443: What I've Learned about Teaching Reading Strategies

As a fairly constant reader for the last few decades, I sometimes forget how challenging reading can be. But then I get into, for example, a dense thirty page research write-up about the study of how different factors affect relationships between kindergarten teachers and kindergarten moms in Finland, and I remember.

Reading can be so hard.

So how can you make it easier for your students, as they dive into the books you share? Well, one option is to share explicit strategies they can plug into along the way. Penny Kittle does such a beautiful job of demonstrating the way she does this in her book, Book Love, and in the reading conference videos she and Kelly Gallagher share alongside their book, 180 Days. Another go-to source on this for me is Shea Kerkhoff, whose recent book, Adolescent Literacy: Integrating the Sciences of Reading and Writing in Grades 4-12, is full of strategies teachers can pull out to help students who struggle with comprehension.

But how and when do you tap these strategies, especially considering some kids will really need them and others will find their mere mention a waste of time?

Today on the pod, we'll talk about six reading strategies that can help students understand what they're reading, plus how to introduce them, ways to spiral back, and options for keeping them in mind for individual kids. Note, we won't be talking about what you, as a teacher, can do to make comprehension easier (like building background knowledge in advance, or providing key vocabulary up front). Nope, today is about the strategies kids can implement on their own, and how to make it easier for them to tap those strategies.

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Sources:

Kerkhoff, Shea. (2026). Adolescent Literacy: Integrating the Sciences of Reading and Writing in Grades 4-12. Bloomsbury Academic.

Kittle, Penny. (2013). Book Love. Heineman.

Online Supplementary Videos Associated with Kittle, Penny & Kelly Gallagher. (2018). 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Empower and Engage Adolescents. Heineman.

Leong, Kristin. (Host). (2025, October 28). The Extraordinary Impact of Drawing to Learn. [Audio Podcast Episode]. In Edutopia's School of Practice Podcast. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-extraordinary-impact-of-drawing-to-learn/id1840474338?i=1000733852674