What good readers do...

Have a look at these classroom activities to help children learn to think about their thinking and the strategies they use to solve problems :

making animal creations from playdoh
http://www.wested.org/stratlit/ideas/animalcreations.shtml

and identifying what good readers do...
http://www.wested.org/stratlit/ideas/readingprocess.shtml

Reading and comprehension strategies

Here is a link to an interesting book Independent Reading Inside the Box by Lisa Donohue aimed at primary school teachers about strategies to enhance students' comprehension, language and thinking skills while they are reading.

The box refers to a one page template with 8 boxes in a table, each with a useful strategy to "dig deeper" into reading.

You can read the whole book online for free, and download each chapter and the templates as PDFs. Preview the entire book

These sort of activities do not take the place of pure reading for pleasure, the FVR (Free Voluntary Reading) which Stephen Krashen talks about, and there is a risk when a book is too analysed that it loses all spontaneity, but we know that the key to becoming a life-long reader is beyond decoding to make meaning, and with comprehension come the rewards of reading...

Independent reading inside the box by Lisa Donohue, Pembroke 2008 ISBN: 978-155138-225-8