SUNY New Paltz does not offer stand-alone reading courses, but many community colleges do. Below is a resource created by faculty who teach developmental reading courses at community colleges. It is part of a textbook series titled Our Reading Toolbox: The Reading/Writing-Thinking Connection.
Note: The wording in the table below has been slightly modified from the original. When working with students, you will likely take a conversational approach where they give their answers orally rather than in written form.
OUR READING TOOLBOX
| Paraphrasing | Ask tutees to put sentences they have read into their own words |
| Headline Created | Have students create a headline (title) that expresses the main idea of the selected reading |
| Significant Sentence Selected | When looking at secondary sources with a student, have them select sentences they think are most important in what they have read and have them explain why they selected them |
| Vital Question Posed | Have a tutee think about what question they would ask the author or someone in the reading |
| Issue/Problem Identified | When a tutee has been struggling with a difficult text, ask them to articulate what issue or problem they are having. Can they put it into words? |
| Purpose | State why they think the reading was written |
| S-E-E-I | State, Elaborate, Exemplify, and Illustrate concepts (words, ideas) in the reading which they need to better understand |
| Conclusion | Identify what they think is the most important conclusion the author comes to in the end |
| Assumptions | State what they think the author (or someone else) is taking for granted in what they have read |
| Implications & Consequences | State what they think will happen if we follow, or do not follow, what the author (or someone else) in the reading is suggesting should be done |
| Solution/ Recommendations | State what they think should be done to deal effectively with the issues or problems presented in the reading |
| Speaking in the Author’s Voice | State ideas or answer questions about what they read as if they were the author or someone else in the reading |
WORK CITED
