CSI – Comprehension Strategies Instruction

This autumn, more than 1000 teachers turned out across New Zealand for the Teaching Comprehension Strategies seminar series run by South Pacific Press.

Kyran Smith, from Miramar South School, and Neale Pitches from South Pacific Press spoke about the impressive gains in comprehension achieved by students learning in the “CSI” way – using digital, shared reading followed by book-based co-operative learning. Maori and Pasifica students, including boys, were of special interest to the teacher audiences, as their reading scores rose remarkably in some cases. 

Teachers were given practical teaching approaches – the theory in plain English – and they saw video of students in action at Miramar South School. Many teachers remarked at the engaged, vibrant faces of the (so-called) struggling readers in the video, and marvelled at the way students could read, respond and think their way through texts, familiar and unfamiliar in content.