Module 8: Comprehension Evidence and Strategies

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Module 8ComprehensionEvidence and Strategies
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PPLSP Training Modules

• 1.      Introduction to the Five Components of
  Reading
• 2.      Introduction to the PPLSP and CBLA
• 3.      Instructional Strategies
• 4.      Phonemic Awareness Evidence and
  Strategies
• 5.      Phonics Evidence and Strategies
• 6.      Fluency Evidence and Strategies
• 7.      Vocabulary Evidence and Strategies
• 8.      Comprehension Evidence and Strategies
• 9.      Reading Strategies for Secondary Teachers
  in other Content Areas
• 10. Bodies of Evidence and a Process for
  Building the ILP

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Goals for this Module

• To increase background knowledge about
  comprehension
• To identify what you might look for and listen to
  when administering an assessment
• To provide best practices in comprehension
  instruction
• To provide effective skills to improve text
  comprehension

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A Scientific Experiment

• In the 1960s, an experiment was done using a
  spectrometer. This consists of a huge
  electromagnet about the size of a bus and some
  detectors. When electrons crash into a target
  nucleus, a spectrometer measures their angles and
  energies as they bounce away. The electrons do
  not strike solid protons. They are actually
  striking vibrating clusters of quarks. Each
  proton is a cluster of three quarks each neutron
  is too.

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Now answer the following

• When did the experiment take place?
• What device did the scientists use to conduct
  their experiment? Why was it useful?
• What could this device do?
• Why was the discovery so important to the field
  of science?

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Causes of Reading Comprehension Problems

• Unfamiliarity with text features task demands
• Undeveloped attention strategies
• Inadequate cognitive development reading
  experiences
• (Kameenui Simmons, 1990)

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Causes of Reading Difficulties

• Inadequate instruction
• Insufficient exposure and practice
• Deficient word recognition skills
• Deficient memory capacity functioning
• Significant language deficiencies
• Inadequate monitoring self-evaluation
• (Kameenui Simmons, 1990)

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What Is Comprehension?

• Intentional thinking during which meaning is
  constructed through interactions between text and
  reader.
• (National Reading Panel, 2000)
• Comprehension is the reason for reading.
• (Put Reading First, 2000)

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Good Readers

• Read actively with a purpose
• Think about what they are reading
• Make connections to what they already know
• Connect events to their own lives
• Apply their knowledge of vocabulary language to
  make sense of what they read

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Best Practices in Comprehension Instruction

• Model the strategy of think out loud frequently
• Instruct and encourage independent reading in a
  wide variety of genres
• Encourage rereading to clarify
• Model how to identify key words and concepts
• Demonstrate how to create visual images
• Show how to separate narrative reading strategies
  from expository techniques
• Set a purpose for reading to encourage
  engagement, schema activation, focus and recall
• Teach student how to create mental images, make
  connections
• Clarify concepts and difficult portions to avoid
  misconceptions
• Pose questions that encourage higher level
  thinking skills
• Model for students how to generate questions
  before, during and after reading text to increase
  metacognition as well as comprehension
• Scaffold inference instruction through explicit
  modeling, usage, practice and application

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Importance of Strategies
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Skill Areas Related to Comprehension

• Background Knowledge/Schema Activation
• Knowledge of Text Structure
• Cognitive Monitoring/Metacognition
• Retelling/Recalling
• Literal Comprehension
• Summarizing
• Inferential Comprehension
• Evaluative Comprehension
• (Pikes Peak Literacy Strategies
  Project, 2005)

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Difficulties with Background Knowledge / Schema
Activation

• Does not personalize connections to text
• Questions the possibility of connection
• Does not apply prior knowledge
• Lacks vocab/ideas/concepts to speak or explain
  extemporaneously given subject regarding text
• Makes faulty connections between what is thought
  read
• Offers literal, short retelling with little
  attention to detail, purpose, structure

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When administering an assessment, you might see
and hear

• Background Knowledge/Schema Activation
• Is the student
• --applying prior knowledge?
• --making predictions?
• --previewing the text?
• --making connections?
• --setting a purpose?

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Background Knowledge / Schema Activation
Strategies

• Making Predictions Using Background Knowledge
• Connections
• Text to Text
• Text to Self
• Text to World

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Difficulties With Knowledge of Text Structure

• Unable to set purpose for or understand the
  relevance of reading
• Relies on teacher to set purpose
• Unable to distinguish text types (narrative,
  expository)
• Lacks strategies to find info in text
• Locate main idea, supporting details, conclusion,
  skim scan, predicting

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Difficulties of Knowledge of Text Structure

• Unable to use text to unlock literal/inferential
  questions
• May not be able to identify cause effect
• May not utilize captions, interpret graphs,
  pictures to derive meaning
• Not able to identify parts of the text (story
  structurecharacters, setting, plot)
• Difficulty understanding story elements
• Difficulty understanding expository form

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Knowledge of Text Structure Strategies

• Understanding the structure of print
• Narrative form vs. Exposition form
• Graphic organizers
• - Focus on story structure and
• relationships
• - Aide students to learn how to read
• informational text

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Difficulties With Retelling/Recalling

• Cant recall what has been read or..
• May get the big picture even make inferences
  but cant remember..specifics even with literal
  questions
• Gives limited details with understanding of
  context
• Inability to connect significant details to
  meaning or outcome of reading
• Has difficulty or cannot utilize graphic
  organizers effectively

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When administering an assessment, you might see
and hear

• Retelling/Recalling
• Is the student
• --visualizing?
• --retelling what is read?

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Retelling/Recalling Strategies

• Imagery
• Mnemonic
• Drama
• SQ3R
• Survey, Question, Read, Recite and
• Review

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Difficulties with Summarizing /Literal
Comprehension

• Cannot differentiate between main idea/details
• May not identify key information in retelling
  and/or writing
• Unable to list or outline key ideas in topic
• Repeats or recall of info is scant
• Gaps of knowledge indicate lack of understanding
• Offers superfluous information
• Put information into their own words

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When administering an assessment, you might see
or hear

• Summarizing/Literal Comprehension
• Is the student
• --summarizing?
• --identifying main ideas and details?

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Summarizing/Literal Comprehension Strategies

• Main idea/details
• Collaborative strategic rereading
• Focus on getting the gist of the passage
• by working together to identify the most
• important ideas in a paragraph or section
  
• Summarize
• Hierarchical summary
• Includes headings and subheadings with 2-3
  supporting details from the text

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What is Metacognition?

• Thinking about thinking
• Utilized by good readers to think about and
  control over their reading
• Before reading, clarify purpose preview the
  text
• Monitor understanding adjust reading speed
  during reading of material
• Elliott-Faust Pressley (1986) as cited in
  NRP (2000)

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Difficulties With Cognitive Monitoring /
Metacognition

• Does not check own comprehension
• Lacking in outward signs of interacting with
  textconfusion, amusement, intensive study while
  reading
• Appears distracted no persistence in reading
• Does not ask questions about the text
• Rereading and/or self-correct is not present
• Cannot make connections
• Does not visualize what is being read

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When administering an assessment, you might see
and hear

• Cognitive Monitoring/Metacognition
• Is the student
• --actively engaged with the text?
• --self-correcting?
• --rereading?
• --generating answering questions?

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Cognitive Monitoring / Metacognition Strategies

• Question/Answer Relationship (QAR)
• Right there
• Think and Search
• Author and You
• On My Own
• Click Clunk
• Quick check of students comprehension
• --Thumbs up for clickcomprehension
• --Thumbs down for clunk
• misunderstanding

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Asking/Answering Questions

• Teacher questioning strongly supports advances
  students learning from reading
• Provides a purpose for reading
• Focuses on what they need to learn
• Encourages students to monitor their own
  comprehension through modeling
• (Put Reading First, 2000)

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Effective questions improve learning by

• Providing a purpose for reading
• Focusing attention on what they need to learn
• Helping students actively think as they read
• Encouraging students to monitor their
  comprehension
• Reviewing content relating what they have
  learned to what they already know

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Questioning

• Predicting
• - What might happen now?
• - What do you think might happen next?
  What are the clues?
• - What is the result going to be and how do
  you know?
• Inferring
• - What leads you to believe that ____?
• - How does the author let you know that
  ____?
• - What in the information gives you the
  impression that ____?
• Self questioning
• - What do I know about the topic?
• - What do I wonder about?
• - Is this making sense to me?
• - Do I need to stop and reread?

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• Author questioning
• - Why did the author write this?
• - Do I need to ask questions about this?
• - What does the author mean by this?
• Monitoring
• - How should I read this?
• - What do I already know about this topic?
• - Can I use context clues to figure out this
  word?
• Summarizing and Synthesizing
• - What did the author say?
• - What is the major thing I need to
  remember?
• - Can I put what I read into my own words?

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• Evaluating
• - What did I learn?
• - What do I still wonder about?
• - What did I agree/disagree with?
• - Did this piece end the way I thought it
  would?
• - What did I do well in my reading?

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Difficulties when Drawing Inferences From Text

• Offers only literal interpretation of text
• Unable to predict or draw conclusions
• Unable to select passages to support an inference
• Difficulty asking / answering questions before /
  during / after reading

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When administering an assessment, you might see
and hear

• Drawing Inferences from Text
• Is the student
• --predicting?
• --reading between the lines?
• --figuring out what the author hasnt said?
• --using clues from the text?
• --making judgments?

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Draw Inferences from Text Strategies

• Cognitive Modeling (Thinking Out Loud)
• Ask a question out loud
• Answer the question for them
• Take them back into the text and have them reread
  it
• Show them the line of reasoning
• Proof Statement
• ClOZE Procedure

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Research suggests that

• Involves more than thirty cognitive processes
• Strategies should be taught directly
• Students must self-monitor their understanding of
  material
• Instruction repeated practice is necessary
• Strong, rich, varied vocabulary is key component
  for strong comprehension across a variety of
  texts
• Students must assimilate vocabulary, concepts,
• information with their prior experience

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Does a Child Come to Mind?

• Think of a student who needs help with a specific
  area of comprehension
• Describe the types of needs the student
  demonstrates
• Share with a partner or small group what
  strategies you might try in order to help this
  student

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Final thoughts

• Instructional Delivery should
• Model strategies through explicit frequent
  think alouds
• Weave strategy instruction into everyday teaching
• Utilize book clubs/literature circles
• Teach students to create mental images
• Encourage higher levels of thinking problem
  solving through analysis, synthesis, evaluation,
  application of judgments