Teaching Multiple Comprehension Strategies in a Single Lesson

Each time we sit down to work with an individual, small group or whole group of children, we are  constantly confronted with the difficulty of focusing on a strategy in isolation. Proficient readers weave strategies together, often without conscious awareness of all they are doing to make meaning of print.

In the book, Best Practices in Literacy Instruction, 2007, Cathy Collins Block and Michael Pressley state, "Because reading comprehension is not an isolated process but a network of conscious and metacognitive processes, the newest instructional methods teach multiple strategies in single lessons. .... The research program that supports these lessons has found that even kindergarten students can use multiple strategies after 1 week of direct instruction and the result is normally significantly higher achievement than in control groups." (page 230)

In this video, Gail teaches and models the use of two strategies while reading. These students have been taught Does This Make Sense and Asking Questions on separate occasions. Today is the first lesson in which they are being put together.