Instructional Strategy #4

Main Idea and Comprehension

The fourth strategy focuses on guiding students to understanding and identifying the main idea of a story, along with working towards more effective reading comprehension. It has been stated that "comprehension is a more complex process in which readers actively construct mental representations of the text" (Morrow & Gambrell, 2019, p. 223). Being able to detail main idea and other text elements of a story is something that struggling readers should continue to practice as they also activate their literacy skills in other areas. 

Some ways to manage this remotely are to use think-alouds, explicit instruction, and modeling. Another teacher once shared with me the idea of teaching in the sequence of "I do, we do, you do." This method is especially perfect when considering sharing think-aloud strategies with students. First the teacher models, then the teachers works with the students to practice, then the students practice on their own. 

Think-Alouds during Remote Learning:
Think-alouds are effective because the method "helps students learn to monitor their thinking as they read and improves their comprehension" (Reading Rockets). The best way to get students to understand using this strategy is to model it for them first. For remote learning, this can be done during a live video hangout with the whole class, small groups, or individual students. It can also be done in a recorded video that is posted on YouTube or to another platform like FlipGrid (see Strategy #5 for more information on FlipGrid). Through modeling, teachers "Demonstrate how good readers monitor their understanding by rereading a sentence, reading ahead to clarify, and/or looking for context clues. Students then learn to offer answers to the questions as the teacher leads the think aloud" (Reading Rockets). 

Think-Aloud Resources via Reading Rockets:

https://www.readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/thinkaloud_checklist.pdf