Comprehension Strategies

In grade school I was never taught comprehension strategies, but was lucky enough to infer them myself.  Many junior high and high school students face difficulty writing papers about literature because they don't know where to start.  They complain that the material is boring or stupid as a cover for their inability to comprehend it.  In English classes, students are taught the meanings of texts, but teachers seldom explain how they got the meanings.  To teach comprehension, one must not assume that her students infer strategies by observing her behavior, but must explicitly and directly explain strategies.  When Kids Can't Read  brings up a point referring to the difficulty in this task: how do you teach someone how to predict something? Some of the strategies include, as When Kids Can't Read reads, "clarifying, comparing and contrasting, connecting to prior experiences, predicting, recognizing the author's purpose," and a few others.  Plan activities to teach students how to do these things, and use informal assessments like observing to determine at what point students can move on to actually using these skills.
(Chapter 6)