These are the inquiry questions we have been exploring in Year 3/4 during literacy support lessons. The students have been learning about the Super Six Comprehension Strategies that help readers to understand what they read. We have been sharing quality literature, whilst teachers’ model a reading comprehension strategy through a process called ‘thinking aloud’. The students then practice this strategy and share their learning. So far, we have explored ‘Making Connections’ and Visualising and rich conversations have been shared about the chosen texts and the strategies. Ask your child about these wonderful books!

Super Six Comprehension Strategies                                                               

• Visualising refers to our ability to create pictures in our heads based on text we read or words we hear. It is one of many skills that makes reading comprehension
• Making connections is a comprehension strategy that helps students find meaning in a text by connecting it to their background knowledge. It is particularly important for English language learners who need to connect learning to their experiences, their culture and family at home, and often across languages.
• Predicting is an important strategy that allows students to use information from the text, such as titles, headings, pictures and diagrams to anticipate what will happen in the story. When making predictions, students envision what will come next in the text, based on their prior knowledge.
• Questioning is when readers ask questions about a piece of text and author's meaning in order to find and gather information, clarify, and build comprehension. Through the strategy of questions, students are able to drastically increase their comprehension.
• Monitoring our comprehension means noticing our thinking as we read. We notice our confusions. We use our background knowledge and recognise when something is new, what questions we have as we read, and what inferences we are making.
• Summarizing teaches students how to discern the most important ideas in a text, how to ignore irrelevant information, and how to integrate the central ideas in a meaningful way. Teaching students to summarise improves their memory for what is read.

Next time you are sharing a book with your child perhaps you might like to try one of these strategies!