Post-reading strategies give learners a way to summarize, reflect, and question what they have just read. Here are three post-reading teaching strategies to try in your class today.

Exit Slips

The exit slip post-reading tactic is used to help learners reflect on what they have just learned. It helps them sort out ideas and how or what they feel about the material learned. This tactic requires learners to use critical thinking, a skill that is important in today’s world.

Exit slips are good because they only take learners a few minutes to complete, and educators get an informal assessment of how well the learners understood what they just learned.

How to use the strategy

1. Think about the main idea you want learners to get out of the reading or lesson.
2. After the lesson, pass out the exit slips to learners.
3. You can choose to differentiate the exit slips based on your learners’ needs.
4. After learners jot down their responses, be sure to gather the slips.
5. Review the slips to decide how to meet the needs of all learners.

Examples:

• Write down one thing you have learned today.
• Talk about one thing that you learned today that can be used in the real world.
• Talk about one thing that you learned today that you would like to learn more about.
• One thing that surprised me today is.
• Rate your comprehension of today’s topic on a scale from  1-5.

Frame Routine

Frame routine is a class tactic that uses a graphic organizer to assist learners in organizing topics, central ideas, and critical vital details of what they have just read. This strategy helps learners summarize what they have learned.

How to use the strategy

1. Choose the topic. The topic is the title of what you just read.
2. Identify the central idea. Learners then document the vital ideas of the topic.
3. Talk about the details. Learners write details in the appropriate sections.
4. Create the central or big idea of the content. Learners write a brief summary of the conclusion that they have come to.
5. Study the info on the frame. Once the info is clearly stated and organized on the frame, the educator evaluates it and plans follow-up activities to extend learner learning.

Question the Author

Questioning the author is a tactic that requires learners to pose questions and engages them actively in a text. This comprehension tactic challenges learners’ comprehension of the content and encourages learners to ask questions of the author.

Question the author has lots of benefits, one being that it engages all learners in the content. It also helps to cement their comprehension, as well as learn to critique the author’s writing.

How to use the strategy

1. Choose an interesting passage that would make for a good discussion.
2. Bookmark spots that you want to pause during the content so learners can gain greater comprehension.
3. Construct specific questions for each spot to ask learners. What is the author trying to convey? Why do you believe the author used this phrase?
4. Provide a brief passage to learners with a few questions, and model how you think through your answers to the questions.
5. Challenge learners to read and answer the questions that you have constructed.

Teacher modeling of each post-reading tactic is vital in order for the tactic to be a success. Post-reading comprehension strategies like the ones discussed above drive home the fact that once you have completed your reading, you still have to comprehend what you have just read. Learners need to summarize vital ideas and concepts after reading to help them comprehend the info that was learned and store it in their long-term memory.