Pausing to reconsider and recall the text is an important strategy for students to learn. Teachers can provide students with assistance by leading a group-reading activity. Students take turns reading selected passages from a designated book, with those students who are not reading aloud following along by silently reading the passage. After each reading, the class pauses to reconsider the text. The teacher then prompts each student to recall the information in the text. If during the recall section, students express confusion concerning certain words or phrases, and the word is looked up in a dictionary. The selection is then reread again, with students asked afterwards to recall the main actions and explain any differences between their first and second reading.
Understanding grammatical rules and usage are vital to understanding a text’s meaning. Once students have begun to learn different parts of speech, they must understand how they interact to create context in a story. Activities which work to identify parts of speech in the text help to draw attention to the importance grammar plays in meaning. For example, students can be provided with a text and asked to identify particular parts of speech or grammatical variations such as plural or singular nouns and past or present tense verbs. Such activities encourage students to pay close attention to the use and meaning of different grammatical constructs.
Note-taking is a writing activity occurring during and after reading, which works in conjunction with helps to draw attention to details and enhance the ability to remember the text. Elementary school teachers can emphasize the importance of taking notes while reading, by making it into a fun and creative activity for children. For the activity, students select a book and are asked to read it during class. As they read, students are encouraged to write down details such as character names and setting. After the students have finished reading, they use their notes to reconstruct the book using their notes through a series of illustrations. After the pictures are completed, students present their books and the original book to the class, allowing them to compare their recollections with the original.
Writing genres are distinguished by specific types of language and context. Meaning is garnered from recognizing the structure of different genres in relation to the information presented. Rereading strategy activities for older students can incorporate these distinctions by having students identify and rewrite texts into new genres. For example, students can be presented with a news story about a current event. Students are asked to note the features and language which help to identify this writing as journalistic. Using notes on the journalistic signifier in the text, students are then prompted to rewrite the news article in the form of another genre such as a journal entry. The journal entry can be from the perspective of the original writer or a bystander, but should include the original text with previously identified language and phrasing altered to meet the new format.