Monitoring

Middle elementary and above

• Comprehension
• Metacognitive skills
• Set purpose for reading
• Use repair strategies
• Apply metacognitive skills

Model for the students what good readers do when they experience difficulty understanding text. Using a text that you might read (such as a novel, newspaper, etc.):

1. Demonstrate for the students how you monitor your comprehension.
   1. If you are not understanding the text, model the repair strategies you use to get back on track (e.g., text lookback, check pictures and other graphics, read ahead).
   2. If you do not know a word, demonstrate what you do (e.g., sound it out, “read around” the word to see if there are context clues, check pictures and other graphics, check the glossary, check the dictionary).
2. You and the students list the things you did to help you understand the text. Use the following format:

3. Ask students what difficulties they experience in reading and what they do. Write their ideas on the board using the same kind of chart.
4. Discuss the ideas on the chart. Help students understand that:
   1. All readers sometimes experience difficulties.
   2. Good readers monitor, or check, their reading to make sure they are understanding it.
   3. When good readers do not understand, they apply repair strategies so that they can get back on track.

After you have demonstrated and discussed monitoring, students can begin to keep their own charts to become more aware of comprehension, monitoring, and repair. Give each student an individual monitoring chart and discuss each column. For example:

1. Students record their monitoring activities on the chart as they read.
2. When they finish reading, students discuss their charts, explain their difficulties and what they did to begin comprehension again.
3. If appropriate, discuss other, more effective repair strategies they could use.