English Pedagogy

English Portfolio

- Reading comprehension -
- Reading strategies -

Belongs to: Matías A. Bucarey P.

Teacher: Mr. Luis Puebla R.

First semester of 2019

Handing over date: April 23rd
 Content Tab

 Introduction ‘‘Are You Reading’’

 Theme Description & development
 Reading strategies definition
 1st Strategy: ‘‘Activate prior
knowledge’’
 2ndStrategy: ‘’ Scanning’’
 3rd Strategy: ‘’ Prediction’’
 4th Strategy: ‘’ Visualization’’
 5th Strategy: ‘’ Key word locating’’
 6th Strategy: ‘’ Re-Reading’’
 7th Strategy: ‘’mental palace’’
 Conclusion
 Notes
 linkography
 Are you reading?

According to a study by the university of Chile beneath the 84 percent of the

Chileans don’t understand what they read; it’s an excessively big number,
but, it doesn’t have anything to be with the analphabetism or knowledge of
reading, it’s due to the Chilean way to read, without using any kind of
technique for reading, like if they just read something and immediately forget
what they read. The following document pretends to give some knowledge
for the ones that need it, and help to improve the reading comprehension
using strategies for a better info retention, recovery, analysis and recall, for a
better use, on your work, student life, or daily life

Readers who are not strategic often encounter difficulties in their reading
(Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991). These early difficulties in reading may influence
the way readers learn throughout the rest of their lives (Anderson, Hiebert,
Scott, & Wilkinson, 1985). Based on what this metacognition researchers say
we need to have a strategic vision of the information, this means to have a
plan, to know that every kind of information, not just the newest information,
starts to interact in our head, and within this interaction we develop an
opinion, a posture, the more we read, the more nuances our vision and
posture has.
 Are you reading?

The first thing we need to know is the context, because we don’t normally recall
historical contexts for daily life. The second is to recognize that not always the
better answer is the longest; we need to be effective with what we answer.
when can we use it? Is there a background? What is the main content of this?
Is this textual or am I interpreting something I shouldn’t? all these questions,
you must ask and answer them whenever you’re reading, before answering to
the external question (The one related to the info you’re receiving).

In the following pages We're going to be reviewing seven strategies for reading
and develop a better reading comprehension, We are going to offer a context
for each of them, When to use it and when not to use it, their strengths And
their weaknesses, we also are going to give a critical view to each of them so
that you can choose your favorite, and put it in use whenever you need, And
maybe develop your own strategy.
 ‘’Reading strategies’’

According to www.readinghorizons.com Reading strategies is the

broad term used to describe the planned and explicit actions that help
readers translate print to meaning. Strategies that
improve decoding and reading comprehension skills benefit every
student, but are essential for beginning readers, struggling readers,
and English Language Learners. Within the last two decades, significant
progress has been made in determining the most effective strategies
for reading instruction.

NOTE: I personally have noticed that many of the strategies found in

here you already use them, a pair of them at least, you just haven’t
noticed, or you didn’t know the names.
When I refer to ‘’Developed by’’ this means the author/s just made a
formal investigation, compendium or recompilation of the abilities. Or
a book where the characteristics of the strategy are described by them.
There’s no information about someone literally discovering this
practice, because it’s pure knowledge, and a process of the human
mind
 FIRST STRATEGY: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE.

How does It work?

This strategy consists in recalling
already acquired knowledge, like
dates, terms, names or last names.
Any information that could be related
with what you are trying to read
Once you do this connection the new
information will link up with the old,
and create a tunnel for a better
comprehension and posterior long-
time storage
When to use it?
This strategy is very versatile; could be used in almost any kind of reading,
due to its special characteristic, making a link between what you learnt and
what you are going to learn, when this kind of link is open both knowledge
end up using the same space in your memory, but you’re adding a new
process to reading, which could make it a little slower, this is why you
shouldn’t use it unless you have plenty of time for doing the recall and
knowledge fusion. It’s not recommended to use it on a test, because the test
evaluates what you already learnt, and you’re not going to be acquiring
knowledge on a test.
Pros and Cons
Very versatile, for most kind of texts
Good for learning, due to recall process
Highly effective method, low fail rate
Developed by: Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmerman in Mosaic of
Thought (1997)
 SECOND STRATEGY: SCANNING

How does it work?

As the name indicates you must scan, and quickly going trough a large text,
for a specific term or concept, by doing this you earn a big amount of time.
When to use it?
You can use scanning while looking
for a term on a dictionary, or a
word you didn’t understand, or a
specific paragraph from a book, or
a verse in the bible, any kind of
specific information or chunk of
information

Pros and Cons

It’s a fast reading strategy, that’s a double edge weapon
Works only for specific information, this means that not everything can be
found
Can’t use it when context is important, if a question ask about context you
will not be able to use this strategy
Precarious learning acquisition, because you don’t interiorize the data, you’re
just using it for a short period of time

Developed by: Not concrete information found about any authors attributing
the strategy
 THIRD STRATEGY: PREDICTION
How does it work?
This strategy works with the use of subjective skills, and trying to make a
guess of what the text is going to be about, based on the tittles, subtitles,
context and some key words
When to use it?
When you have plenty of time, this strategy is a little less
formal and involves subjectivity, so you may be right or
wrong at the time of doing the guess, anyways this will
stimulate the learning process, by adding a check-on point.
Once you do the guessing you have a raw knowledge, and
after doing the reading you have a better comprehension,
because you corrected your own thinking
contrasting it with the ideas of the text
Pros and Cons.
Takes a little more amount of time, because you have to read the text two
times, once for creating these raw thoughts and one for contrasting what you
own with what is expected to be acquihired from a text
You can feel a little frustrated for getting the wrong superficial idea of the
text, but in the other hand you can feel very realized for thinking as one of the
authors you’re reading
You stimulate your inferring ability, and not only obtaining new knowledge,
and that ability is a very important one.
Developed by: Bailey, E. (2015). Reading Comprehension Skills: Making
Predictions. Retrieved June 13, 2015
Michel, J. (n.d.). Book source. Retrieved September 18, 2015
Brock, A. (2013, September 29). Reading Strategy: Prediction. Retrieved June
13, 2015
Raudenbush, D. (n.d.). Strategies for Clarifying a Prediction in Reading
Comprehension. Retrieved September 18, 2015
 FOURTH STRATEGY: VISUALIZATION.

How does it work?

The is probably one of the funniest reading strategies to use; this reading
technique consists in using the human imagination, you start reading and free
your mind to project an image inside your head. It’s the strongest strategy for
memorizing, if you use it correctly
When to use it?
You can use it on every piece of text that comes to your
hands; basically, once you start using it you won’t to
be able to stop, because it keeps pushing until you are
done with a text. You’ll just keep reading trying to
satisfy the need of imagining.
Pros and Cons
It’s too fun to read while visualizing, but if you’re too
anxious you’ll probably want more, and if you’re on a test, or reading
something that need seriousness it’s not a good option.
If you’re reading just to improve comprehension then it’s your best option,
you’ll be having fun, and studying at the same time, and when this two come
together your brain will be a lot more stimulated.
It may be hard to reach the correct state of visualization. If you’re not paying
enough attention, you’ll get bored, and if you pay too much then you’ll forget
why you’re reading, kind of tricky.
If you’re not used to do this you probably find it silly or unuseful, you need to
comprehend this before putting it in practice.
Developed by: Dalal Abo El Seoud and Mona Kamel Hassan Al-'Arabiyya Vol.
46 (2013)
 FIFTH STRATEGY: KEY WORD LOCATING

How does it work?

This strategy is very simple to use and most of the time is for re-reading a
long text, you basically look for the key word of every paragraph in order to
obtain the main theme or the terms that reveal the real meaning of the text
we are reading, very similar to scanning or skimming technique.

When to use it?

You must use this technique whenever you’re reading a long text, because
you may get lost while reading, this strategy will keep your reading sharp and
under control, also the key words sometimes gives you clues of what is
important and what not, so you can discard all the unnecessary information
and distractors
Pros and Cons
This strategy helps keeping a calm and very steady reading, this is because
you’re giving your eyes a little break between the heavy and light reading,
that’s why it is used on a long text
In some cases, you’ll need an extra object for highlighting some terms, and
maybe some of them will be too complicated to decompose, so sometimes
you’ll need a tool for investigating
It’s really easy to do, and very similar to scanning, but with the
implementation of an extra agent to ‘’capture’’ the key words
Works for a clear comprehension by deleting the extra info

Developed by: Not concrete information found about any authors attributing
the strategy
 SIXTH STRATEGY: RE-READING
How does it work?
As the name indicates the only thing you need to do is read the text once
again, after taking a break or immediately after reading it, this is up to you
and your abilities, and the capacity of reading resistance.
When you use this technique the terms and extracts of text that your brain
has assimilated, and the ones you’re going to re-read are going to start
sharing the connections, so one that you try to recall information you’ll get a
bunch of it, instead of a little.
Pros and cons
Takes the double or triple amount of time, depends on the time you spend on
first read, but the second reading must be appreciative, a little slower so you
can absorb what you didn’t at first sight.
Some texts are not very pleasant to re-read due to the topic or the length
If the between readings time is too big you take the risk of not doing it, so
stay focused on the task
This strategy is more useful when you have a short text that is easy to read,
but can be used on a long text
Developed by: Not concrete information found about any authors attributing
the strategy
Seventh Strategy: Mental Palace

How does it work?

This strategy is one of the most difficult strategies to achieve, requires a
highly trained main to develop this kind of ability. The mental palace strategy
consists in the interaction at the same time of visualization, and activate prior
knowledge, this strategy consists in recalling a place that we know very well,
a place where we can visualize ourselves walking, then using objects of the
background to almost immediately memorize the information we are reading
or listening, even watching something.
When to use it?
The process of learning is complicated, but once you start domaining the
strategy you would be able to use it for every task, every reading, every data
you know, its usages are infinite.
Pros and Cons
High difficulty and long-time ability development due to applicated uses of
two strategies
Highly stimulating for memory and learning
Highly demandant for the body, and may cause fatigue, or lose of interest
At first you may need to concentrate, but with practice you’ll be able to do it
on any ambient
Developed by: There are registers of this method being used since
How to develop a perfect memory - Dominick O´Brien (1993)
 A Brief Summary of this work

Between these pages resides an important part of education, we already

understand that without a plan we’ll not go too far, and that goes for the
reading too, without knowing where to go, we are lost.
More than the 80% of Chilean people don’t understand what they’re reading,
in a highly developed country 21% of professionals presents a very good level
on reading comprehension, while in Chile it’s only a 5%
The average of a European country is that the 7% of secondary school
students understand what they read, compared with 1% of Chilean secondary
students.
Based on this poor data we can see a really big fluency on the education, the
people are not being educated properly, they’re taught to repeat in loud voice
what their eyes recognize between lines and lines of text.
We NEED to get better on that aspect.
Notes:
Most of the information here written has been redacted
with the knowledge acquired in class and the reading of
various online sources
The strategies here weren’t learned and discovered for
someone in specific, it’s a technique or a way to do
something, so there’s not an author, I do make mentions on
the section ‘’developed by’’ but these are for any kind of
formal investigation published

Linkography.

https://radio.uchile.cl/2011/12/14/solo-el-84-de-los-chilenos-entiende-lo-que-lee/

https://www.latercera.com/nacional/noticia/los-chilenos-tienen-nota-roja-comprension-
lectora/319478/#

https://www.eduplace.com/rdg/res/literacy/st_read0.html

https://www.readinghorizons.com/reading-strategies/

https://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/strategy/strategy037.shtml

https://www.teachthought.com/literacy/25-reading-strategies-that-work-in-every-content-area/

https://litemind.com/memory-palace/

https://artofmemory.com/wiki/How_to_Build_a_Memory_Palace

https://beyondweather.ehe.osu.edu/issue/the-sun-and-earths-climate/making-predictions-a-
strategy-for-reading-and-science-learning

http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/factsheet/en05skim-e3-f-skimming-and-scanning

https://www.edutopia.org/article/activating-prior-knowledge-english-language-learners