I have been teaching active reading strategies to my reluctant
high school readers for years, and it is one of the most important components
of remedial reading instruction, in my opinion, so I was excited to find this
article and to see what new techniques I can learn to enhance my students’
reading comprehension. Annotating the
text is nothing new to me or to my students.
I utilize this strategy whenever we have a text that we can mark on, and
when we can’t, I require that students take notes on a graphic organizer or in
their notebooks. Carol Porter-O’Donnell
offered some new ideas for annotating the text and implementing active reading
strategies.
Porter-O’Donnell begins by having her students list
different types of responses that they can make to a text. Then she develops a plan for how to identify
certain types of information in a text.
The image below is of the “Annotating the Text” bookmark that she gives
to students:
I might photocopy and laminate this bookmark to give to all
of my students at the beginning of next school year.
Porter-O’Donnell suggests that teachers model text
annotation by reading an article aloud and placing it under the overhead
projector (or document camera) so that students can see how she marks the
text. This is something that I have been
doing for years, but perhaps have become accustomed to too often telling
students what to mark and should instead require that students provide more of
their own input. Another suggestion that
she made that I will try to do is to provide students with examples of how
others have annotated a text. Show
examples of how others have marked the same text that they read and marked so
that they can see how different readers do it and compare these models to their
own.
One suggestion that she made for instances in which students
cannot mark on a text included to use a form of two-column notes that require
students to copy quotes from the text in one column and their comments in the
other column. I have used this strategy
as a reader myself and have found it very beneficial. I have also used what I call a “side journal”. Students keep their notebook right next to
the paper or textbook they are reading and make annotations on the paper that
would otherwise go on the text itself.
Porter-O’Donnell had students write reflections about how
learning to annotate the text has impacted their reading and she had some
impressive feedback. Many students said
that learning to annotate taught them to slow down while they read. That is important. I have noticed that my students often seem to
just want to get the reading over with.
They will mispronounce words to the point that the text is completely
nonsensical, but will keep on reading as if everything is fine. Afterwards they cannot tell me a thing about
what they read. Annotating the text
requires that they stop to think about what they have read. This gives them the opportunity to make sure
that they truly understood what one section of the text meant before they move
on to the next. Another valuable piece
of feedback that Porter-O’Donnell received was from a student that commented
that marking the text helped her to focus and ensure that her mind doesn’t
wander off while she reads. This is
exactly what I explain to my students when they so often tell me that they have
trouble focusing while they read. I feel
as though the active reading strategies are a way to “put blinders on” and
eliminate distractions. If you have to
do something with what you read immediately after (or while) reading it, it is
much less likely that the mind will have a chance to wander. The final student comment that I want to
share was from an honest young man who said that marking the text meant that he
could no longer “fake read”. If he is
required to annotate the text, it is too hard to “fake read” and “fake annotate”,
so he has to actually read the text! I
felt like standing up and cheering when I read that comment. Like so many reluctant readers, he knew that
he would not read if he could get away with “faking it”. Requiring text annotation eliminates that as
an option for many students. True growth
cannot even begin to occur until students are actually reading. This process not only enhances comprehension,
but it enhances the likelihood that students will finally begin really reading –
and true growth can finally take place!
Here is a link to the article:
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