Research to Practice Brief

Improving Secondary Education and Transition Services through Research • June 2002 • Vol. 1 • Issue 2

Collaborative Strategic
Reading (CSR): Improving
Secondary Students’ Reading
Comprehension Skills
National Center on By Christine D. Bremer, Sharon Vaughn, Ann T. Clapper, and Ae-Hwa Kim
Secondary Education
and Transition
Creating Opportunities for Youth The Problem
With Disabilities to Achieve Reading comprehension is a critical skill for secondary students with disabilities,
Successful Futures
as it facilitates participation in mainstream content-area classes. Unfortunately,
A partnership of — many secondary educators are not adequately equipped to provide reading
Institute on Community Integration, instruction. This Brief introduces a research-based practice, Collaborative
University of Minnesota, Strategic Reading (CSR), developed by Janette K. Klingner and Sharon Vaughn
Minneapolis, Minnesota
(1996, 1998).
National Center for the Study
of Postsecondary Education
Supports (RRTC), University Overview of CSR
of Hawai‘i at Manoa CSR is a reading comprehension practice that combines two instructional
TransCen, Inc., elements: (a) modified reciprocal teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1984), and (b)
Rockville, Maryland
cooperative learning (Johnson & Johnson, 1987) or student pairing. In recipro-
PACER Center, cal teaching, teachers and students take turns leading a dialogue concerning key
Minneapolis, Minnesota
features of text through summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting.
Institute for Educational
Leadership, Center for Workforce
Reciprocal teaching was developed with the intention of aiding students having
Development, Washington, DC difficulty with reading comprehension. Palincsar and Brown found that seventh
National Association of State graders with poor reading comprehension skills achieved sizable gains through
Directors of Special Education, use of the reciprocal teaching method. More recent studies using reciprocal
Alexandria, Virginia
teaching have found it to be effective with struggling middle school and high
U.S. Department of Education, school readers (Alfassi, 1998; Lysynchuk, Pressley, & Vye, 1990). Klingner and
Office of Special Education
Programs, Washington, DC Vaughn (1996) originally designed CSR by combining modified reciprocal
teaching with cooperative learning. Through a number of research trials, CSR
has been refined and currently consists of four comprehension strategies that
students apply before, during, and after reading in small cooperative groups.
Watch for a coming
Research to Practice Brief These reading strategies are: (a) preview (before reading), (b) click and clunk
offering information (during reading), (c) get the gist (during reading), and (d) wrap up (after
about Strategic Instruction reading).
Model (SIM).
2 • National Center on Secondary Education and Transition Research to Practice Brief

2Research on CSR amounts of time engaged in academic-related

The effects of CSR on reading comprehension for strategic discussion and assisted one another while
students with learning disabilities, including second- using CSR. CSR has also been implemented in
ary students with learning disabilities, have been conjunction with other research-based reading
examined in a series of intervention studies by strategies (writing process approach, classwide peer
Vaughn, Klingner, and their colleagues. Most tutoring, making words) for elementary students
intervention studies demonstrated that CSR was with learning disabilities (Klingner, Vaughn,
associated with improved reading comprehension for Hughes, Schumm, & Elbaum, 1998). In this study,
students with learning disabilities. The first study trained teachers implemented CSR with their
using CSR was conducted with 26 seventh- and students. The results also confirmed that use of CSR
eighth-graders with learning disabilities who used has resulted in improvement in reading for elemen-
English as a second language. In this study, students tary students with learning disabilities.
learned to use modified reciprocal teaching methods
in cooperative learning groups (i.e., brainstorm, Implementation of CSR
predict, clarify words and phrases, highlight the CSR can be implemented in two phases: (a) teach-
main idea, summarize the main idea(s) and impor- ing the strategies, and (b) cooperative learning group
tant detail, and ask and answer questions). CSR was activity or student pairing. The implementation
effective in improving reading comprehension of steps described below were developed through a
most of students with learning disabilities (Klingner series of research studies (Bryant et al., 2000;
& Vaughn, 1996). Klingner & Vaughn, 1998, 1999; Vaughn et al.,
CSR has also been combined with other ap- 2000; Vaughn, Klingner, & Bryant, 2001).
proaches to address the range of skills needed for
reading competence in middle school and high Phase 1. Teaching the Strategies
school. In a study of 60 sixth-grade middle school Students learn four strategies: preview, click and
students with varied reading levels in inclusive clunk, get the gist, and wrap up. Preview is used
classrooms, a multicomponent reading intervention before reading the entire text for the lesson, and
was used to address to the range of reading needs wrap up is used after reading the entire text for the
(Bryant et al., 2000). CSR was used in conjunction lesson. The other two strategies, click and clunk and
with two other research-based strategies: Word get the gist, are used multiple times while reading
Identification (Lenz, Schumaker, Deshler, & Beals, the text, after each paragraph.
1984), and Partner Reading (Mathes, Fuchs, Fuchs, Preview. Preview is a strategy to activate students’
Henley, & Sanders, 1994). Results revealed that prior knowledge, to facilitate their predictions about
students with learning disabilities significantly what they will read, and to generate interest. Preview
improved their word identification and fluency, but consists of two activities: (a) brainstorming and (b)
not reading comprehension. making predictions.
The effectiveness of CSR with elementary stu- A teacher introduces previewing to students by
dents with learning disabilities has also been sup- asking them to think about the previews they have
ported. Klingner, Vaughn, and Schumm (1998) seen at the movies. The teacher prompts students
implemented CSR with fourth graders with a wide to tell what they learn from previews by asking
range of reading levels. Students in the CSR group questions such as, “do you learn who is going to
significantly outperformed those in the control be in the movie?” or “do you learn in what historical
group on comprehension. In a subsequent study, period the movie will take place?” Then the teacher
fifth-grade students were taught to apply CSR by asks them to skim information such as headings,
trained classroom teachers during English as a pictures, and words that are bolded or underlined
Second Language (ESL) science classes (Klingner & to determine (a) what they know about the topic
Vaughn, 2000). Students significantly increased and (b) what they think they will learn by reading
their vocabulary from pre- to post-testing. Further- the text.
more, students in CSR groups spent greater
 Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR): Improving Secondary Students’ Reading Comprehension Skills • 3

Click and Clunk. Click and clunk is Practitioner Perspectives

a strategy that teaches students to
monitor their understanding during Marty Hougen, Ph.D., is the supervisor of dyslexia services for the
reading, and to use fix-up strategies Austin Independent School District in Austin, TX. She agreed to be
when they realize their failure to under- interviewed on her experiences with CSR.
stand text. The teacher describes a click
as something that “you really get. You On getting started . . .
know it just clicks.” After students We started with a team of sixth-grade teachers teaching English,
understand, the teacher explains a clunk: ESL, Special Education, Math, Social Studies, and Science. The
“A clunk is like when you run into a next year we trained the seventh-grade teachers so that students
brick wall. You just really don’t under- would have the opportunity to use the same strategy again.
stand a word the author is using. That’s a
On the need for teacher support . . .
clunk.” Then, the teacher reads a short We found that the teachers needed a great deal of support to
piece aloud and asks students to listen begin to use the strategy. We met with them weekly, at the
carefully for clunks. The teacher asks beginning, and then biweekly after that. We also modeled lessons
students to write down their clunks and in their classrooms and had problem-solving sessions with indi-
then teaches fix-up strategies to figure vidual teachers.
out the clunks. The teacher can use
“clunk cards” (see Materials for detailed On what works . . .
description) as reminders of fix-up Most of our content-area teachers have had very little training in
strategies. how to teach reading. So, they go to a workshop and get dozens
Get the gist. Get the gist is a strategy of prereading strategies, some during-reading strategies, and all
to help students identify main ideas these wonderful things to do after the students read. Then they
during reading. One way to identify the get back to their classrooms and they’re so overwhelmed that they
main idea is to answer the following don’t use any of the strategies or they use a different one every
questions: (a) “who or what is it about?” day and the students don’t see any consistency. CSR gives teach-
and (b) “what is most important about ers just a couple of prereading strategies, a couple of during-
the who or what?” In addition, students reading strategies and a couple of after-reading strategies so that
are taught to limit their response to ten students use the same strategies every time they read. The stu-
words or less, so that their gist conveys dents use the same strategies over and over. They internalize the
the most important idea(s), but not strategies, generalize use of the strategies to other classes, and
unnecessary details. become more active, independent readers. That’s what works.
Get the gist can be taught by focusing
On what administrators can do . . .
on one paragraph at a time. While
The principal has to actively support the teachers by seeing that
students read the paragraph, the teacher
they get the training and actually use the strategies. When I say
asks them to identify the most important
actively support, I mean publicly too— at parent meetings,
person, place, or thing. Then the teacher
school board meetings, faculty meetings, and assemblies for
asks students to tell what is most impor-
students. Our administration kept saying: “This is what we’re
tant about the person, place, or thing.
going to do and we’re going to support you while you’re learning
Finally, the teacher teaches students to
to do this.”
put it all together in a sentence contain-
ing ten words or less. On what teachers say . . .
Wrap up. Wrap up is a strategy that At first one of our teachers said, “If these kids can’t read by the
teaches students to generate questions time they’re in seventh grade then forget it. I’m a science teacher
and to review important ideas in the text not a reading teacher.” And now, after using CSR, he introduces
they have read. Wrap up consists of two himself as a reading teacher who also teaches science!
activities: (a) generating questions, and
(b) reviewing.

3
4 • National Center on Secondary Education and Transition Research to Practice Brief

A teacher initially teaches students to wrap up by materials having themes and supporting details,
telling students to pretend they are teachers and to (c) reading materials consisting of several para-
think of questions they would ask on a test. The graphs, and (d) reading materials containing
teacher suggests the following question starters: who, clues/pictures for predicting (Texas Center for
what, when, where, why, and how. The teacher also Reading and Language Arts, 2000).
encourages students to generate some questions that 2. Clunk cards. Each of the four clunk cards con-
require an answer involving higher-lever thinking tains one fix-up strategy. Fix-up strategies
skills, rather than literal recall. Finally, the teacher included in the clunk cards are: (a) reread the
asks students to write down the most important sentence with the clunk and look for key ideas
ideas from the day’s reading assignment. to help you figure out the word — think about
what makes sense, (b) reread the sentences
Phase 2. Cooperative Learning Group or before and after the clunk looking for clues, (c)
Student Pairing look for a prefix or suffix in the word that might
Once students have learned the four strategies help, and (d) break the word apart and look for
(preview, click and clunk, get the gist, and wrap up) smaller words that you know.
and have developed proficiency applying them in 3. Cue cards. Cue cards outline the procedures to
teacher-led activities, they are ready to apply CSR in be followed in a cooperative learning group.
their peer-led cooperative learning groups. Some They remind students of each step of CSR for
teachers find it easier to have students work in pairs each role. Each role comes with a corresponding
and that has also proven to be a successful practice. cue card that explains the steps to be followed to
Procedures for using in groups are outlined below. fulfill that role (see Figure 1 for a sample cue
Set the stage. First, the teacher assigns students to card for a CSR leader).
groups. Each group should include about four
students of varying ability. Then, the teacher assigns 4. Learning log. CSR learning logs serve two roles:
roles to students. Roles should rotate on a regular (a) written documentation of learning, assuring
basis so that students can experience a variety of the individual accountability that facilitates
roles. Possible roles include the following: cooperative learning, and (b) study guides for
1. Leader: Tells the group what to read next and students (see Figure 2 for a sample CSR
what strategy to use next. learning log).
2. Clunk Expert: Uses clunk cards to remind the 5. Timer (optional). Timers that students set by
group of the steps to follow when trying to themselves can help groups to remain on task.
figure out the meaning of their clunk(s). 6. Score card (optional). The scorekeeper in a group
3. Gist Expert: Guides the group toward getting the follows a cue card to find out when to award
gist and determines that the gist contains the points, and records these points on a score card.
most important idea(s) but no unnecessary Process. The basic steps to apply CSR in a
details. cooperative learning group are as follows:
4. Announcer: Calls on group members to read a Step 1: Whole class introduction. The teacher intro-
passage or share an idea. duces the topic, teaches key vocabulary, and
provides instructions.
Materials. The following materials may be
helpful as a teacher assists students to use CSR and Step 2: Cooperative group activity during preview,
cooperative learning techniques (Klingner, Vaughn, click and clunk, get the gist, and wrap up). Each
Dimino, Schumm, & Bryant, 2001). group member plays an assigned role and fills
1. Reading materials. When selecting reading out a CSR learning log during the activity.
materials for CSR, the following factors are Step 3: Whole class wrap up strategy. A teacher
recommended for consideration: (a) reading discusses the day’s reading passage, reviews
materials at students’ instructional level, which clunks, answers questions, or shares some
generally refers to students being able to decode review ideas.
about 80% of the words correctly, (b) reading
 Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR): Improving Secondary Students’ Reading Comprehension Skills • 5

5
Figure 1: CSR Leader’s Cue Card

Before Reading During Reading After Reading

Preview Read Wrap up

Today’ s topic is _____. Who would like to read the Now let’ s generate some
next section? questions to check if we really
Let’ s brainstorm everything we understood what we read.
already know about the topic Click and Clunk Remember to start your
and write it on your learning Did everyone understand what questions with who, when,
logs. we read? If you did not, write what, where, why, or how.
your clunks in your learning Everyone, write your questions
Who would like to share their logs. in your learning logs.
best ideas?
[If someone has a clunk] Clunk Who would like to share their
Now let’ s predict. Look at the Expert, please help us out. best question?
title, pictures, and headings and
think about what you think we Get the Gist In your learning logs, let’ s write
will learn today. Write your It’ s time to Get the Gist. Gist down as much as we can about
ideas in your learning logs. Expert, please help us out. what we learned today.

Who would like to share their Go back and repeat all of the Let’ s go around the group and
best ideas? steps in this column over for each share something we
each section that is read. learned.

Compliments and
Suggestions
The Encourager has been
watching carefully and will now
tell us two things we did really
well as a group today.

Is there anything that would

help us do even better next
time?

Adapted from Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts. (2000). Professional development guide:
Enhancing reading comprehension for secondary students-part II. Austin, TX: Texas Center for Reading
and Language Arts.
6 • National Center on Secondary Education and Transition Research to Practice Brief

Figure 2: CSR Learning Log

Name: _________________________________ Date: ______________________________

Brainstorm: What do you already know about this Predict: What do you think you will learn by
topic? reading this passage?

Clunks: Please list your Clunks.

The Gist (main idea): Write the Gist of the section you read.

Make questions: Make questions about main ideas. Review: Write something important they learned.

Adapted from Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts. (2000). Professional development guide:
Enhancing reading comprehension for secondary students-part II. Austin, TX: Texas Center for Reading
and Language Arts. For use in the classroom, this figure should be expanded to fill an entire page.

Role of the teacher. During the cooperative

group activity, the teacher’s role is to circulate References
among the groups, clarifying clunks, modeling Alfassi, M. (1998). Reading for meaning: The
strategy usage, modeling cooperative learning efficacy of reciprocal teaching in fostering read-
techniques, redirecting students to remain on-task, ing comprehension in high school students in
and providing assistance. remedial reading classes. American Educational
Research Journal 35(2), 309-322.
Conclusion Bryant, D. P., Vaughn, S., Linan-Thompson, S.,
Collaborative Strategic Reading is an approach that Ugel, N., Hamff, A., & Hougen, M. (2000).
works well in mixed-ability classrooms and helps Reading outcomes for students with and without
students improve their reading comprehension. CSR reading disabilities in general education middle-
can be implemented in a subject-area classroom, school content area classes. Learning Disability
such as science or social studies, to improve student Quarterly, 23(3), 24-38.
comprehension of expository text. It takes time to Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (1987). Learning
teach the CSR strategies, but students benefit by together and alone (2nd ed.). Englewood Cliffs,
developing skills enabling them to better understand NJ: Prentice-Hall.
the material in their reading assignments. An addi- Klingner, J. K. & Vaughn, S. (1996). Reciprocal
tional benefit is the development of skills related to teaching of reading comprehension strategies for
working in groups. students with learning disabilities who use
 Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR): Improving Secondary Students’ Reading Comprehension Skills • 7

English as a second language. The Elementary Instruction, 1(2), 117-175.

School Journal, 96(3), 275-293. Texas Center for Reading and Language Arts (2000).
Klingner, J. K. & Vaughn, S. (1998). Using Col- Professional development guide: Enhancing reading
laborative Strategic Reading. Teaching Exceptional comprehension for secondary students-part II.
Children, 30(6), 32-37. Available: http:// Austin, TX: Texas Center for Reading and
www.ldonline.org/ld_indepth/ Language Arts.
teaching_techniques/collab_reading.html Vaughn, S., Chard, D., Bryant, D. P., Coleman, M.,
Klingner, J. K. & Vaughn, S. (1999). Promoting Tyler, B., Thompson, S., & Kouzekanani, K.
reading comprehension, content learning, and (2000). Fluency and comprehension interven-
English acquisition through Collaborative tions for third-grade students: Two paths to
Strategic Reading (CSR). The Reading Teacher, improved fluency. Remedial and Special Educa-
52(7), 738-747. tion, 21(6), 325-335.
Klingner, J. K., & Vaughn, S. (2000). The helping Vaughn, S., Klingner, J. K., & Bryant, D. P. (2001).
behaviors of fifth graders while using collabora- Collaborative strategic reading as a means to
tive strategic reading during ESL content classes. enhance peer-mediated instruction for reading
TESOL Quarterly, 34(1), 69-98. comprehension and content area learning.
Klingner, J. K., Vaughn, S., Dimino, J., Schumm, J. Remedial and Special Education, 22(2), 66-74.
S., & Bryant, D. (2001). From clunk to click:
Collaborative Strategic Reading. Longmont, CO: Resources
Sopris West.
Enhancing Reading Fluency and
Klingner, J. K., Vaughn, S., Hughes, M. T.,
Reading Comprehension for Secondary
Schumm, J. S., & Elbaum, B. (1998). Outcomes
Students - Parts I & II
for students with and without learning disabili- http://www.texasreading.org/tcrla/publications/second-
ties in inclusive classrooms, Learning Disabilities ary/secondary_fluency.htm
Research & Practice, 13(3), 153-161. These CSR professional development manuals (in
Klingner, Vaughn, & Schumm (1998). Collabora- pdf format) explain CSR implementation in detail.
tive strategic reading during social studies in Part II addresses implementing CSR with students
heterogeneous fourth-grade classrooms. The in special education.
Elementary School Journal, 99(1), 3-22.
From clunk to click: Collaborative
Lenz, B. K., Schumaker, J. B., Deshler, D. D., &
Strategic Reading
Beals, V. L. (1984). Learning strategies curricu-
Klingner, J. K., Vaughn, S., Dimino, J., Schumm, J.
lum: The word-identification strategy. Lawrence:
S., & Bryant, D. (2001). Longmont, CO: Sopris West.
University of Kansas.
This book includes lesson plans for the CSR strate-
Lysynchuk, L., Pressley, M. & Vye, N. (1990). gies, ideas for whole-class activities, and reproducible
Reciprocal teaching improves standardized materials. The final chapter focuses on using CSR
reading-comprehension performance in poor with secondary students.
comprehenders. The Elementary School Journal,
90(5), 469-484.
Mathes, P.G., Fuchs, D., Fuchs, L. S., Henley, A.
M., & Sanders, A. (1994). Increasing strategic
reading practice with Peabody classwide peer
tutoring. Learning Disabilities Research & Prac-
tice, 9, 44-48.
Palincsar, A.M., & Brown, A.L. (1984). Reciprocal
teaching of comprehension-fostering and com-
prehension-monitoring activities. Cognition and
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Education and Transition
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