The Bridge THE BRIDGE-HELPFUL READING LITERACY STRATEGIES | Page 7

2 . R e a d i n g s t r a t e g i e s
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Applying previous knowledge
Applying previous knowledge as a reading strategy can be used before, during or after
reading. Applying previous knowledge understands engaging previous personal
experience as well as knowing the culture. While teaching, before the reading process,
the teacher should try and activate previous knowledge by asking the students certain
questions and giving assignments to remind them of certain expressions they are familiar
with, but will hear them again during the lesson.
An example: You have already seen a comic book. Let us remind ourselves what a comic
book is and what are its main features.
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Checking understanding while reading
It is extremely important to learn how to conduct this strategy since the students use is
to follow their own understanding of the reading text. Karol Visinko (2014) 6 says that in
order for the students to master this strategy, they first have to set up a goal (What do
we want to accomplish by reading this text?). This is how students learn how to plan, and
while reading they need to be checked (Are we achieving the set goal?). Students learn
how to check their reading, identify the distractions and later removing them. The
factors which influence the understanding of the text are: external (e.g. noise), not
knowing the meaning of certain words and not understanding the entire paragraph as a
result of not understanding the context. To deal with these issues, we first have to go
back to the previous part of the text to understand it.

Making visual perceptions
During the process of learning reading strategies, one of the teacher’s assignments is to
teach a student how to make visual perceptions. In order to use this strategy, it is
important to take notes on what was read. There are a few ways of taking notes during
reading, and Karol Visinko (2014) 7 says they are: marking the text, or in the case the book
is not ours, using post its, making schemes, graphically presenting the text, making mind
maps and drawing.

Answering questions
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6 Visinko,
7 Visinko,
K. Čitanje, poučavanje i učenje. Zagreb ꞉ Školska knjiga, 2014., str. 98.
K. Čitanje, poučavanje i učenje. Zagreb ꞉ Školska knjiga, 2014., str. 98.-100.
Answering questions is one of the most common strategies used when dealing with the
text. The basic questions that need to be answered are: who, what, where and when,
and if we want a more detailed analysis, we also use the questions why and how. This is
how we check the students’ understanding.
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