What does this skill do?

Reading Comprehension Strategy Selector is an open-source education skill for literacy and critical thinking. Instead of defaulting to "use all the strategies," it selects two to three strategies matched to a specific text's demands and the reader challenge students actually face.

It draws on comprehension research — predicting, questioning, monitoring and clarifying, visualising, making connections, and summarising — and returns an explicit teaching plan: recommended strategies with rationale, a before/during/after implementation guide, a teacher think-aloud modelling script, and common strategy pitfalls.

  • Matches strategies to the text structure, content density, and inference demands

  • Sequences explicit instruction: teacher models, guided practice, independent use

  • Produces a think-aloud modelling script grounded in the actual text

  • Flags pitfalls so strategies stay a scaffold for thinking, not a worksheet task

How it works

1

Describe the text and challenge

The teacher provides the text description, the specific comprehension difficulty students face, and the year group and reading level.

2

Select matched strategies

The skill picks two to three strategies that directly address the challenge — for example questioning for inference or summarising for dense, multi-idea texts.

3

Plan explicit instruction

It builds a before, during, and after reading guide with teacher modelling, guided practice, and gradual release to independent application.

4

Model and check

It generates a think-aloud modelling script grounded in the text and flags pitfalls so strategy use serves comprehension rather than becoming a compliance task.

Best use cases for this skill

  • Targeted reading support: Choose the right strategies when students struggle with a specific text instead of applying every strategy at once.

  • Explicit strategy instruction: Get a before/during/after plan with teacher modelling, guided practice, and independent application.

  • Cross-subject reading: Adapt strategy selection to history, science, and other subjects where reading demands differ.

  • Teacher modelling: Produce a think-aloud script that shows the thinking process, not just the strategy label.

Frequently asked questions

What is the Reading Comprehension Strategy Selector?

It is an open-source education skill that selects evidence-based reading comprehension strategies matched to a specific text and reader challenge, then provides an explicit teaching plan and a teacher modelling script.

How does it help build comprehension skills?

It matches strategies such as predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarising to the exact difficulty a text presents, and sequences explicit instruction so students learn to apply them independently.

Who is this skill for?

It is designed for teachers and education agents supporting intermediate readers who can decode fluently but need targeted help making meaning from a text.

Is this an official Buda skill?

No. This is a community-authored open-source skill from GarethManning that can be used with Buda agents through the external source workflow.

Use from source

Ask your Buda agent to install this community skill.

Copy this prompt into your own Buda agent. It includes the source repository and install command so the agent can complete the setup in natural language.

Prompt to send to your Buda agent
Please install the "Reading Comprehension Strategy Selector" skill into this Buda agent.

Source repository: https://github.com/GarethManning/education-agent-skills
Install command: npx skills add GarethManning/education-agent-skills --skill reading-comprehension-strategy-selector -y -a universal

Please run the install command, verify the skill is available, and tell me any setup notes or follow-up steps from the source repository.
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Install workflow

  1. 1Copy the prompt
  2. 2Send it to your Buda agent
  3. 3Done