How can teachers support students' use of reading strategies across genres?

• A. Teach only one strategy and ignore others.
• B. Explicitly teach strategies (predict, question, clarify, summarize) and model them in multiple genres; provide practice with teacher feedback.
• C. Tell students to figure out strategies on their own without instruction.
• D. Use only one genre for practice.

Answer: (B)

Students learn best when teachers explicitly teach a set of reading strategies, model them in multiple genres, and provide guided practice with feedback so students can apply these strategies across different kinds of texts. Explicit instruction helps students know what strategies to use and when to use them. Modeling shows how to use how to use these strategies in real reading experiences, including fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, so students can see how thinking aloud looks in practice. Guided practice with feedback then reinforces that thinking, helping students monitor their understanding and adjust strategies as needed, until using them becomes automatic.

The four strategies—predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing—cover key moments in reading. Predicting keeps students engaged and set up for meaning; questioning prompts active engagement with the text and helps uncover meaning; clarifying addresses confusion and builds vocabulary and concept understanding; summarizing helps students distill and articulate core ideas. When teachers demonstrate these strategies across genres, students learn to transfer them—from a science article to a historical text, from a fantasy story to a how-to chapter—keeping comprehension strong no matter the text type.

If a teacher only teaches one strategy, or asks students to figure things out without guidance, or uses only one genre, students don’t get the broad tools or the cross-text practice that build independent, flexible readers. That’s why explicitly teaching a range of strategies, modeling them across genres, and giving practice with feedback is the most effective approach.