Scaffolding INTENTIONAL Silent Reading

The need for intentional silent reading is an undisputed fact in the life of the adolescent reader. Increased comprehension occurs when teachers provide students a set of prompts or procedures to use as they read. This type of scaffolding helps students to engage in mindful reading, yet gradually allows them to increase their own responsibility for using a variety of cognitive strategies, such as activating prior knowledge and questioning the author.

However, giving struggling students a handout with the six signals listed and announcing that whenever these things happen, they need to refocus their attention won't work! They won't know what you are talking about because they hear no inner voices nor see the mental picture as from a cameras or video recorder. Model a Think- Aloud for students about one signal at a time. Explain very clearly what your inner voice is saying to you about the text. Tell them precisely where you zoned out and started thinking about other things, like what you might have for lunch. Then as you work with them in scaffolded silent reading groups, stop the reading every five minutes to talk about what their inner voices were saying when you called time. After spending a week or two with the inner-voice prompt, try the camera prompt. These will be new insights for your students and perhaps even for you as a reader.

The six prompts and a sample lesson (scripted) can be found at http://www.adlit.org/article/40431.

Adapted from Heibert (2003) and Heibert and Fisher (2002) in Teach Them All to Read. (2009) Elaine McKuen