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Good readers need to know how to use the sounds of letters to help identify words, how to use punctuation clues to help them read more fluently, and many other skills. But even when people develop these skills, there is no guarantee that they will understand what they read. You can help make the text come alive for students through the teaching of specific comprehension strategies.

Before, During, and After - A Reading Comprehension Technique

It’s hard for students to understand a text that doesn’t seem to relate to anything they already know or have experienced. Help them learn how to make these connections and how to check in periodically as they read to make sure they’re not getting lost. This 60-minute course features the Before, During, and After reading technique that can be used with almost any printed material.
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Graphic Organizers: Tools for Instructors and Students

Graphic organizers help students understand in a very visual way how the thoughts and ideas fit together in what they’re reading or what they’re planning to write. In this course, you’ll learn about seven different graphic organizers and how they can help students look at the same information in many different ways. This 60-minute course will also help you observe how students think and process information.
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Graphic Organizers Activate Visual Learning

Read this two-page article to learn more about how graphic organizers can help students read, write, and learn math. Find out how to use a comparison/contrast graphic organizer.
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Think Aloud: A Reading Comprehension Technique

During this three-episode podcast, you’ll find out how to use the six-step Think Aloud technique to help students improve their comprehension and reinforce effective reading strategies. Listen to explanations as well as demonstrations of what you will actually do with a student. Each episode runs from 5-7 minutes.

• Episode 1 - Introduction
• Episode 2 - Modeling
• Episode 3 - Integrating into teaching

Survey, Question, Read, Review, Recite, Reflect

Remember SQ3R when you were learning to read in school? Well, it’s now the SQ4R strategy. In this paper, you’ll read about how students who use the strategy can begin to read more actively and independently-by previewing text, developing predictions, setting a purpose for reading, and monitoring their own comprehension.
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Recognizing the Main Idea

This online activity asks students to read a variety of short paragraphs and then identify each writer’s main idea. Try it yourself! The complete activity takes about 20 minutes.
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Recognizing Supporting Details

After you’ve tried the activity on main ideas, take another 20 minutes to try this online activity. It’s designed to help students identify the details that support a writer's main idea.
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Word Cards

This online activity helps students build vocabulary, a key component in comprehension. The student matches a word with its definition and then types a sentence using the word. Students can print the word cards for later practice. Time: 20 minutes.
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ReadWriteThink Webbing Tool

This tool takes active learning to a new level. Students can simply click and drag to create their own mind maps (a kind of free-form graphic organizer). Mind maps help students better understand the relationships between people, events, or facts in what they read.
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