Blog Ten

Strategy for Reading: Collaborative Strategic Reading

            According to Bremer, Vaughn, Clapper and Kim(2002), Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) is a reading strategy that combines the two instructional elements of Modified Reciprocal Teaching (Palincsar and Brown,1984) and Cooperative Learning (Johnson and Johnson,1987).  CSR currently consists of four comprehension strategies that students apply before, during and after reading in small cooperative groups. Preview, Click and Clunk, Get the Gist and Wrap Up are the four strategies that make up the first of two phases for implementing CSR.

Phase One: Teaching the Four Strategies

1.      Preview

Preview is used before reading the text for the lesson. It is the strategy that activates the students’ prior knowledge. It consists of brainstorming and making predictions about what they will read to generate their interest. The teachers probe students to determine what they know about the topic and what they think they will learn from reading the text.

2.      Click and Clunk

Click and Clunk is the second strategy and teaches the students to monitor their understanding during reading, and to make adjustments when they realize they have failed to understand the text. A ‘Click’ is described by the teacher as good understanding of an aspect of the literature while a ‘Clunk’ is the opposite of a ‘Click’.

3.      Get the Gist

Getting the Gist is also a strategy which deals with helping students to identify the main ideas during reading. It helps the students focus on important ideas rather than unnecessary details and can be acquired through the use of questioning.

4.      Wrap Up

The fourth strategy of CSR occurs after the text has been read. In this strategy, the students engage in generating questions about the texts and reviewing what was learnt in the lesson. The teacher also encourages students to generate some questions that require answers that involve higher-level thinking skills rather than just recall. Students then write down what was learned in their learning logs.

Phase Two: Cooperative Learning Group or Student Pairing

 Once students have learned the four strategies and have developed proficiency in applying them in teacher –led activities, they are now ready to apply CSR in their peer-led cooperative learning groups. During the cooperative activity, the teacher’s role is to circulate among the groups, clarifying clunks, modeling strategy usage, modeling cooperative learning techniques, redirecting students to remain on task and providing assistance to students (Bremer et al, 2002).


Websites with more information about this strategy:

www.dldcec.org/pdf/teaching_how-tos/using_collaborative.pdf

www.sedl.org/cgi-bin/mysql/buildingreading.cgi?l...15

nepc.colorado.edu/.../Vaughn%26Klingner_TeachingReadingComprehensionthroughCSR.pdf

Source:
http://www.ncset.org/publications/viewdesc.asp?id=424