinion,

6. Go to the websites and skim for facts and information,

7. Save appropriate information and sources,

On top of these tasks, the ever-present web filter blocked many search results, and students only had 30 minutes of class time. Even faced with all of these obstacles, many students found research results with statistics and facts to begin to build a convincing persuasive essay.

As students continue their search today, maybe the best topic to write about would be "Skimming is the Most Important Reading Skill."

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