Click & Clunk

A Self-Monitoring Strategy for Reading

Jordan, 2011

What does it mean to monitor someone or something?

• A heart monitor monitors your heart

• A teacher monitors her classroom

• A lunch monitor monitors a cafeteria

• A police officer monitors a town or community

Merriam-Webster Dictionary Definition

Monitor (verb) = to watch, keep track of, or check (usually for a

special purpose)

What does it mean to monitor our reading?

• To keep track of the words we read and what they mean

• To be active readers and pay attention to when we are understanding (or failing to understand )

• To identify where comprehension “breakdowns” so we can go back and fix up our understanding!

What is Click & Clunk?

• “Click & Clunk” is a tool for self-monitoring our comprehension

• When we understand what we are reading, everything CLICKS into place

• Sometimes we hit a CLUNK – a word, phrase, or idea that is a point of confusion – and we need to repair it so it becomes a CLICK

Pssst….… even the best readers run into clunks now and then in

their reading!

“Click”

• You UNDERSTAND what you’re reading • You can read all the words and can summarize

what you’ve read so far• You don’t need to stop…

Continue Reading!

“Clunk”

• You DO NOT UNDERSTAND what you’re reading

• You are stuck on a word, sentence, or paragraph

• You need to stop and go back to fix your understanding…

Stop & Fix until it CLICKS!

How do we repair our “Clunks”?

Decide if it is a comprehension or a decoding clunk, then use…

Comprehension Fix-Up Strategies

Decoding (Word Attack) Fix-Up Strategies

How do we know if it’s a Comprehension “Clunk”?

• At the end of a sentence, ask yourself: – “Did I understand this sentence?”

• At the end of a paragraph, ask yourself: – “What did the paragraph say?”

• At the end of a page, ask yourself:– “What do I remember?”

Use Jim Wright’s “My Reading Check Sheet” or Comprehension Fix-Up strategies if you are

unable to answer these questions easily!

Comprehension Fix-Up Strategies

Try going back and rereading first!

Other Strategies: • Read Ahead! (then come back)• Adjust reading pace (slow down!)• Use text features (pictures, drawings, charts,

tables, diagrams, etc.) • Use context clues (sentence or paragraph)

How do we know if it’s a Decoding “Clunk”?

Try the challenging word and ask yourself:

“Does it look right?”“Does it sound right?” “Does it make sense?”

Decoding Fix-Up Strategies

• Get your mouth ready with the first sound• Plug in a word that makes sense (use context

clues and background knowledge)• Skip the word and read ahead (go back and

plug in one that makes sense)• Look for familiar word parts (prefix, suffix,

root words)• Break the word up and look for familiar word

chunks (“chunk it out”)• Sound it out

Self-monitoring is a continuous process or cycle during reading!

THINK

“Am I understanding what I’m reading?”

(Can you sum up what you’ve read so

far?)

READRead until you reach a stopping point or

you identify a “clunk”

STOP or GOIf you clunk, fix it up!

If you click, keep on going.

Let’s Try It!

• Everyone has a cell phone these days. They are ubiquitous but I don’t have one yet. Their use in movie theaters and restaurants is disconcerting.

• Street racing is unlawful and very dangerous. Police officers are always watching for street racers.

• There were a plethora of ice cream choices and I had a hard time choosing.

Let’s Try It! (cont.)

• The firemen rushed to the scene in their tricycles. At the scene of the fire, they pulled out the big houses from the truck and painted the house in the direction of the fire.

• The firemen rushed to the scene in their fire trucks. At the scene of the fire, they pulled out the big hoses from the truck and pointed the hose in the direction of the fire.

The Bigger Picture

• The strategy of “Click & Clunk” is part of a bigger goal: STRATEGIC READING

• Good readers use many strategies to actively read and think about a text

• Click & Clunk, along with “Sum It Up!”, are smaller strategies within a larger cycle of strategies that all good readers apply during reading!