• pick out key words or events; unknown words (eg. underlining, highlighting)
• explain cultural references/nuances/homonyms including ambiguous phrases and hidden meanings
• provide dictionary / thesaurus work
• reinforce subject specific language and use vocabulary building strategies: word banks at appropriate level, crosswords, word searches, matching vocabulary with definitions etc
• identify and highlight specific language structures associated with particular types of text/genres to support pupils’ understanding and control of style/tone/genre etc
• practise hot seating characters
• use strategies such as SOLO taxonomy to develop higher order thinking and collaborative learning
• scaffold questions leading to how / why question
• ask specific skimming questions
• ask specific scanning questions
• use colour coding/numbering etc to identify different types of information in text
• discuss figures of speech, simile, metaphor, personification
• discuss symbolism/allegory
• use running dictation
• ask pupils to match headlines to pictures / titles to texts e.g. in text books, newspapers
• ask pupils to identify topic sentences of paragraphs
• use Reciprocal Reading techniques (predicting, clarifying, questioning and summarising) to engage pupils with text giving each a role/responsibility within a group reading task
• encourage pupils to look for bias and recognise different perspectives of a common event
• make cross-curricular references, links and glossaries (mono and bilingual)
• DARTS activities including:-
  • use collaborative reading activities eg information gap, jigsaw reading etc.
  • ask pupil to transfer or remodel information from a text into a key visual by using graphic organisers such as  tables, classifying information, sequencing of key points
  • gap fill activities and cloze procedures
  • encourage prediction about text content using visual and contextual cues

Back to Strategies overview

• For: Art, Biology, CDT, Chemistry, Drama, English, ESOL, Geography, History, I.T., Maths, Modern Studies, Music, Nursery - P1, P.E., P2 - 4, P5 - 7, Parents, Physics, Primary, Science, Secondary, SFL
• Purpose: Best Practice, Literacy Support