What is The Structure Strategy?
The text structure strategy is a unique approach to combining content and strategy together making reading comprehension instruction transparent and well-scaffolded for all learners. Children who are reading below, at, and above grade level ALL make strong improvements in reading comprehension when they learn how to use and apply the text structure strategy. Teachers agree that the text structure strategy is quite different than what their textbooks have been recommending for reading comprehension. The text structure strategy was developed around 1975 by Dr. Bonnie J.F. Meyer and has been refined over 40+ years of research. The latest version of the model and implementation calls for framing reading comprehension practices such as summarizing, inferencing, elaboration, and comprehension monitoring using the five text structures and nested structures (e.g., comparison, problem and solution, comparison nested inside problem and solution).
Intelligent Tutoring for the Structure Strategy (ITSS)
ITSS is a web-based intelligent tutoring system that provides modeling, practice, interactive activities for learners, assessment, scaffolding, and immediate feedback to learners so that they can learn and apply the text structure strategy to read and comprehend effectively. ITSS is a student-managed learning system where children progress at their own pace.
We are excited to report that ITSS has shown significant improvement in reading comprehension on standardized measures and summarizing and other tasks in recent large scale randomized controlled research studies in grades 4 through 8. Check out the results using the links on this site!
Teachers have also noted marked improvement in the quality of writing among students using the structure strategy.
Please see the following videos showcasing the power of how the text structure strategy works inside your brain!
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