67

Toolbox
Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy 55(1)
September 2011
doi:10.1598/JAAL.55.1.7
2011 International Reading Association
(pp. 6769)
(continued)
Because most students
struggle with reading content
area texts, all teachers
can infuse their classroom
instruction with reading
comprehension habits.
What Are Reading
Comprehension Habits?
Reading comprehension habits are
the split-second thoughts that kick
in constantly to help a proficient
reader actively construct meaning.
They make up the majority of the
thinking processes we use during
reading, even though we seldom
notice them. For example, a good
reader seldom stops and thinks, I
need to relate this to my background
knowledge, This would be a good
time to predict, A quick summary
right now will help me comprehend
better, or At this point I should
visualize. Rather, a good reader
does these things in the blink of
an eye without, in a sense, even
thinking.
Content area teachers
are uniquely qualified
to teach students how
to actively think about
texts in their particular
classes, and by helping
students understand how
to use what for most of
us are automatic reading
comprehension habits,
they, too, can access this
information.
Following are two lessons
that focus on the habit of making
inferences and predictions: Dialogue
Comic Strip and Prediction
Basketball. These lessons can be
used across the content areas in
grades 612.
Dialogue Comic Strip
This activity helps students to
summarize and infer conversations
that are important to the text. The
Dialogue Comic Strip can be used
with narrative or expository
text. With expository
text, the students must
infer and empathize with
the relationship between
two objects, people,
animals, or concepts, and
must generate a possible
dialogue that shows that
the students understand
the key ideas in the text.
For example, in science class, a
snake might say to a mouse, I have
adapted teeth that contain poison
to kill you. The mouse replies, I
have adapted my ears to hear you
slithering 10 feet away. Bye! Or
a geologist may say to a volcano,
Are you about to erupt? It might
reply, No, Im just venting a little
steam. In social studies, a colonist
may say, King George, we really
need to talk about this problem of
taxation without representation.
Our rights are. In math, one side
of an equation may say to the other,
If you get to be divided by 42, then
my side gets to be divided by 42,
too!
Procedure
1. Model this process with several
different texts if students have not
done this activity often.
2. Give each student a copy of
the Dialogue Comic Strip
reproducible sheet located on
Reading Comprehension Habits
for Every Classroom
Adapted from Jeff Zwierss Building Reading Comprehension Habits in Grades 612: A Toolkit of Classroom Activities (2nd ed.)
68
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Toolbox
Digging Deeper
Check out these additional resources:
I Comic Creator, ReadWriteThink.org
I
Doug Buehl, Classroom Strategies for Interactive
Learning (3rd ed.), International Reading
Association
I
Doug Buehl, Developing Readers in the
Academic Disciplines, International Reading
Association
I
Charlotte Rose Sadler, Comprehension
Strategies for Middle Grade Learners: A
Handbook for Content Area Teachers (2nd ed.),
International Reading Association
Reading Comprehension Habits
for Every Classroom (continued)
page 69. You can also use Comic
Life software to create templates
or products on the computer.
Tell students to modify or create
three of the most important
conversations from the text and
fit them in the dialogue bubbles.
Students should not copy any
actual dialogue from the text.
Encourage them to synthesize and
infer dialogues that might have
happened, but point out that they
should have evidence to support
their inferred dialogues.
3. Have students put the speakers
names in the parentheses. They
also can add quick drawings of
the speakers, if desired.
4. Have the students write an
explanation in each lower box
for why each conversation was
important. They should relate it
to the main idea of the text.
5. Have students share their
responses with a partner or group.
6. Share one or two student
examples on the board or
overhead projector.
Prediction Basketball
This is a kinesthetic and cooperative
activity that puts a little more fun
into making predictions. It also can
be used for other comprehension
habits as a way of mixing up answers
and creating random participation.
Procedure
1. Have students read a text and
stop at a point you designate.
Have each student write one
major prediction on a half sheet
of paper, along with his or her
evidence for the prediction.
2. Put a makeshift basketball hoop
(wastebasket, box, or coffee can)
somewhere in the class. You can
take it down and move it around
to help students who are further
away and to avoid having students
get out of their seats.
3. Have students crumple up their
predictions and try to throw them
into the basket.
4. Open and read the predictions
that make it into the basket.
Quickly discuss the prediction
and agree if there is enough
evidence to support it.
5. Have students randomly pick up
the rest of the predictions that
did not go into the basket, one
prediction per student, and have
each student read a prediction to
a partner. Some students will not
have onethey can just listen and
ask for evidence or share a new
prediction. Have the pairs discuss
the quality of the predictions and
the reasons each predictor had for
his or her prediction.
69
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