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Challenge
Initial Thoughts
Perspectives & Resources

What are some reasons to teach reading comprehension strategies in content-area classes?

  • Page 1: The Significance of Reading Comprehension
  • Page 2: Improving Reading Comprehension

What can teachers do to improve their students’ reading comprehension?

  • Page 3: Introduction to CSR
  • Page 4: Overview of the CSR Reading Strategies
  • Page 5: Preview Strategy
  • Page 6: Click and Clunk Strategy
  • Page 7: Get the Gist Strategy
  • Page 8: Wrap Up Strategy

How can reading comprehension strategies be implemented in content-area classes?

  • Page 9: Cooperative Learning
  • Page 10: Preparing the Class
  • Page 11: Materials for CSR
  • Page 12: Implementing CSR

Resources

  • Page 13: References & Additional Resources
  • Page 14: Credits
Wrap Up
Assessment
We want to hear from you. Please complete our brief Module Feedback Form.

What can teachers do to improve their students’ reading comprehension?

Page 6: Click and Clunk Strategy

Student workingAfter completing the Preview strategy, Mr. Dupree’s students begin reading the text. As they do so, they apply the Click and Clunk strategy. The purpose of this strategy is for students to:

  • Monitor their understanding of word meanings as they read
  • Identify unfamiliar vocabulary and use fix-up strategies to understand the text

Sad Car graphicIn the Click and Clunk strategy, the words that students instantaneously understand are called clicks. The words that make no sense to them and so interfere with comprehension are known as clunks. Clunks are analogous to potholes in a road that impede the process of smooth driving. To decipher the meanings of these clunks, students can use a cluster of word-identification strategies (i.e., fix-up strategies).

Click and Clunk Strategy

Activities: applying fix-up strategies

The teacher demonstrates the difference between a click and a clunk. The teacher reinforces this distinction by reading or asking the class to read a short section of text and then having students report any clunks they may have encountered.

Students who encounter a clunk must apply one or more of four fix-up strategies:

  1. Reread the sentence as though the clunk was a blank space and try to guess another word that might be appropriate in place of the clunk. There is a good chance that the clunk is a synonym.
  2. Reread the sentence with the clunk and the sentences before or after the clunk to look for clues (i.e., other words or phrases that may partially indicate the meaning of a clunk).
  3. Look for a prefix or suffix in the clunk that may help to define its meaning.
  4. If possible, break the clunk into smaller, more familiar words that may indicate the clunk’s meaning.

Click here to see the passage the students are reading.

Ecosystems: Making Connections

An ecosystem is part of the environment. In an ecosystem, big and small animals live in harmony with the rest of their natural world. A shoreline is one kind of ecosystem. Other kinds include deserts and rain forests. The parts of an ecosystem rely on each other for the health of the environment. That means that if one part is damaged, the balance of the whole can be upset. If this damage is big enough, the ecosystem might even collapse.

To help you understand ecosystems, you might imagine a spider-web. All of its threads are connected. If one part breaks or is torn, the rest of the web is weakened until it can be repaired.

Click here to view a sample learning log with the Click and Clunk section filled in.

Teachers should decide how much text students should read before they stop to Click and Clunk. For example, the text might consist of:

  • A paragraph
  • A multiple-paragraph section
  • One page

Each of these has its pros and cons: Generally, reading shorter passages leads to increased comprehension but may take up more class time, whereas longer passages shorten the overall activity time but may not foster as deep an understanding of the text.

Click on the movie to watch some students implementing the Click and Clunk strategy (time: 0:17).

/wp-content/uploads/module_media/csr_media/movies/csr_06.mp4

“Copyright © by the Texas Education Agency and University of Texas at Austin. All rights reserved” on all Licensed Materials.

View Transcript

Transcript: Click and Clunk Strategy

Narrator: Then students use Click and Clunk to help them monitor their understanding during reading.

Student #1: Did everyone understand what we read?

Student #2: No, I had a clunk with “gloomy.”

Student #1: Clunk Expert, please help us out.

Student #3: Reread the sentence with the clunk.

 

 

 

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