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Good readers understand the reasons they are reading, consciously choose different strategies for different reading tasks, and monitor their comprehension as they work.

Good readers are readers who think about the purposes for reading before they start, putting the reading into context, and who think about the strategies they use as they read. Good readers do most of the following:

• Good readers wade in, instead of diving. They consider the purpose and context of the reading they are doing before they start, and they choose strategies that suit those purposes and contexts. They read with purpose, letting that purpose shape their choices of reading strategies. They consider the context, asking questions about the writer, the writer's purposes, and how those purposes intersect with their own, using these pre-reading activities to get the big picture, before they start their line-by-line, in-depth reading.
• Good readers write while they read, and talk back to the text. Good readers use active reading strategies while they read, questions, margin notes, or summaries as they go, to get the most out of their line-by-line reading.
• Good readers often re-read, and consider that re-reading a normal part of their critical reading process, not something that isn't fast enough. But they don't simply read a second time; they consider what steps should come next; they review, re-read, and use post-reading strategies to clarify meaning and check their comprehension.
• Good readers strategize—that is, they think about the thinking they are doing, why they are doing it, what their specific goals are, and whether they are reaching them, as they read.

Thinking about your purposes and strategies before you start reading, taking notes and talking back to the reading as you read, and considering what you have accomplished and what steps should come next are all metacognitive acts; when you choose to use these strategies, you are thinking about thinking.

Research shows that being aware of how you read and understand the material will make you a better reader (Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002). Good readers show evidence of the kind metacognitive reading strategies like the ones in this resource; using these strategies to become more aware of the thinking you do while reading may increase the efficiency of your reading overall.

You may already use some of these strategies, as well. Start thinking about your thinking now: What do you do well when you read? Do you already use pre-reading or reviewing strategies? What else do you well?