Conventional reading instruction can be thought of as falling along a continuum. At one extreme, teachers emphasize skills in discrete decoding, word attack, and comprehension. At the other end, teachers prefer students to construct meaning from whole texts and create meaning through writing. In recent years, alternatives to these conventional approaches have emerged.
Transactional strategies instruction is one such alternative. It combines the benefits of whole language instruction—it helps students improve their reading comprehension—and it improves word attack skills, which is of paramount concern in traditional instruction.
A Repertoire of Strategies
- make predictions about upcoming content;
- relate the text to prior knowledge (for example, “If I were Goldilocks I wouldn't go into somebody's house if they weren't there—It isn't safe”);
- ask questions about the information;
- seek clarification when the meaning is unclear (for example, through rereading picture clues);
- visualize the meaning; and
- summarize along the way.
Children learn to use these strategies across a variety of text types in several instructional settings, including reading groups that focus on high-quality literature. As a child reads, the teacher prompts him or her to use comprehension and word attack strategies.
- Sound out the word.
- Look for context clues.
- Reread.
- Skip the word.
Ultimately, children internalize the comprehension and word attack strategies, and active strategic reading becomes a habit.
Teacher Know-How
Transactional strategies instruction requires teachers to understand the components of skilled reading and how to encourage students to use these strategies when reading by themselves or with others. Teachers need high-quality workshops, followed by guidance and coaching from other teachers who are more experienced with strategies instruction.
Does this approach work in practice? A Maryland public school system experimented with one version of transactional strategies instruction—a program officials called Students Achieving Independent Learning (SAIL). In 1991–92, the program was evaluated in a carefully controlled comparison involving predominantly low-achieving 2nd grade readers. The students were divided into two groups—one taught through the SAIL method, the other using conventional strategies. At the beginning of the year, the two groups showed no differences on either standardized comprehension or word skills measures. By the end of the year, however, the SAIL students did substantially better on both tests. A variety of indicators showed that the SAIL students were getting much more out of the text than were the control participants.
