Transactional instruction of comprehension strategies: The montgomery county, maryland, sail program

A comprehension strategies instruction program called Students Achieving Independent Learning (SAIL) is described. In SAIL, strategies teaching is long term and complex, with students taught to coordinate traditional memory and comprehension strategies with interpretive processes. Consistent with reader‐response theories, we refer to this approach as transactional strategies instruction because student‐teacher‐text transactions are the heart of daily teaching. How such teaching differs with student experience in the program is illustrated by discussing SAIL instruction in Grade 1, Grade 2, and Grade 4 lessons. We highlight the unique features of SAIL by comparing it with the comprehension strategies instruction encouraged in some contemporary basal series.