DRTA: Directed Reading-Thinking Activity

Description 
This is a teacher-directed strategy to use with whole class instruction.  The teacher guides the students through the process of formulating and verifying predictions while reading whole stories or chapters.

Purpose
This strategy gives the students practice in making predictions from the information at hand and changing these hypotheses based upon information obtained from reading.  The teacher should see improvement in comprehension.

Procedure

  1. Predict - Each student receives a copy of the selection.  The teacher asks the students to study either the title or pictures on the first page.
    • What do you think a story with this title might be about?
    • What do you think might happen in this story?
    • Which of these predictions do you agree with?
    The teacher should encourage students to make several suggestions and record them on the board.
  2. Read - The students then read a few paragraphs or pages of the text.
  3. Confirm - After students have read the first segment, ask them to close their books and compare the predictions they made with what was actually presented in the text.  The teacher asks questions that guide the students' examination of their previous predictions and their generation of new predictions.  "Were you correct?" or "What do you think now?" will lead students to examine the proof of their predictions.  Oral reading of a particular sentence will direct students to share their evidence with other group members. (Steps one through three are repeated until the text is completed.)
  4. Resolution - The text is summarized and evaluated.  As students read, they will have come upon more and more information and divergent conjectures should begin to converge.

Student Expectations

  • Is the student able to monitor and adjust predictions based upon information gained from reading?
  • Is the student able to determine purposes for reading?
  • Is the student able to comprehend the information?
  • Is the student able to examine reading material based upon the purposes for reading?


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