Slayton Elementary School K3 Teachers January 24, 2005

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St. Cloud State University Professional
Development Conference You Asked
For It!
June 14, 2005 Sue Klund (readezbooks_at_comcast.net)
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Comprehension Checklist
Teach each student to understand difficult
nonfiction even when we cant be around to help
(forever).
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Remember this
To understand spoken or written speech, a person
needs to know about 95 of the words. The other
5 of the word meanings can be inferred from
context. E.D. Hirsch Jr. (2001)
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Reading Levels
Comp. Wd Recog.
Listening 85 Frustration
nal 80 90-95 Independent 90 95
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Differentiating Instruction
Think of a class where you had a lot of food
(schema).
Think of a class where you had almost no food.
How did you survive in in that class?
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Does the Text Fit the Reader?
Bonnie Houck from the Minnesota Department of
Education, has a strategy you can use, or share,
that will show you how the student meets the text
- will it be too hard, just right or too easy?
Remember the 90-95 of vocabulary the reader must
know in order to comprehend the text.
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From Dr. Mary Howards BER Workshop
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Adapted by Sue Klund
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A
B
C
D
Which quadrant were you in, in

• Chemistry
• Fine Dining
• Skiing
• Painting walls
• Painting pictures

• Piano playing
• Coaching softball
• Teaching reading
• Algebra
• Statistics

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Do you remember when someone scaffolded your
instruction?
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Michael Graves from the University of Minnesota
has done a great deal for differentiating
instruction.

• http//www.sewardls.com/olrr/sre

• Using the Checklist is scaffolding

• Everyone reading at their independent reading
  level is scaffolding

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• Without mastery of the first four BIG pieces of
  reading, comprehension cannot occur.

Put Reading First CIERA / NIFL (2001)
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The First Four of The BIG Five Are
1

• Phonemic Awareness
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Vocabulary

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2
3
4
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Fiction is very different from nonfiction when it
comes to comprehension. Understanding nonfiction
must be taught explicitly to our children and it
must begin early. Kletzien and Dreher suggest it
in the K-3 classroom. (2004)
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The Lesson and the Learner A New Format
Pre-reading activities discussion, predictions,
questioning, brainstorming, vocabulary
Before
Guided, active reading
During
Discussion to clarify, reinforce, extend
After
Research Based
Traditional
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Trogs

• A trog starts granning a steg as soon as it is
  born. It never stops granning stegs. The steg
  catches glob for the trog. The steg is very
  strong. The steg can hold orretts and even little
  animals like a mouse. A large steg is used by
  some people for a fishing net.
• One trog can bind blugs together. The blugs are
  in the water. The trog gets on the blugs and
  sails off. The trog may get off his blug boat and
  walk on the water to catch an orrett. Then he
  gets back on his blug boat and sails away.

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What piece or pieces of this knowledge
diagram did you use to answer the questions?
trog
granning
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Readability can be influenced by

• Ability of the child
• Difficulty of the material
• An interest in the material
• A great deal of prior knowledge
• Purpose for reading
• Motivation level of the child
• Nature of instructional assistance
• available

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Instructional Assistance for Difficult Nonfiction
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A Checklist for Comprehension
This only works with much modeling and
interaction. If you are going to try it only
once - DONT. Any strategy must be taught until
it is automatic!
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This Checklist Should

• Give students MORE prior knowledge and awaken any
  prior knowledge they already have
• Give students a PURPOSE for reading
• Show students how to think about any difficult
  nonfiction
• Show students how to attack difficult
  nonfiction
• Lower the readability of any difficult nonfiction

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Checklist for Difficult Nonfiction 4th - 12th
Grades

• Helps the visual student see the text
• Differentiates instruction
• Many strategies are embedded in it
• My last year - 8th grader tested 3.5 on a timed
  test - passed the BST the first time
• If you are only going to try it once - DONT
• Teach it to automaticity
• You can use gradual release - back away from some
  students

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Modeling with text

• Tell a friend, student, your own child,
  grandchild, about this strategy.
• Ask questions about the process as we go along.
• You are the learner!

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• Title What do you know about this, if anything?
• Pictures and Captions Now what do you know?
• Graphs What do they tell you - if anything?
• Maps Now what more do you know?
• Bold words Include author and when published.
• Read entire first paragraph What do you know?
• Read entire last paragraph Now WDYK?
• Read first sentence of each paragraph or first 2
  lines, whichever comes first Now WDYK
• What questions do you have? Write it/them down.

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Considerations while you are doing this

• If they dont know anything about the title -
  dont use it. You are creating new food.
• You could have them write their ideas on the
  back of their paper so you could see their
  thinking and know who needed more or less
  modeling as you monitor the progress.
• Talk about each point - classroom discussion -
  and students write what they think.
• Dont let them use words they dont know in what
  they are writing down - this will confuse the
  file - food they are attempting to build.

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More Considerations

• Reading the first and last paragraphs gives you
  the introduction and summary.
• Reading the first two lines or first sentence of
  each paragraph gives you (almost always) the
  main idea for the paragraph.
• As you are going through each step - continue to
  ask, Now what do you know? and get several
  class-members to reply.

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Still More Considerations

• Be sure to have them write down a question that
  they think will be answered. This is one way to
  get them to read for a purpose.
• Model this entire before reading piece
  several times with the entire class.
• If they come up with something weird about
  the title - ask them where they got that
  information.

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Label the questions H or BFirst find the H

• Vocabulary (What does.mean?)
• Conclusion (What do you think?)
• Main Idea (After reading entire article)
• Authors feeling, tone, attitude, purpose, or
  reason for writing (It comes after reading the
  entire article.)
• Fact or opinion (Facts can be proven)
• Label everything else B (difficult literal
  question - look for the answer in the article)

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NOW Read the Article

• Read one paragraph at a time (Pencil DOWN)
• Then underline 5 key words in each paragraph -
  dont underline anything you dont know or
  understand.

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Clues for answering the questions.

• When answering B questions, put the question
  number in the margin where you found a clue or an
  answer.
• When answering vocabulary questions, read several
  paragraphs to make a picture of the word before
  looking at any answer.
• When answering other H questions, cover all the
  answers and THINK. Decide on the right answer and
  then look for that one.
• Dont go back and recheck the questions. You
  have already done a great job!!

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What questions do you have?

• What do you need to know in order for you to use
  this strategy in any of your classes?
• If you have a question later - where could you
  go?
• What doesnt make sense?