Building Reading Proficiency at the Secondary Level: A Guide to Resources

What is it? How does it work?

Background:

Overview:
Study-reading systems engage students in a sequence of study-reading behaviors for the purpose of reading and remembering content materials such as expository textbooks. They include prereading, during-reading, and post-reading strategies. Study-reading systems that have been reported in the professional literature include SQ3R, OK4R, PQRST, POINT, EVOKER, PORPE, and PLAN, Study reading systems are intended to be student strategies, but require considerable modeling and guided practice by the teacher and in peer-mediated groups before they can be used effectively and independently. For struggling readers who (unlike proficient readers) who do not have a personal study reading strategy, these systems provide a model. Students must make a personal adaptation of the model for it to be useful to them beyond the reading classroom.

The earliest, most frequently instructed and thoroughly researched study-reading system is Robinson's (1946) SQ3R.
1. Survey - Scan the entire reading assignment, noting headings, topic sentences, summaries, and graphic aids to get an overview.
2. Question - Formulate questions by rephrasing the headings or captions to establish purpose for reading.
3. Read - Read to answer the questions, taking notes if necessary.
4. Recite - Answer the questions without reference to text or notes in order to test comprehension and improve memory.
5. Review - Reread text and notes in areas that were not clearly understood.

A more recent strategy, PLAN (1995), is a composite of several research-supported strategies.
1. Predict - Preview title, subtitles, boldface or italicized words, graphic aids, and summary. Predict main ideas and text structure. Create a map to depict these ideas.
2. Locate - Assess prior knowledge and set purpose by placing a check mark mapped ideas that are known and a question mark beside those that are new.
3. Add - Read the text and add new information to map.
Note - Note new learning by reviewing and rehearsing the mapped information. Revise the map as needed to better represent ideas in text or learning tasks. Recreate the map from memory or summarize it in preparation for tests.