Active Reading Strategies
This page outlines six active reading strategies that research says good readers use while reading. Take a look at each strategy and download the teacher references and handouts for classroom instruction.

The six strategies outlined here along with other research based reading strategies are featured in AVID's newest teacher guide, Critical Reading: Deep Reading Strategies for Expository Texts Grades 7-12. The teacher guide offers useful conversations on reading and provides practical student handouts and authentic student models. The Critical Reading Teacher Guide can be purchased at AVID's "eStore" found at AVIDonline.org.Want to learn more about critical reading? Sign up for an AVID Summer Institute and take the Critical Reading strand. Currently, Critical Reading is offered in San Diego, Sacramento, and Dallas. Learn more about Summer Institute and other AVID publications at AVIDonline.

Rereading the Text Download Strategy
We know that texts can be read for a variety of purposes. We also know that rereading improves comprehension. Do we have our students reread texts? What is the purpose behind the rereading? Do we ask our students to reread the entire selection? Purposeful rereading is essential to a young reader's success. We should have them reread specific sections of a text, tell them how to read it, and demonstrate how specific reading strategies can be used to increase comprehension of written material. Download this strategy to learn more about rereading and the purposes for rereading.

Marking the Text Download Strategy
"Marking the Text" is an active reading strategy that asks students to identify information in the text that is relevant to a reading purpose.  This strategy has three distinct marks: numbering paragraphs, underlining, and circling.   When students mark texts purposefully, they are actively engaged in meaning making.  To mark texts effectively, students must evaluate an entire passage and begin to recognize and isolate the key information.  Once the text is marked, students will be able to quickly reference information that pertains to the reading purpose.  Download the strategy to learn more about "Marking the Text."

Pausing to Connect Ideas within a Text Download Strategy
"Pausing to Connect" is an active reading strategy that engages students in thinking critically about information presented in texts.  Even though the word “pause” implies a suspension of activity, “pausing” for this strategy begins an investigation into what the author is saying and how he or she says it.  Used as a rereading strategy, "Pausing to Connect Ideas Within a Text" is a cognitive strategy that asks readers to connect information in the text in order to deepen their understanding of how an author uses language to construct an idea or argument.  As with all reading strategies, model how this type of reading is done. Download the strategy and try it with your students.

Writing and or Drawing in the Margins Download Strategy
Competent readers will regularly write and or draw in the margins of a text.  When readers engage in this active reading strategy, they are clarifying, summarizing, and visualizing ideas presented in the text.  This strategy offers six ways of thinking about texts. The power of this strategy is not the actual act of writing and drawing in the margins; instead, it is the thinking processes that students must undergo in order to produce such ideas. Download the strategy to learn more and to view the "One-page Tutorial."

Charting Sections of a Text Download Strategy
Experts in reading tell us that one of the most important skills that students need to develop is to identify the structure of a text—that is, how it is organized. When analyzing the structure of a text, students can either examine the macro-structure (or the larger structure of a text) or individual paragraphs known as the micro-structure of a text.  When analyzing either the macro- or micro-structure of a text, students should examine what an author is doing.  That is, students should focus their analysis on the deliberate choices an author makes while constructing paragraphs or whole sections of text.  For example, an author might provide an anecdote, interpret data, summarize research, quote an authority, give an example, or do some other work in order to construct meaning. For more on "Charting the Text" click "Download Strategy" above.

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Summarizing Sections of a Text Download Strategy
We know that students struggle to articulate ideas that they have heard or read. Summarizing text requires competence in both reading and writing. "Summarizing the Text" asks students to identify information that is essential to the reading task (students should use "Marking the Text" to isolate key information and clarify ideas in the margins). Once students have differentiated between essential and non-essential information, they move on to the next skill: crafting brief statements that accurately account for what is being discussed or argued. There are many purposes for summarizing texts.  A reader will summarize a text in order to clarify information, capture the gist of what is being discussed, and or condense lengthier passages into more manageable parts.  A reader might also summarize a text in order to check for understanding.  In addition to its usefulness as a comprehension strategy, both colleges and universities expect incoming freshman to express what authors have said and explain the choices they make.

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