Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension to Enhance Understanding (Paperback)

by Stephanie Harvey (Author), Anne Goudvis (Author) "Books offer little without readers..." (more)
Key Phrases: Strategies That Work, Stenhouse Publishers, Civil War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Since its publication in 2000, Strategies That Work has become an indispensable resource for teachers who want to explicitly teach thinking strategies so that students become engaged, thoughtful, independent readers. In this revised and expanded edition, Stephanie and Anne have added twenty completely new comprehension lessons, extending the scope of the book and exploring the central role that activating background knowledge plays in understanding. Another major addition is the inclusion of a section on content literacy which describes how to apply comprehension strategies flexibly across the curriculum. The new edition is organized around four sections:

Part I highlights what comprehension is and how to teach it, including the principles that guide practice, a review of recent research, and a new section on assessment. A new chapter, Tools for Active Literacy: The Nuts and Bolts of Comprehension Instruction, describes ways to engage students in purposeful talk through interactive read alouds, guided discussion and written response.
Part II contains lessons and practices for teaching comprehension. A new first chapter emphasizes the importance of teaching students to monitor their understanding before focusing on specific strategies. Five lessons on monitoring provide a sound basis for launching comprehension instruction. At the end of each strategy chapter, the authors outline learning goals and ways to assess students' thinking, sharing examples of student work, and offering suggestions for differentiating instruction.
Part III, Comprehension Across the Curriculum is new. Comprehension strategies are essential for content-area reading, where information can be challenging, and presented in unfamiliar formats. This section includes chapters on social studies and science reading, topic study research, textbook reading and the genre of test reading.
Part IV shows that kids need books they can sink their teeth into and the updated appendix section recommends a rich diet of fiction and nonfiction, short text, kid's magazines, websites and journals that will assist teachers as they plan and design comprehension instruction

Through its focus on instruction that is responsive to kids' interests and learning needs, the first edition of Strategies That Work helped transform comprehension instruction for teachers across the country. For them, this new edition will be a welcome extension of that work. Those coming to it for the first time will find a current and essential resource. When readers use these strategies, they enjoy a more complete, thoughtful reading experience. Engagement is the goal. When kids are engaged in their reading they enhance their understanding, acquire knowledge, and learn from and remember what they read. And best yet, they will want to read more!

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 314 pages
• Publisher: Stenhouse Publishers (February 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1571103104
• ISBN-13: 978-1571103109
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 7.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (45 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #52,751 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

213 of 216 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars These strategies empower students to improve comprehension., June 28, 2001

By	Rocco B. Rubino "Rocco R." (Ohio) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

At first glance, it is easy to be a bit cynical when you see a book entitled "Strategies That Work," especially when it deals with the subject of teaching students to read. I have to admit I was, until I started reading this book and putting into practice Harvey and Goudvis' common-sense strategies for empowering students to make meaning from what they have read.

So many of our children can decode, and are as fluent as we are, yet when it comes to comprehension, inferencing, and extending meaning, they are completely lost. Not any more; Strategies at Work to the rescue!

There isn't enough room to review all of my favorite strategies, but I will offer one; for me, Chapter 8, which deals with Visualizing and Inferring is worth the price of the book.

The authors walk you through how to get students to visualize, or as they so elequently put it "make movies in your mind," as a way of establishing connections with text in order to improve comprehension. In the section entitled "Inferential Thinking: Reading Between the Lines," teachers are given strategies to model and help students think more abstractly in order to extend meaning, which is a skill that many of the state standardized tests are requiring our students to do.

"Strategies that Work" is one of the few books I have read that actually deliver on what they promise. Recommended for teachers K-12.

347 of 356 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must-Read for All Reading Teachers, April 6, 2000

By A Customer

If you really would like to know HOW to teach reading comprehension, this book is for you! Steph and Anne pick up where Ellin Keene's Mosaic of Thought left off. This book tells how to teach kids to think while reading (through think-alouds) and gives many minilessons for teaching comprehension. Besides the great lessons and tips, there are numerous resources listing picture books to use for teaching each of the seven comprehension strategies discussed first in Mosaic and now in this great book. I've already tried many ideas in Strategies That Work and have had tremendous success with them. I highly recommend this book!

128 of 131 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Teaching reading comprehension---must have this book, December 30, 2000

By A Customer

After 20+ years in regular classroom and special education teaching, this is a book that brings new strategies to expand the thinking of the teacher and the students. I love to read and want to have my students both comprehend and think at a deep level and love to read. My current teaching assignment is a 4th/5th grade classroom. This book has 40 strategy lessons for understanding texts that can be adapted to hundreds of books and expand your teaching. There is an extensive, user friendly, list of favorite books for introducing and guiding practice in a given strategy. This is especially helpful to teachers from 2nd to 8th grade including Science, Social Studies or Language Arts teachers at middle school level.There are ways to use short text to better comprehend text in social studies, science and other content areas. There are examples of student work, illustrations, scripts of conversations, selection of response options for students to demonstrate their use of strategies, and mini lessons that are adaptable to many books and resources that you currenly use but could teach in a more proficient way. This book joins a short collection of my favorites-Brian Cambourne's book on retelling, Lucy Calkin's Art of Teaching Writing, Mosaic of Thought, and a book on classroom community.