Collaborative strategic reading (CSR) can be used before, during and after reading. This reading strategy encourages collaborative learning among students and promote participation for purposeful and meaningful discussions. The aim of this reading strategy is to help students develop confidence and self-monitoring strategies in dealing with the text with unfamiliar language and make connections. 

How did I set it up?
I created an excel sheet and shared with students. (See example here: http://goo.gl/v8bbfo)
Explicit instructions of four reading steps, including Preview, Click and Clunk, Get the gist, and Wrap up, were given to students. We discussed the purposes for reading at different stages and the function of each step serves. Additionally, we also talked about why it's important not to rely on the use of dictionaries when encountering with unfamiliar vocabulary. 

Resources
This article, Using Collaborative Strategic Reading, gives a very clear explanation regarding the four reading comprehension steps (strategies) and provides guidance regarding the actual implementation. 
I have also modified the strategies to decode Clunk words for my Mandarin students. Please see the poster below. 

What do students mean when they say "I understand."? I often ask students "Do you understand the text?" and they usually answer with a "Yes." However, when they are asked to explain by giving examples, it is usually challenging for some of them to articulate their thoughts or identify details from the text to support their opinions and ideas. Occasionally, there might be new students joining in my Mandarin class during the school year. They often told me that they have been learning Mandarin for X number of years, but they are not able to read or don't even know how to form questions. Learning how to ask good questions and searching for answers is such an important skill for students to develop. The questioning process not only provides students with an opportunity to test their understanding of what they read, but also allows them to exchange information and learn more from discussions. 

Being bilingual is not just about being able to speak an additional language. It also means that second language learners should be bi-literate and bi-cultural. Students need to be taught explicitly how to monitor their understanding of the texts in the target language. Most importantly, in order for transformative language learning and intercultural understanding to happen, they must learn how to ask high order thinking questions to connect with the author, the text, and their own experience. Learning questioning techniques enables students to develop their thinking skills and help them refine their language skills as they are constantly asked to extend their responses by providing examples and/or details. This is also a great formative assessment tool for teachers to monitor students' level of understanding of the content through reading and thus enhance the inquiry-based learning. We must equip students with strategies and teach them how to read on the lines, read between the lines, and read beyond the lines. 

Q.A.R stands for Question－Answer Relationship. In my opinion, it is an effective reading strategy to help students take a deep dive into the reading texts by asking questions and providing answers. Questions are categorized into four different types and levels: Right There, Think and Search, Author and Me and On my own. There are different levels of thinking skills applied in this process. It is not uncommon for MYP language B teachers to spend hours and hours just to design a reading comprehension task. I have found that by using QAR strategy and follow some of the question prompts makes it easier and less time consuming. Additionally, using QAR questions to design reading comprehension tasks allows me to address all the strands required for the criterion of reading. 

Use Taxonomy verbs  to design questions and "push" students' to think further. The types of  questions shown below can be easily become QAR questions. Enjoy questioning and searching for answers! 

Lino allows users to post digital sticky notes on a virtual cork-board. Users can share ideas by posting texts, images, videos, links, and any type of files to the sticky notes. Sticky notes come with different colors. Users can change the color and the size of the font. Additionally, the size of the sticky notes can be altered and tagged. The tag function permits users to search among stick notes. It also allows user to set due dates on the sticky notes.  The Canvas can be made public or set for private use. Users can access Lino on iOS and Windows operating systems. Apps are also available for iOS and Android phones or tablets. 

Lino provides a virtual environment for people to brainstorm ideas, solutions, and other type of collaborative projects. I am going to focus on using Lino to teach explicit reading comprehension strategies. Using sticky notes  to teach reading comprehension skills is not a new idea. However, by using multi-media sticky notes, we: 

• help students to visualize their thinking; 
• deepen students's understanding of the text and allow them to make connections by texting, uploading images, files and videos to their sticky notes; 
• encouraging individual sharing and collaborative brainstorming;  
• set due dates for different tasks; 
• organize sticky notes with flexibility; 
• make the collaborative thinking process to be assessed anywhere, anytime on any device. 

• The teacher registers an account.  
• In order to post sticky notes in response to a topic, the user should create a Canvas first, which is like a bulletin board.
• Create a group for your class for easy class management and idea sharing. 

By using Lino's multi-media sticky notes and utilizing the sticky note colors, students practice to: 

• Share their prior knowledge and experience (scheme) before reading via the K-W-L activity; 
  
• Predict solutions to a problem presented in a text. 
• Infer by posting three different color sticky notes for What I read, What I know, and What I infer; 
• Create questions after reading. Students post four different color sticky notes when using the Question-Answer-Relastionshop (QAR) strategy: Right There Questions, Think and Search Questions, Author and Me Questions, and On My Own Questions. 
• Engage with an informational text by using the Text Coding strategy during reading. They create four different color sticky notes representing four different symbols. For example, "?" for Questions: I don't understand. I wonder..., "!" for important ideas; "V" for vocabulary that I can't work it out; “＊” I already knew this. For this activity, have students code the text individually prior posting sticky notes on Lino.  Teacher and students can create any symbol to code the text. 

• Question-Answer-Relatioship (QAR) strategy
• QAR question prompts 
• Text coding strategy  

• 7 Online Sticky Note Services for Students and Teachers