FAST READING

Good readers are active, not passive.  They interact with the text by summarizing and asking questions as they read and re-read a passage.  Below are four distinctly different strategies that readers can use to understand what they read and think about what they read more critically. 

Factual Questions: Read the Lines

Readers need to understand the who, what, when, and where of a passage. Factual questions are close-ended questions that have right or wrong answers, and the answers can be found right in the text of what is being read.  For example, if you were reading or watching the Wizard of Oz, a knowledge questions might be:

In the “Wizard of Oz” how was Dorothy transported to the Land of Oz? 

Analysis Questions:  Read Between the Lines

A second type of question a reader asks goes beyond just the facts of a story or article.  These questions are more open-ended, and they require the reader to interpret what is being read since the answers are not stated explicitly like a Factual Question.  In order to answer these questions, the reader must read between the lines.  The answers to these questions are supported by the text of the article or story, but there is more than a single right way to answer the questions correctly.  The answer is not found explicitly in the text, but it can be logically explained using the text.  These questions are called Analysis Questions.

In the “Wizard of Oz”, why did Dorothy run away from home?

Synthesis Questions:  Read Beyond the Lines

A third type of question takes the reader beyond just the text of the story or article.  The question might be suggested by the ideas or themes in the story or article, but this type of question requires the reader to think and read beyond the lines of the text.  This type of question can be answered in part by the article or story, but the questions also suggest a broader context that requires that readers to think about more than just what they are currently reading.  These questions are called Synthesis Questions because they require the readers to connect what they read to other things they have read or other things they have observed or experienced.

How is the impulse to run away from home a natural part of the experience of growing up? 

T – Theme and Title                                    

The fourth strategy for reading is a two-part process where the reader first generates a list of possible themes under which the reading might be categorized.  These themes should be both abstract and concrete.  For example, themes in the Wizard of Oz would include imagination as well as witches, friendship as well as tornados.  Second, the reader creates a new title for the story or passage that is no more than five words long, a title that sums up the main ideas and a title that is cleverly written.  For example, new titles for The Wizard of Oz might be Brick Road and Broomsticks; Lion, Witch, and