South Pacific Press :: CSI - Comprehension Strategies Instruction

"I learned that to truly visualize as you read, you must smell, feel, taste, and see the piece you are reading about."

- a Year 7 student

"My students are engaged in great conversation about using strategies to comprehend text."

- a Year 7 teacher

Download the CSI components chart here

CSI is distributed in the United States by Pacific Learning and in Australia by Lioncrest.

Help your students learn and apply comprehension strategies across the content areas!

CSI – Comprehension Strategies Instruction is a literacy resource for teaching comprehension strategies and improving vocabulary, fluency, and oral language in elementary school classrooms. CSI incorporates English language arts, math, science, and social studies literacy.

CSI is founded on evidence-based principles that are known to increase student achievement so that:

All students, no matter what their independent reading level, learn comprehension strategies and improve their literacy achievement using short, grade-level texts, teacher scaffolding, peer interaction, and audiovisual support.

All students learn comprehension strategies by experiencing new concepts more than three times over a short period and through modeling and think-aloud, interaction, reflection, and application of concepts. For this purpose, CSI is highly interactive.

All students are engaged by interesting, relevant, and authentic texts and tasks across four content areas and are encouraged to be increasingly responsible for their progress as they learn the literacy strategies vital for their success.

CSI's Rich Learning Model

Whole-Group Instruction

Every CSI whole-group text is supported by a comprehension strategy overview and lesson plan for the teacher as well as activities for the students. Lesson plans are intended to empower teachers and can be varied to suit teaching and learning preferences.

Cooperative Practice

Every student cooperative text is supported with an audio recording so that ELLs and struggling readers can access the grade-level text being used to reinforce the comprehension strategy following the whole-group instruction.

Individual Application

With the reflection journal, students read and think their way through texts throughout the school year and revisit the strategies many times to deepen their understanding and improve their comprehension. They apply the comprehension strategies, singly and in combination, on content-area texts and in their personal reading. Students write in their journals to record their developing understanding of strategies and when and how to use them to comprehend a wide range of texts.