The seven core comprehension strategies that are used in Oxford Reading Buddy have all been proven to be important in aiding understanding of text.
As students progress through the programme and experience more and more demonstrations of the strategies by Oxford Reading Buddy, they will become increasingly familiar with what each one involves and will be able to consciously employ them in other reading. Additionally, the strategy prompt name is reinforced on each of the Buddy Prompts so that students repeatedly experience the connection between what the strategy is and what it looks like in action (coming soon).
As students move past the earliest levels of reading, it would be advisable for teachers to share and discuss with them the strategy descriptions (below) and demonstrate employment of the strategies in their wider teaching of reading. You may also like to display these comprehension strategy posters in your classroom.
The Coaching eBooks have been written to offer as balanced a coverage of strategies as possible so that, by the end of an Oxford Reading Level, students will have good experience of each one.
| Strategies | Strategy prompt name | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Monitor comprehension | Check it makes sense | Check words, phrases and ideas make sense. If they don’t make sense, read around the sentence and think about the rest of the text to work them out. |
| Infer | Look for clues | Think like a detective and look beyond what the words say to the clues underneath. |
| Determine importance | Decide main points | As you read, watch out for the main events or the most important information. |
| Identify text structures, features and language | Notice text features | Be aware of the type of text you’re reading. Notice features that the writer has used to help you understand the text. |
| Ask questions and predict | Question and predict | Make predictions and ask yourself questions. Then read on to find out. |
| Visualise | Picture in your mind | Make a picture in your mind of the text or think about feelings or sounds to make the text more real. |
| Activate prior knowledge | Think and remember | Use what you already know about the world or other books to understand the text more. |