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Collaborative Strategic Reading

Collaborative Strategic Reading



December 18, 2016

Collaborative Strategic Reading

One of the major challenges we face is getting our students to read and to read in such a way that they can interpret, understand, and analyse texts. Many students when faced with an IELTS or any academic text tend to be intimidated from the start and may not even attempt the passage. Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is one way to encourage the students to interact with difficult texts.

What is Collaborative Strategic Reading

It has been around for a while and probably incorporates many, if not all, of the strategies teachers already use with the aim of improving student reading. In its purist form the texts would be read in groups with each member of the group assigned a role (e.g. Leader, Timekeeper, Gist Expert, etc.) but I usually do the activity in pairs because it is easier to organize and still embraces the benefits of Paired Learning.

Students are pre-taught explicit ways to deal with ‘Clunks”, that is, parts of the text that cause them problems, usually unknown words. These strategies include rereading the sentence looking for key ideas and considering what comes before and after the unknown word, using prefixes or suffixes for clues, and breaking the word apart.

Strategies for understanding unknown words

Strategies for unknown words

After students grasp how to (at least) confront Clunks the pairs work on a text with the aid of a CSR Learning Log (a worksheet) where they have to write/or discuss what they already know about the topic and what they expect to learn.

CSR Learning Log

CSR Learning Log

The reading text is divided into sections and the students work on the ‘clunks’ in the different sections, and the ‘Gists’. The Gist is the most important piece of information in that section of the text, the ‘who’ or the ‘what’ that section is about. They should summarise this idea in ten words or less for each section.

After the students have finished reading the text they should write a – Why, What, Who etc. – question about each section of the text and ask another pair the questions and then answer the other pairs questions.

Finally, they should just write/discuss what they have learnt.

CSR in Practice

As I said, I usually do this exercise in pairs. I like to choose texts that have 4-6 paragraphs or that can be divided into 4-6 sections and are no longer than a page. Sometimes, I highlight the Clunks I want them to ‘fix’ and sometimes I get them to read paragraphs aloud to each other in their pairs. I find the question writing phase is the most successful – even though they are (grammatically) terrible at writing questions. When I first introduce CSR to the students they do it on paper but later I find BookWidgets – split worksheet – works well. Here’s an example: https://www.bookwidgets.com/play/PBRJRM

BookWidget

BookWidget

Research has shown that CSR is effective in improving L1 students’ understanding of texts. It incorporates the benefits and drawbacks of Paired Learning – they can help each other or they can coast and let their partners do the work. The introductory phase: ‘What do you already know about this topic” is usually a short phase – maybe a related you tube video might help. Often the strategies for dealing with clunks still leave the students none the wiser. CSR is not a panacea for all our students’ reading ills but it does integrate components of language, knowledge, fluency, and motivation and engagement that are essential for reading comprehension.

More information can be found here: http://www.utexas.edu/cola/tlc/_files/conferences/newmedianewmaterials/using_collaborative.pdf

Or here:

http://www.troy.k12.ny.us/departments/curriculum_instruction/Docs/Collaborative%20Strategic%20Rdg%20Gr%204-8.pdf

And here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYWt5WSSSDg

https://youtu.be/IUkoLDaJ5Oc

December 18, 2016
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Iain Collins also wrote