Strategy v. Skills

 From the Desk of Hope…

This strategy and that strategy. What makes this one better than the next? Strategy. Skill.  I need clarification.

As I am out in schools coaching teachers with literacy instruction, I am often approached about confusions with the difference between teaching reading skills and reading strategies.

P. David Pearson writes about this topic in his work and has helped me conceptualize the difference. A strategy is an intentional plan for doing something and a skill is when you have practiced and applied the strategy so much it requires less and less effort, very little planning has to go into the task now.

I think about when I learned to drive a car. I had to think explicitly about what I was doing….

“Do I have my key and is it in the ignition?”

“Where am I going and do I know how to get there?”

“Let me put the car in reverse and back out of the drive way without hitting something.”

“Are my hands in the correct place on the wheel?”

“I am turning left, did I turn the signal light on the right way?”

 

In other words, in the beginning stages of learning how to drive, I had to plan for my driving.

 

But now I get places and I don’t know how I got there! Scary. Does this happen to you? Because I have had so much practice driving my car, the steps and processes are automatic and effortless. I have become a skilled driver.

So am I now skilled at driving any vehicle? No.  No and No. I am only skilled at driving a car. If for some reason I had to drive an RV or school bus, for example, I would have to go back do some (serious) strategic driving with explicit thinking to myself. I would need a plan for driving a new type of vehicle and most likely some specialized training.

Now let’s transfer these ideas to reading.

When children learn to read they need to be taught and shown “the plan” for reading. In the beginning stages of reading we support strategies such as using pictures to help with unknown words and pointing to words, voice to print match. As these reading behaviors become easy and automatic, we raise the level of text and teach new plans which match the more difficult text.

Over the last ten years researchers and practitioners have been studying strategies effective and critical readers use to comprehend texts.  It is well documented that intentional and strategic planning to engage with texts makes for stronger and deeper understanding of what was read. For example, if I am going to read a short story with descriptive language, I may plan to use the language the author has chosen to draw vivid images in my mind. This plan will help me stay connected to meaning and thus translate into comprehension of what I read. The more I practice this strategy with short stories they more skilled I will become at reading this type of text.

Caution!

Once I am skilled at comprehension of one genre and less planning has to take place because I have practiced enough for the process to become automatic, doesn’t mean I am skilled at comprehending all types of texts. When I read poetry or a very dense text like Canterbury Tales, now I have to use strategies and once again plan for comprehending the text. I may even need some specialized training.

Remember, I am skilled at driving my car but I am not at driving a school bus or RV. In this analogy: short story is to car as poetry is to RV.

Yes, reading is a complex system of processes but with the help of P. David Pearson and others, this idea is quite simple. A strategy is an intentional thought out plan for a task and when practiced and applied multiple times should require less and less effort. When it becomes effortless and automatic the reading strategy has become a reading skill.

Strategic readers are empowered and know they can monitor and manage their own reading. They have both knowledge and confidence for when the demanding texts come their way.