What do Good Readers do?

Many struggling students believe that one is either born a good reader or not and there is little one can do to become a more effective reader.  This is a "fixed" mindset myth (Dweck) that educators must debunk immediately as it is detrimental to student competence and confidence. 

Skilled readers often utilize several "soft" skills when they encounter comprehension difficulty and these strategies don't require a fancy graphic organizer.  For example, effective readers: re-read, read slower, pre-read and predict, connect to prior knowledge, visualize, question the text, retell (first, then, finally) and then summarize (who, what, when, where, why, how). 

Modeling these simple strategies will greatly improve reading comprehension and communicate to students that good readers "work" at being good readers and we can all become more effective readers when we use these strategies. Julie Adams, Adams Educational Consulting