COMPREHENSION

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COMPREHENSION

• Text Comprehension Instruction
• Developed by Jo Miller King and Kathy
  Casey

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Workshop Goals

• To relate comprehension strategies to the
  Delaware State Standards and the National Reading
  Panel
• To review research about proficient reading
  strategies
• To review and develop activities for teaching
  good reader strategies

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TTAPATurn To A Partner And . . .

• Use this activity often in your classroom to
  encourage your children to talk to each other.
• This activity enables you to control the talking
  while still allowing children to develop
  thinking/comprehension.

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The person doing the talking is doing the
learning.
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Traditional Comprehension Skills

• Finding the Main Idea
• Identifying Details
• Detecting the Sequence
• Drawing Conclusions
• Determining Cause and Effect
• Comparing and Contrasting

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Skills - Strategies
Research suggests that teaching skills in
isolation does not transfer to reading
comprehension.
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Reading is constructing meaning from print.
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Historical View of Reading
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Vygotskys Zone of Proximal Development
Zone of Proximal Development is the distance
between the actual development level as
determined by independent problem solving and the
level of potential development as determined
through problem solving under adult
guidance. Wooten, D. (2000, pp. 19). Valued
Voice An interdisciplinary approach teaching and
learning. Newark, DE International Reading
Association.
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More Ways to Strengthen Reading Comprehension

• Good readers have several strategies in common.
• They make connections between prior knowledge and
  the text.
• They ask questions.
• They visualize.
• They draw inferences.
• They determine important ideas.
• They synthesize information.
• They repair understanding.
• These strategies can be taught. The teacher must
  gradually release the responsibility of the
  strategy to the student, much in the same way a
  young child learns to ride a bike from his/her
  parents.

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Pearson, Roehler, Dole and Duffy propose

• These strategies become the kindergarten through
  twelfth-grade reading comprehension curriculum
• A lengthy list of discrete reading skills does
  not add up to proficient reading
• Teachers understand the cognitive processes used
  most frequently by proficient readers and they
  provide explicit, in-depth instruction focused
  over a long period of time on these strategies
• Teachers use authentic and challenging texts
  (high quality childrens literature and
  will-written nonfiction) to help students move
  along the continuum from novice to proficient
  reader
• (Keene, E. Zimmermann, S. (1997) Mosaic of
  Thought. Portsmouth Heinemann.)

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Cognitive Strategy Instruction
When readers are given cognitive strategy
instruction, they make significant gains on
measures of reading comprehension over students
trained with conventional instructional
procedures. (Pressley, et al., 1989) National
Reading Panel Full Report, 1999
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Five Premises Basic to Reading Comprehension

• Reader constructs meaning by making connections
  between new information and what is already known
• Prior knowledge plays an important role in
  learning
• reading and writing are connected
• learning is a socially interactive process
• comprehension is dependent on
• METACOGNITION

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Metacognition is thinking about what you are
thinking.
Reading comprehension is thinking about what you
are thinking while you are reading.
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The Human Graph

• What I Know About Schema Theory
• Nothing
• A Little
• Dont Know What I Know
• Some
• A Lot

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Schema Theory
Music
Science
language
plants
PATTERNS
Nature
Literacy
graphics
reading
Art
writing
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The questions that p___________ face as they
raise ch__________ from in________ to adult life
are not easy to an__________. Both fa________
and m________ can become concerned when health
problems such as co________ arise any time after
the e________ stage to later in life. Experts
recommend that young ch________ should have
plenty of s________ and nutritious food for
healthy growth. B________ and g________ should
not share the same b________ or even sleep in the
same r________. They may be afraid of the
d________.
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Poultrymen chickens incubation answer
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farmers merchants coccidiosis egg chicks sunshine
banties geese barnyard roost dark
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Comprehension is not something that just happens.
Comprehension needs to be taught.
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SAIL Article
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How to Teach Comprehension Strategies?

• Teacher Modeling
• Explain the strategy
• Demonstrate how to apply the strategy
  successfully
• Think aloud to model the mental process when
  reading
• Guided Practice
• After modeling, give students more responsibility
  for task completion
• Scaffold students attempts with feedback and
  support
• Students share their thinking process with each
  other during paired reading and discussion groups
• Independent Practice
• Students try to apply strategy on their own
• Students receive regular feedback from teacher
  and other students
• Application of the Strategy in Real Reading
  Situations
• Students apply an understood strategy to a new
  genre or format
• Students demonstrate the effective use of a
  strategy in a more difficult text

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Students need to practice the strategy at the
listening level before applying the strategy at
the reading level.
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THINK ALOUDSFor Teaching Good Reader
Comprehension Strategies

• Connect
• This reminds me of . . .
• I remember something like this that happened to
  me when . . .
• Predict/Anticipate
• I wonder if . . .
• I wonder who . . .
• I think I know what is coming next . . .
• I think we will learn how . . .
• Question/Monitor
• I wonder what is means when . . .
• I dont understand . . .
• I am going to reread that because it didnt make
  sense . . .

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THINK ALOUDS (Continued)

• Imagine/Infer
• Even though it isnt in the picture I can see
  that . . .
• Mmm, I can almost taste the . . .
• I can picture the . . .
• Summarize/Conclude
• The most important thing I have learned so far is
  . . .
• It didnt say why she did that but I bet . . .
• So far I have learned that . . .
• Evaluate/Apply
• My favorite part in this chapter was. . .
• I really like how the author . . .
• What I dont like about this part is . . .
• It was interesting to learn that . . .

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How to Teach Comprehension Strategies?

• Teacher Modeling
• Explain the strategy
• Demonstrate how to apply the strategy
  successfully
• Think aloud to model the mental process when
  reading
• Guided Practice
• After modeling, give students more responsibility
  for task completion
• Scaffold students attempts with feedback and
  support
• Students share their thinking process with each
  other during paired reading and discussion groups
• Independent Practice
• Students try to apply strategy on their own
• Students receive regular feedback from teacher
  and other students
• Application of the Strategy in Real Reading
  Situations
• Students apply an understood strategy to a new
  genre or format
• Students demonstrate the effective use of a
  strategy in a more difficult text

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JIGSAW
How to Teach With Comprehension Strategies in
Mind? 1 - Lesson Visualizing From a Vivid
Piece of Text 2 - Lesson Schema - It Reminds Me
Of 3 - Lesson Connections 4 - Lesson Inferring
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Comprehension Instruction in a Balanced Literacy
Program
Read Aloud Comprehension strategies are
explicitly modeled Guided Reading Comprehension
strategies are explicitly taught with lots of
guided practice Shared Reading/Literature
Circles Comprehension strategies are modeled and
some guided practice is provided. Independent
Reading Comprehension strategies are
independently practiced and applied.
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The Lesson Research Suggests a New Format
Traditional Format
New Format
Prereading activities Discussion, Predictions,
Questioning, Brainstorming, Setting Purpose
Reading assignment given
Guided Reading
Independent reading
Activities to clarify, reinforce, extend
know-ledge
Discussion to see if students learned main
concepts, what they should have learned.
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Guided Reading Instructional Plan
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JIGSAW
1 Alphaboxes 2 My Turn Your Turn 3 Read,
Cover, Remember, Tell 4 Word Prediction
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Methodology of the National Reading
PanelCategories of Comprehension and Instruction

• Comprehension Monitoring
• Cooperative Learning
• Graphic Organizers
• Active Listening
• Mental Imagery
• Mnemonics
• Multiple Strategies
• Prior Knowledge
• Question Answering
• Question Generation
• Story Structure
• Summarization
• Vocabulary-Comprehension Relationship

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www.readinglady.com

• A source for reading lessons
• Handout contains comprehension strategy lessons
  from the reading lady
• Simple lessons that you can do right away in your
  classroom
• ENJOY!!!

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THE PEOPLE SEARCH
A Post-Strategy for Reading Comprehension