This resource explored the second tenet of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) – click & clunk – and its connection to Landmark’s 5th Teaching Principle, “Provide Models.” For the full text of the Landmark Teaching Principles™, including “Provide Models,” click here.

Click & Clunk is a strategy used during reading that allows students to monitor their own comprehension. While reading, students pause intermittently to determine if they understand the content. When they understand, the material is “clicking.” When they are having difficulty with the material, it is “clunking.” This process of determining clicks & clunks is ideal for providing models because teachers can demonstrate their own metacognitive¹ thinking and reading comprehension. A teacher can model self-monitoring comprehension by reading a passage aloud and saying “click” or “clunk” at the end of each portion of text. If it is a “clunk,” s/he identifies what made it “clunk” and identifies a strategy to make it “click.” For instance, if the teacher gets to the end of a section (or sentence) and says,”clunk,” s/he then models what to do next: s/he might say, “That word doesn’t make sense. I think I should go back and re-read.” From that point on, the teacher can guide the students to practice the process of determining fix-it strategies for when material “clunks” for them. The students can then employ these strategies with increasing independence.

¹Metacognition means thinking about thinking.