Teaching Comprehension Strategies in ABE and GED Reading and Math Instruction

1
Teaching Comprehension Strategies in ABE and GED
Reading and Math Instruction

• Presented by Charlie Love
• charlie_at_durangoaec.org
• Durango Adult Education Center

2
Overview

• The components of reading
• Ideas for improving reading ability
• How these ideas can be applied in mathematics
  instruction
• A deeper look at comprehension strategies, for
  reading and math

3
Motivation
Comprehension
Five Components of Reading
Phonology
Vocabulary
Fluency
Each component can limit the progress of the
others.
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Increasing Motivation

• Silent Sustained Reading (SSR)
• High interest materials
• Student choice
• Real-world applicationmake it relevant
• parenting topics
• health
• Select level-appropriate materials (generally no
  more than 5 difficult words per page)
• difficult unable to decode independently or
  not in students vocabulary

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Increasing Fluency

• Instructor modeling (teacher reads aloud)
• Chunking (see handout)
• Timed reading, chart results (wpm)
• Choose level-appropriate materials (no more than
  5 difficult words per page)
• Lots of reading practice, silent and oral
• Read the same passage several times to increase
  speed

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Boosting Phonology (Decoding) Skills

• Phonemic Awareness
• Phonemic awareness is the ability to register and
  compare the number and sequence of sounds within
  spoken words
• Provides a foundation for understanding phonics
• Lack of phonemic awareness is an underlying cause
  of many reading disorders
• Lindamood Phoneme Sequencing (LiPS) is a
  commercial program that develops phonemic
  awareness
• Wilson Reading System, Orton-Gillingham
• Phonics texts and/or programs
• Morphology (word parts)
• Dictionary work

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Building Vocabulary

• Using context clues
• Dictionary activities, practice
• Structural analysis, word parts
• Selecting target words
• Strategy building words
• High frequency words
• Words that lack context clues
• Vocabulary cards

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Improving Comprehension

• Pre-teach vocabulary (limit to a few words)
• Skim text--headings, bold words, pictures,
  captions, and graphic information
• Encourage students to engage in reading by
  applying Strategies to Improve Comprehension
  (see handout)
• Discuss cognitive processes
• Explain importance of being an active reader
• Provide bookmarks as a prompt and reminder
• Model and practice each strategy

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Strategies to Improve Comprehension

1. Visualize
2. Relate
3. Summarize
4. Form Questions
5. Predict
6. Infer
7. Metacognition

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Visualize- in reading

• Visualizing and Verbalizing program
• Structure words (see handout)
• What
• Where
• Etc.
• An activity- Forest Fire
• Visualize a word, phrase, sentence, paragraph,
  and eventually a passage

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Visualize- in math

• Word problems and graphics tell a story
• Compare to a movie or TV show
• Characters
• Setting place and time
• Plot or action
• Relate- whenever possible, imagine characters
  and a setting that are familiar and personal
• Ask students to verbalize their images

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Relate- in reading

• Compare info being read to personal experiences
  and knowledge
• Rationale for accessing prior knowledge
• Dendrites
• Another method of engagement, additional
  cognitive processing
• File cabinet metaphor

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Summarize- in reading

• Try with video clip, movie (watch previews)
• Lots of textbook activities available
• Leave the room, come in and ask what theyre
  reading (explain in one sentence)

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Summarize- in math

• What is the word problem asking (paraphrase the
  question)
• Analyzing a graph (math, science, soc. stud.)
• Title (characters)
• Axis (setting)
• Trend (plot)
• Make a statement that covers all 3? this is the
  main idea of the graph

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Form questions- in reading

• Group activities question cubes, question
  spinner, pull names out of a hat, spin the
  bottle, 20 questions
• Individual write a question for each paragraph
  as you read, stump sitting
• Getting an answer to the question is not
  important, increased engagement is important
• Laughing Quadruplets video

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Form questions- in math

• Do I need all of this information?
• What operation will I perform?
• Is my answer logical? In the ballpark?
• Questions about the characters, setting, plot in
  a word problem

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Predict- in reading

• Make predictions at the end of each paragraph-
  deemphasize predicting correctly
• Sink or float activity
• Nightmare in Yellow

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Predicting- in math

• Estimate before calculating.
• Other ideas?

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Infer- in reading

• Define inference and implication
• Pantomime an emotion
• Role-play a scenario
• Dont want to go on a date
• Dont like the food
• A poetry activity What does the poet imply about
  Christopher Columbus? What can you infer?

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Infer- in math

• Deciding how to set up and solve a problem- which
  information is relevant, which operation to use

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Metacognition- in reading

• Traffic signs and signals- encourages
  metacognition and summarizing
• Metacognition- in math
• Encourage students to read a problem several
  times before attempting to solve, noticing the
  information they acquire with each reading