Strategic Teaching & Reading Project
	Strategy Definitions | The Five Strategies | Teacher Training in STRP

What is STRP?

The Strategic Reading and Teaching Project (STRP) was developed by the North Central Regional Educational Laboratory. It is based upon 30 years of research studying students who were already successful readers. By studying successful readers, researchers discovered that there were similar strategies that were utilized among these students. Further research then proved that the explicit instruction of these strategies to ALL students resulted in an improvement in their ability to comprehend regardless of their original reading level.

STRP is a staff development program aimed at helping teachers in all grade levels and subject areas acquire the skills needed to help ALL students acquire specific reading strategies that will help them to succeed in school and later in adulthood.

Why is STRP important for teachers and students to know?

STRP is important for teachers to understand and teach to students so that students can more easily comprehend material needed to be successful in class. These reading strategies are not content/subject specific and will therefore assist students as they attempt to read any variety of reading material (narrative to expository; books to periodicals).

Recommended Process for Explicitly Instructing one of the 5 reading strategies:

1. The teacher should help the students to understand what they are reading (narrative, genre, expository. etc...) and why it is important that they comprehend it. (A "real life" authentic rationale is always more effective than just reading for the test.)
2. The teacher should demonstrate when and how to use the strategy effectively for the subject area. Initially, students are rarely able to transfer one skill set to another subject area because much of their educational experience has been "departmentalized". (Similar to why students often ask why they have to write papers in a science class.)
3. The teacher should provide practice opportunities for students either in class or "low-risk" homework. (Remember that when learning a new strategy, students are learning attempting to learn your content through a new process. It may take them a little longer at first.) This may seem like an add on, but it most likely is not. It is just being a little more intentional about focusing on the act of reading through an assignment that may have been used for years.
4. Allow students to personally reflect on the level of success they had with a strategy after the strategy was taught. Because of students' individualist learning styles, one may prefer a couple of strategies over some others. It is important however, to expose students to a variety of strategies so that they have a varied skill set to tackle future readings that might not align well with the strategies they are most comfortable with.

Thanks to Merrilee Larson, Metro ECSU:

A special thanks to Merrilee Larson, Metro ECSU Learning Consultant, who offered onsite training to Edina teachers in the fall of 2001. Most of the materials in this web site were borrowed or adapted from her training manual. She has been a wonderful resource for staff development training related to reading strategies. Please contact ECSU directly for more information on the programs they provide. Phone: (612) 706-0801 or http://www.ecsu.k12.mn.us

STRP Strategy Definitions

Metacognition: Thinking about one's thinking. The learner is able to assess his/her own level of success and make adjustments to an approach if needed.

Prior Knowledge: Information that is already familiar to the learner because of something he/she was taught before or experienced through an event. It is important to activate this before, during, and after the lesson.

Word Meaning: A special case of prior knowledge in which a learner uses words that are familiar to him/her to help determine the meaning of words that are unfamiliar. Effective vocabulary instruction is an important component of this strategy.

Inference: Using clues from the text, images, charts, etc...to help figure out what the author has implied, but not directly stated.

Text Structure: Understanding the organizational patterns of narrative and expository text and then using those patterns to help process what is being read.

STRP Main Page | Metacognition | Prior Knowledge | Word Meaning | Inference | Text Structure