Asking and answering questions are ways for students to summarize a reading selection as they read. This helps students write a more structured summary at the end of the selection, and helps deepen comprehension.
Teachers often use books with pictures to introduce questioning practices. They flip through the book and show the students the illustrations or pictures. They ask students what they believe the book will be about based on the images. Older students can do the same with reading selections from textbooks by noting any bold or italicized text, previewing charts and graphs or other visuals and reading headings and subheadings throughout the reading selection.
As they read the book aloud, teachers ask students questions about the passage. At the end of the story, the teacher instructs the students to use the answers to the questions to create a summary of the story.
The GIST strategy teaches students to write a 20-word summary of a reading selection by answering the "five Ws and H" journalism questions -- who, what, when, where, why and how. For example, "Who is the main character of this story?" "When does the story take place?" "What happened in the story?" "Why do you think the characters did what they did?" "How did the character's actions impact the story?" The 20-word summary is known as the "GIST" of the reading selection.
This strategy often is taught using expository or informational texts such as newspaper articles and textbooks. The GIST strategy can be applied to narratives as well, and is especially helpful when students are expected to summarize at the end of each chapter of a novel, or a section of a short story.
The 3-2-1 countdown strategy helps teachers determine a student's level of comprehension of a reading selection. Students are asked to write down or share three new things they have learned from the reading selection, two things they found interesting in the reading selection and one question they have that was not answered for them on the first reading of the text. This strategy aids comprehension as it moves beyond basic recall of factual information and asks students to think more in depth about the reading selection.
All students, not just those who are visual learners, can benefit from using graphic organizers. Graphic organizers are forms with spaces to be filled in by students as they read a text. These visual organization tools can be used for both fiction and nonfiction and are effective in any subject area. After finishing a reading selection and filling in a graphic organizer, students are able to put the information together to write a summary of the selection in their own words.
Graphic organizers, such as comparison and contrast charts or cause and effect charts, help students analyze what they have read and draw conclusions. For example, a student can use a comparison and contrast graphic organizer to find the similarities and differences between two characters in a story, or between two events in a history class.