Let’s Get Teaching Reading Strategies Right

Teaching reading strategies is yet another topic under fire in the reading world.  As in, whether we should or shouldn’t.  I’ll summarize why in a second, because it’s a key part of what I really want to talk about– the resources we use for teaching reading strategies.  Not much is said about the actual materials used for strategy instruction, but it’s a conversation that must be had.  

Right now, many of the resources we’re using don’t actually support students’ reading. This will mean our approach to teaching reading strategies will continue to get criticized. Rightly so. 

First, what’s the big debate about the idea of teaching reading strategies and where have we landed? 

It began way back in the 70’s, when Dolores Durkin’s important study revealed that teachers were asking a whole lot of questions that assessed comprehension, but little to no instruction that taught students how to arrive at comprehension. So we’ve known about the need for strategy instruction for many, many years.  I cannot help but point out that there are curriculum programs in use in schools today that do this very same thing–assess but not actually teach.   

Roughly 20 years later, the National Reading Panel report was published, which named comprehension as one of the 5 pillars of reading instruction. From the small pool of studies available at the time, the authors of the report listed eight highly effective comprehension strategies.  Strategies that remain strong today.

These strategies were never meant to be separated; rather, they were meant to be integrated. The panelists advised that “[m]ultiple-strategy instruction that is flexible as to which strategies are used and when they are taught over the course of a reading session provides a natural basis for teachers and readers to interact over texts.” (NRP report, 4-6).  

Note the words “multiple strategy,” “flexible,” and “natural basis.”  These are all very important. 

 “Reading comprehension is the construction of the meaning of a written text through a reciprocal interchange of ideas between the reader and the message in a particular text.”

National Reading Panel report, (4-5)

At the very same time, standardized testing became prominent, where different aspects of comprehension were given definitive scores.  So, the list of strategies the NRP named got translated into “strategy of the week” (or month, as I once did myself, many moons ago) in classroom practice.  As in, one week/month, the focus might be on text structure, another time, main idea, etc.  

This has proven to be unhelpful, because, as the NRP pointed out, the strategies needed at different points in a text are dependent on the text, the reader, and the task.  It’s all about multiple strategies, used flexibly.  No real text requires just one kind of strategy.  And no reader can use just one single strategy.  

“Instead of decontextualized strategy instruction and strategy-of-the-week type thinking, we are shifting to seeing the big picture of comprehension.” 

(The Reading Teacher, 2023)

Reading comprehension is a process.  An ongoing, integrated and recursive process, from previewing the text before a single word is read, to interacting with the text as reading takes place, to taking away the big ideas at the end.  Which all involves employing a multitude of interwoven strategies.  

Kids need to learn how to do this, and that means we have to teach it.

Which brings us to the materials we’re using to teach reading strategies.  

More to the point, the question becomes whether the materials we’re using truly support our students in using strategies in an integrated way, as the science has informed us to do for decades.  (For much greater detail on this, see  Sedita, Shanahan, and the full Reading Teacher article–they are excellent). 

We know the ultimate goal is for students to be able to comprehend grade-level text.  Which often means the texts we expect students to read aren’t so simple.  They take some real thinking to get through.  These texts are not set up to explicitly apply only one strategy–because authentic texts require, as the NRP tells us, flexible strategy use in the “reciprocal interchange of ideas between the reader and the message in a particular text.”

But all too often, teachers gravitate to TPT, where the texts are extremely short and written in a very contrived way, so that a single strategy can be taught—and made very obvious and easy to apply.

Determining text structure is a big one. 

The short passages, often just single paragraphs, are very deliberately set up to include key text structure words, repeated words, and obvious first and last sentences.  Nothing at all like a real text that students will be expected to read and understand.  I went back and forth on whether I should pull out actual examples from TPT to show you, but I don’t want to get into copyright infringement.  It’s easy to look up, though, as examples are rampant. 

The same thing happens when we lean too much on AI–our prompts to contrive a very specific text mean that authentic text–the kind that asks students to use multiple strategies in flexible ways, is lost. 

This sort of contrived text is absolutely ok for a beginning entry point into strategy instruction, much like training wheels on a bike.  But these very obvious, perfectly-set-up-to-apply-a-single-strategy texts are not meant for us to keep using.  We want to teach kids how real reading works, which requires using a variety of reading strategies within one text.

We need to teach kids how and when to use strategies, through the use of many authentic texts over the course of the year.  

Are short, “training wheel” texts really that big of a deal? 

Yes.  

A very big deal.

When we teach kids to use single strategies, which is no different at all than using a “strategy of the week” model, we’re being disingenuous.  When we show kids contrived text after contrived text, it’s smoke and mirrors.  It sends the message that comprehending text is easy, because everything you need just pops right out.  

And then we give them a real, grade-level text.  A text that’s much longer, and wasn’t written to apply just one single strategy.  

It’s no wonder, then, that kids can feel defeated.  When we use contrived texts for our teaching, we haven’t set kids up for the real work that understanding a text requires.  

So what do we do?

 We become more intentional—not just about what reading strategies we teach, but  the materials we use to teach them.

The science has been clear for decades: comprehension is not a collection of isolated skills. It’s an integrated, recursive process that unfolds differently depending on the text, the reader, and the purpose for reading. The materials we provide students to put this work into practice must reflect this reality.

Which means anchoring strategy instruction in authentic, grade-level texts, rather than relying on “training wheel” versions. Students need experience with texts that are imperfect. Texts that require them to monitor and revise their thinking and to apply multiple strategies. Texts that don’t make the work obvious.  

Our support lies in guiding them to work through real texts.  Not providing short, contrived, and obvious texts that obscure the real work of reading.  

We need to teach students not just what strategies to use, but how, when, and why readers use them because the text demands it.  The kind of work that all readers must do.

Teaching reading strategies isn’t the problem.

Teaching them in isolation, through contrived texts that don’t resemble real world reading, is.

If we want students to successfully comprehend texts, we have to let our instruction and our resources reflect the complexity of real reading.  

At some point, we have to take the training wheels off.

---

Did you find this post helpful?  By all means, share it with a teacher friend so they can benefit, too!

If you could use a thinking partner to help you plan your reading strategy instruction,  I’m here to help!  Through virtual coaching, I can help you come up with practical, actionable ideas from the comfort of your living room!  Just email me at michelle@coachfromthecouch.com to set up a coaching call!

---

Join my Facebook community–a safe, supportive environment  where you can safely ask questions, gain ideas, and share your thoughts among other literacy-loving educators!

Who is Coach from the Couch??  I’m Michelle Ruhe, a 25+ year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach.  I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can.  Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls!