Comprehension

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Comprehension
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Survey of Knowledge

• Text
• Expository Text
• Explicit questions
• Genres
• Metacognition
• Comprehension

• Narrative texts
• Strategies
• Implicit questions
• Text Structure
• Strategic readers
• Read aloud

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Answer Key

• C
• G
• I
• B
• H
• L

• D
• A
• E
• K
• J
• F

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What Do You Think?

• Should teachers emphasize comprehension
  instruction in the primary grades or should they
  focus mainly on phonics and decoding skills?

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What Researchers Say

• Pearson and Duke (2002) state to delay this
  sort of powerful instruction comprehension
  until children have reached the intermediate
  grades is to deny them the very experiences that
  help them develop the most important of reading
  dispositionsthe expectation that they should and
  can understand each and every text they read (p.
  257).

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Research Findings

• If students can not decode words in text, they
  will not understand what they read (Adams, 1990).
• Attending to word identification and decoding is
  not sufficient promote comprehension development
  (Adams, 1990).
• Studies of exemplary primary-grade teachers
  document that they attend to comprehension as
  well as word identification and decoding skills
  (Morrow, Tracey, Woo, Pressley, 1999 Taylor,
  Pearson, Clark, Walpole, 2000).
• Fluency influences reading comprehension because
  students who can not decode words quickly and
  accurately do not understand what they read
  (LaBerge Samuels, 1974).

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Research Findings (cont.)

• Vocabulary instruction influences reading
  comprehension and improves studentss vocabulary
  and comprehension (Beck McKeown, 1991 Beck,
  Perfetti, McKeown, 1982 Stanovich, 1986).
• Background knowledge influences comprehension
  (Hansen Pearson, 1983 Spires, Gallini,
  Riggsbee, 1992 Tharp, 1982).
• Students can be directly taught comprehension
  strategies and they transfer the use of them in
  their independent reading (Block Pressley,
  2002 Duffy, 1993 Pressley, 2002 Pressley,
  Johnson, Symons, McGoldrick, Kurita, 1989).

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Comprehension Strategies

• Plans or procedures that readers
• use and apply when they
• Hear text read aloud
• Read text with a teacher
• Read independently

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Visualization

• Students create mental pictures of what they are
  reading or writing

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Read and Visualize

• The dog ran after his master.

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Teacher Read Alouds

• Provide opportunities to learn about
• the language of books
• different text structures
• comprehension strategies that good readers use

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Effective Read-Aloud Sessions

• Read Effective Read-Aloud Sessions
• Discuss the before, during, after, and extending
  section
• What, in general, do you think we can do to make
  our read-alouds more effective?

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Understanding Different Types of Texts

• Expository Texts
• Explain information or tell about topics
• Provide a framework for comprehension of
  content-area textbooks
• Include informational books, content-area
  textbooks, newspapers, magazines, brochures,
  catalogs

• Narrative Texts
• Tell stories
• Follow a familiar story structure
• Include short stories, folktales, tall tales,
  myths, fables, legends, autobiographies,
  biographies, fantasies, historical fiction,
  mysteries, science fiction, plays

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Teaching Narrative Text Structure

• At the beginning of a story
• Setting
• Character(s)
• Problem or goals
• In the middle of a story
• Plot episodes
• Attempt to solve problem or attain goal
• At the end of a story
• Resolution of problem or goal attainment
• Theme revealed

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Teaching Expository Text Structure

• Description
• Sequence
• Cause/Effect
• Problem/Solution
• Compare/Contrast
• Enumerating or Categorizing

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Narrative Expository Text Structures

• Research suggests that many students prefer to
  read informational books and are able to
  understand them as well as they do stories.

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Narrative andExpository Cards
Before
During
After

• Narrative (English) pages 17-20
• Narrative (Spanish) pages 21-24
• Expository (English) pages 26-30
• Expository (Spanish) pages 31-35

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Listening to and Reading Both Types of Texts

• Helps students
• comprehend a variety of written materials
• build and extend knowledge about a variety of
  topics
• make connections to real-life experiences
• learn how different texts are organized and
  written
• distinguish different genres

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Graphic Organizers
Graphic Organizers
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Types of Graphic Organizers

• What types of graphic organizers have you used
  in your class for narrative and expository texts?

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Questioning

• Teacher to student
• Student to student
• Student to teacher
• Student to self

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ScaffoldingAsking Different Types of Questions

• Literal Questions
• Encourages students to become aware of the
  information in the text
• Open-Ended Questions
• Encourages students to extend their thinking
  about the text and to elaborate as they discuss
  the text

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Examples of Different Types of Questions

• Remember
• Understand
• Apply
• Analyze
• Evaluate
• Create

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Effective Questioning and Meaningful Discussions

• Give students a purpose for listening and reading
• Focus students attention on a topic and what is
  to be learned about the topic
• Help students think about what they hear read
  aloud what they read
• Encourage students to be aware of what they do
  and do not understand
• Help students to relate the content of what they
  are learning to what they already know

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Summarizing

• Summarizing links the main ideas together

Main Idea
Main Idea
__________________________________________________
__________________________________________________
__________
______________________________
Main Idea

Summary
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Main Idea

• Determining main ideas involves recognizing the
  most important ideas of paragraphs or sections of
  text
• Graphic organizers can help students remember and
  organize important information

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Getting the Gist

• Explain what get the gist means
• Have students read one paragraph or section of a
  text at a time
• Help students determine the main idea

• Who or what is the paragraph about?
• Tell the most important thing about the who or
  what
• Tell the main idea in 10 words or less

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Self Monitoring

• Effective comprehension instruction helps
  students become more strategic, metacognitive
  readers so they will understand what they read.

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Monitoring Understanding

• By thinking aloud, you can model what good
  readers do to help monitor their understanding of
  what they are reading.

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During think-alouds, you can model

• How you picture in your mind what is happening in
  the book
• How you reread certain parts
• How you stop and summarize what has happened
• How you regularly make predictions

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Practice Thinking Aloud

• With a partner, use the expository texts you
  brought to practice thinking aloud before,
  during, and after reading

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Explicitly Teaching Comprehension Strategies

• Model and discuss
• What a given strategy is and why it is important
• How, when, and where to use a strategy
• Which strategies work best in certain instances
• How to apply different strategies to different
  types of texts and reading situations

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Teaching Comprehension Strategies

• Provide opportunities for extensive
• Practice
• Practice
• Practice

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Read

• Instructional Procedures That
• Promote Comprehension

Before
During
After
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Time to Reflect

• Think
• Ink
• Pair
• Share

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Consider DiversityEnglish Language Learners

• Activate Prior Knowledge
• Preview new vocabulary and concepts
• Scaffold students learning
• Summarize frequently
• Promote participation in discussions
• Frequently monitor comprehension

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Monitoring Comprehension Progress

• Administer early reading inventories
• Provide opportunities for discussions that
  include open-ended, complex questions about texts
• Ask students to retell stories

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Further Reading
Reading and Writing Informational Text in the
Primary Grades by Nell K. Duke and V. Susan
Bennett-Armistead
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Time to Reflect
Visualization
Story Expository Text Structures
Graphic Organizers
Questioning
Summarizing
Self Monitoring
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The Importance of Comprehension

• Even teachers in the primary grades can begin
  to build the foundation for reading
  comprehension. Reading is a complex process that
  develops over time emphasize text comprehension
  from the beginning, rather than waiting until
  students have mastered the basics of
  reading.Beginning readers, as well as more
  advanced readers, must understand that the
  ultimate goal of reading is comprehension.
• -National Institute for Literacy, 2001