Chapter 4: Explicit Instruction in Comprehension

Finally!!! The first three chapters have been really informative in explaining and setting the stage for displaying students and their inabilities. These chapters have also begin to define our role as a teacher and after reading Chapter 3 our role was beginning to become more and more complex. Finally, Beers has began to build off of the foundation she has set and is now explaining how we can teach students these numerous strategies in order to maximize learning and comprehension. The most important principle in this chapter is to refrain from explaining what a text means to a struggling student; instead we should use instructional strategies that will help guide them from being a dependent reader to an independent reader.

The instructional strategies Beers listed goes beyond simply telling a student to "visualize the text" or predict what will happen next. One of the best was to apply these strategies in way students will understand is to directly model. Show your students what you would do as an expert reader. Give them your strategies and in turn they will be able to better implement them. Beers also includes a step by step process we can use to apply almost all strategies:

Step1: Decide what specific strategy you want to model and what text to use

Step 2: Tell your students exactly what strategy you'll be practicing will reading the passage.

Step 3: Read the passage to students while modeling the strategy

Step 4: Give your students several chances to practice the strategy with shorter texts, while you listen and coach them.

Step 5: Continue to model the strategy with different genres throughout the year.

Step 6: Give students opportunities to try the strategy without your coaching support.

Beers' step by step process that she provided us reflects the idea of this chapter. Although, instruction is crucial to a lesson plan, instruction alone is not enough. We as teachers need to model exactly what we expect of our students in order for all of our students to succeed.