Many years ago, I stumble upon a book by Betty Edwards called, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Although the rightside, leftside of the brain is now contested, Betty demonstrated that you can teach what is often considered by many teachers to be unteachable.

Betty identified four or five skills or strategies used by people who can draw and she made these skills explicit to non drawers. These simple skills can transform most people into artists. What do artitsts do that non drawers need to master in order to become masters.

Edwards claims that in four or five hours she can transform a basic sketcher to a competent draughsman as seen in the images above. One area of my enquiry is how to make the teaching of reading skills advance at a similar pase to Edward's drawing skills.

A focus for my enquiry is to look at ways in which I can make reading skills more explicit and achievable for Year 9 students. Even when reading tasks are supported with scaffolding, students often seem very reluctant to take risks, to commit themselves to a written response. The first question for the secondary teacher to ask is, what skills do competent readers use which less able readers need to master?

A starting point for helping helping students improve their comprehension skills needs to be based on these few simple skills. Lesson design around texts needs to incorporate meta-awareness on improving comprehension. Teachers need to help students to take control of reading tasks by helping them fix comprehension when meaning breaks down, by developing variable reading speeds and by developing awareness of 'fix it' strategies.