Reading Puzzle: Comprehension, Grades 4-8

In her best-selling book, "Teach Them All To Read", Elaine McEwan provides a great discussion of the most current reading research regarding how students learn to read so educators can make informed decisions about instruction. Research about reading has given us insight into the skills on which we need to focus our efforts to improve reading and comprehension. Now we can identify the skills that require reinforcement and intervene with explicit, thoughtful instruction. The activities in "The Reading Puzzle" series will help the teacher accomplish this goal. "The Reading Puzzle" series provides instructional tools teachers can use immediately as part of the reading curriculum. "The Reading Puzzle" series contains 10 books for Kindergarten through Grade 8 centered on the skills identified by the National Reading Panel as critical to reading success.Each of these books in the series helps unlock one piece of the reading puzzle and contains standards-based, ready-to-use activities that can be used to supplement any reading program. The books include: "Phonemic Awareness, Grades K-3"; "Phonics, Grades K-3"; "Vocabulary, Grades K-3"; "Fluency, Grades K-3"; "Comprehension, Grades K-3"; "Word Analysis, Grades 4-8"; "Spelling, Grades 4-8"; "Vocabulary, Grades 4-8"; "Fluency, Grades 4-8"; and, "Comprehension, Grades 4-8". These activity books contain ready-to-use activities that make it easy to put McEwan's highly-successful strategies into practice. The strategies and activities will support struggling readers and enhance existing skill to encourage improvement in all students' reading skills.Cognitive strategies used to increase comprehension are an important piece of "The Reading Puzzle". Comprehension is the ability to construct meaning from text. By understanding what they've read, students are better able to remember, communicate, and apply the information they've gained through reading. This book addresses four essential cognitive strategies that proficient readers need in order to unlock the meaning of written material. These strategies include questioning, summarizing, organizing, and monitoring. The questioning strategy teaches students to be mind readers. It challenges them to ask questions about what they read and interact with the text. The summarizing strategy helps students get the gist or main idea of text. It challenges students to restate the meaning in their own words. The monitoring strategy gives students concrete ways to 'fix up their mix-ups' by thinking about how and what they are reading while they are actually reading.The organizing strategy invites students to represent information from text in a graphic format in order to see the big picture. Students at every grade level must be shown how to use cognitive strategies through modeling; coached to proficiency through guided practice; and then expected to routinely explain, elaborate, or defend their positions or answers before, during, and after reading. Helping students develop these strategies will enhance and enlarge the scope of their learning. Students will then be better equipped to become independent learners and readers within every content area. Reading comprehension empowers students, giving them the ability to explore virtually any topic or subject in which they are interested. This book can help teachers instill the joy of reading, which in turn can lead to a lifetime of fulfillment and success.