Strategies for Comprehending Passages

Teaching Point​​​	Teacher Prompts
Monitor for meaning (at the passage level).	Listen to your inner conversation as you read. It will tell you when your reading doesn’t make sense and you do not understand the text.
Make connections.	Do you have any connections to this text? What does that remind you of? Have you read anything else about this topic? Does that character remind you of someone you know?
Create sensory images.	Readers make movies in their head as they read.  Read this next section. Tell me what you see, hear, smell, taste, or feel. Can you describe the ____ to me? Use clues from the text to create your sensory image.
Ask questions.	Readers ask questions and check their understanding as they read. Questions help us to think more deeply about our reading. “Why…” “I wonder…” “I’m confused…"
Make and revise inferences (including predictions).	What do you think is probably true about _______? What clues from the text make you to think that? How do you think the character is feeling? What evidence from the text helped you think that? If you did know what the character was feeling what might that be? What else? Making predictions helps you to think ahead in the text. What do you think will probably happen? What clues in the text make you think that? What was your initial prediction? Now what are you thinking? What made you revise your prediction?
Determine importance.	What big idea or message do you think the author is trying to communicate? Why do you think that? What is your purpose for reading this nonfiction text? Is there particular information you are searching for, or just general information? How do you determine what is important to remember? Readers sift through nonfiction depending on their purpose. How are you collecting that information so that you remember it?