Comprehension Essentials

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Comprehension Essentials

• Presented by Kelli Harrell
• K-5 Lead Teacher
• Randolph County Schools

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List everything you have read in the last 24
hours.

• 85 of what we read past 8th grade is nonfiction.

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Stand Up/Hand Up/Pair Up

• What are essential elements of survival?
• What are the essential elements in your life?
• What are the essential elements of your wardrobe?
  
• What is an essential question?

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Why do we read nonfiction?

• Get Information
• Satisfy Curiosity/Entertainment
• Understand World
• Understand New Concepts/Vocabulary
• Make Connections

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Why teach nonfiction?

• Differs from fiction
• Links to content areas
• Promotes inquiry
• Expands vocabulary
• Helps students write nonfiction
• Motivates boys and struggling readers

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Did you know?

• Research has found that first graders from high
  SES backgrounds have vocabularies twice the size
  of children from low SES!
• High achieving 3rd graders have vocabularies
  close to the size of low-achieving high school
  seniors!!

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Reading as a Process
The Reader (who)
The Text (what)
The Task (why and how)
Comprehension
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Main Factors Affecting Comprehension
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Fiction Text Structure
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Non-fiction Text Structure
Compare/Contrast
Sequential
Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect
Main Idea and Detail
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What strategies do proficient readers use to
comprehend text?
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Comprehension Strategies

• Good Readers
• Activate Relevant Prior Knowledge/Making
  Connections
• Determine Importance in Text
• Ask Questions about a Text
• Create Sensory Images from a Text
• Draw Inferences in Text
• Synthesize Information from a Text
• Fix up-strategies
• Source- Mosaic of Thought/Strategies That
  Work/Reading with Meaning see resources

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Instructional Model Readers Workshop

• Shared Reading -Teacher model/show
• Guided Reading - Practice w/ teacher
• Support
• Prompt
• Reinforce
• Independent Reading Teacher observe strategy in
  action

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Effective Comprehension Strategy Instruction

• Model their own use of the strategy repeatedly
  over time and explain how that thinking helps
  them better understand what they read.
• Introduce one strategy at a time.
• Continue instruction until students get it
  independently across genres or are bored.

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• Make connections between the new strategy and
  what the reader already knows.
• Respond in writing by coding the text according
  to a particular strategy.
• Show students how the strategy applies to other
  texts, genres, formats, disciplines, and
  contexts.
• Use short texts.

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• Help students notice how these strategies
  intersect and work in conjunction with one
  another.
• Take time to observe and confer directly with
  students about their strategy learning, and keep
  records of those observations.
• Remind students that the purpose for using the
  strategy is to better comprehend text.
• Source Strategies That Work by Harvey and
  Goudvis

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• Choose a text from your table.
• Record your thinking on post-it notes as you
  read. Push yourself to make at least 3 comments.
• Pair with someone else who has a similar book and
  discuss your thinking.
• Name strategies you used as a proficient reader.

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Number tables 1-14 Pair ½ etc.

• I model with Digging Up Dinosaurs (share Time
  for Kids NF) - 5 min
• Teachers practice w/ post its using a NF bk from
  their table 15 min
• Pair/Share w/ someone w/ same book-10 min
• List strategies used on chart paper/compare to
  list 10 min

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• There is only one comprehension strategyand
  that is thinking while you read.
• Roger Farr

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Metacognition Foundation for Strategy
Instruction

• Teach students to continually monitor their
  reading by asking
• Does this make sense?
• Instructional Ideas
• Think A louds
• Coding the Text Highlighter Tape
• Stop and Think 2 finger strategy

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Activate Relevant Prior Knowledge/Making
Connections

• Think about what they know (their schema) in
  relation to the topic.
• Make text-to-self, text-to-text, and
  text-to-world connections.
• Use knowledge of an author to predict/understand
  a text.
• Recognize when they have inadequate background
  information and know how to learn the information
  needed before reading.

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Instructional ideas for Activating Prior
Knowledge/Connections

• Predict and Check
• Predict-O-Gram
• Prediction Log
• Bucket of Words
• Carousel Brainstorming/
• Mindstreaming/Walk Around Survey
• T-T/T-S/T-W Charts
• Nonfiction Author Studies (Gail Gibbons)
• Related Skills
• Making predictions
• Comparing/contrasting
• Vocabulary

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Determine Importance in Text

• Make decisions about what is important at the
  word, sentence, and text level.
• Main idea (s)/details
• Can determine what is unimportant.

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Instructional Ideas for Determining Importance

• Conventions Notebooks
• Using Key Words to Summarize
• Two Heads Are Smarter Than One
• Relevant vs. Irrelevant Details
• Anticipation Guide (must use NF features)
• Another Kind of Outline
• Content Frames
• An Important Point
• Research Projects
• Skim and Scan

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Related Skills for Determining Importance

• Using text features
• Using text structures in nonfiction
• Identifying cause/effect relationships
• Identifying fact/opinion

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Nonfiction Feature Search

• How many nonfiction text features can you find in
  the books on your table?

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Non-fiction Literacy Features
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Ask Questions about a Text

• Spontaneously generate questions before, during
  and after reading.
• Understand where answers to questions can be
  found (In the book, In my head).

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Instructional Ideas for Questioning

• Chart questions before, during and after reading.
• Pass the Paper
• QAR
• SQ3R
• Thick and Thin Questions

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Creating Sensory Images

• Use all 5 senses and emotions to create mental
  images while reading.
• Utilize detail to enhance images.
• Adapt images in response to others shared
  images.

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Instructional Ideas for Creating Sensory Images

• Sketch to Stretch
• Note taking Using Both Sides of the Brain
• Vary responses
• Artistic
• Written
• Dramatic
• Spoken (book clubs)

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Draw Inferences in Text

• Use prior knowledge and what is in the text to
  create meaning.

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• what is the consequence when children
  comprehend (and listen) only for the literal
  meaning or just facts? The price may be nothing
  less than the inability to recall important
  content.
• Keene and Zimmermann, 1997

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Instructional Ideas for Inferring

• 10 types of inferences
• Inference Chart
• Related Skills
• Making Predictions
• Drawing Conclusions
• Using Context Clues
• Close Connection to Creating Sensory
  Images/Questioning/Connections

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• Location Inferences
• While we roared down the tracks, we could feel
  the bounce and sway.
• Time Inferences
• A brilliant moonbeam was slanting through a gap
  in the curtains. It was shining right on to her
  pillow.

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Synthesize Information from a Text

• Merge new information with existing knowledge to
  create an original idea/see new
  perspective/achieve insight
• May include a summary, but usually extends the
  meaning to an inferential level
• Maintain cognitive synthesis while reading

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Instructional Ideas for Synthesizing

• Story Scaffold
• Story Pyramid
• Synthesizing Chart
• 2 Word Strategy/Alphabox Retell
• One Word To Sum It All Up
• How Sure Are You?
• From Another Perspective
• Related Skills
• Summarizing/Retelling
• Evaluating
• Sequencing
• Using text structure

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Fix up-strategies

• Use a variety of strategies to repair
  comprehension (rereading, reading on, asking for
  help).
• Instructional Ideas
• Strategy cards
• T-Chart

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Instructional ideas that require a combination of
the strategies

• FQR Facts/Questions/Responses
• Go Chart
• Reciprocal Teaching
• Connections, Points and Questions
• Ready-Set-Go-Whoa!
• Book Clubs
• Investigations

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Questions left to be answered

• Pacing? How long per strategy?
• What about assessment and evaluation/grades?
• What books are best to teach each strategy?
• How do I balance skills vs. strategies?
• Where do I go from here?
• Create Implementation Plan

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Resources

• Books
• Mosaic of Thought by Ellen Keene and Susan
  Zimmermann
• Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey and Anne
  Goudvis
• Reading With Meaning by Debbie Miller
• 7 Keys to Comprehension by Chryse Hutchins and
  Susan Zimmermann
• Nonfiction in Focus by Janice Kristo and Rosemary
  A. Bamford
• Nonfiction Matters by Stephanie Harvey
• Lesson Plans
• The Comprehension Toolkit by Stephanie Harvey and
  Anne Goudvis (Published by Heinemann and
  available through IESS)
• http//www.readinglady.com/mosaic/tools/tools.htm
  powerpoint
• Reading Strategies for the Content Areas An
  ASCD Action Tool by Sue Beers and Lou Howell
• Parent Info on strategies
• www.stvrain.k12.co.us/ecel/read_for_meaning.html