List of Traits that Good Readers Do

1. Pre-read material. Skim, look at headings, pictures, and read questions at end of chapter.

2. Read a variety of materials.

3. Reading is thinking: Analyze, question, summarize, rephrase, understand, and clarify material.

4. Be active while you’re reading: Take notes, highlight material, and circle words you don’t know.

5. Connect with the story. Be involved. Create connections from the text to yourself, text to other text, and text to the world.

6. Visualize the material. See images in your head.

7. Have the right tools including eye glasses, lighting, and a quiet place to read.

8. Be able to figure out the main points, moral, and what is important.

9. Work on strategies for text you don’t know: Think, sound out words, break up a long word into smaller pieces, get meaning for unfamiliar words by the surrounding context, look up unfamiliar words, skip an unknown word, notice patterns in text organization, speed up or slow down, reread, and retell or reflect in writing what you’ve read.

10. Continue the story or article. Ask what might happen next. For a non-fiction article, think about the implications of what you read and continue reading about the subject.

11. Have a purpose for reading.

12. Share information, discuss, and derive meaning with others.

13. Read at different speeds depending on your purpose for reading and the material.

14. Enjoy reading. Find what you like to read.

15. Have been read to. Read to others, especially those younger.

16. Select appropriate reading.