From Research to Practice: Improving Comprehension Instruction, Gr' 23

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From Research to Practice Improving
Comprehension Instruction, Gr. 2-3

• Janice A. Dole
• University of Utah

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Overview

• Theory and Research in Comprehension.
• Major Issues in Comprehension Instruction.
• Building conceptual and linguistic knowledge.
• Conceptual knowledge and vocabulary.
• Text structures.
• Comprehension strategies.

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Theory and Research on Comprehension

• Comprehension is NOT a series of skills that you
  teach to mastery (unlike decoding).
• Comprehension is
• Reader-driven and text-driven.
• Reading is active.
• Reading is constructive.
• Reading is strategic.
• Reading is holistic.

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Theory and Research cont.

• Comprehension is also a social activity.
• The social aspects of comprehension can motivate
  students to read and comprehend better as well.
• When was the last time you talked to someone
  about something you read?

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Theory and Research cont.

• Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children
  (Snow, Burns, Griffin, 1998).
• A major goal of comprehension instruction for
  students is to build linguistic and conceptual
  knowledge about the world.

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Theory and Research cont.

• National Reading Panel Report (2000).
• Importance of strategy instruction in improving
  text comprehension.
• Goal of strategy instruction is active
  processing, NOT use of strategies.

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Major Issues in Comprehension Instruction

• Building conceptual and linguistic knowledge.
• Conceptual knowledge and vocabulary.
• Text structures.
• Comprehension strategies.

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Conceptual and Linguistic Knowledge

• How do you build conceptual and linguistic
  knowledge?
• Lots and lots of read-alouds by teachers.
• Using many, many non-fiction as well as fiction
  books.
• Books need to be above students instructional
  reading level.
• Teacher and student discussions about the ideas
  and the words.

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Building Conceptual Knowledge

• Building conceptual knowledge means concept
  development and vocabulary.
• The level of ones vocabulary knowledge effects
  their reading comprehension.
• The more words you know, the better your
  comprehension.

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Conceptual Knowledge and Vocabulary

• Perhaps his greatest triumph was surviving a
  bivouac in the Death Zone.
• Rate your understanding of this sentence, 1-none
  -- 5-excellent.
• Why dont you understand?

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Conceptual Knowledge and Vocabulary

• These really should be taught together to benefit
  readers the most.
• Often, they may need to be taught before reading
  a selection.

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Prior Knowledge and Vocabulary

• What words do students need to know in order to
  understand the topic of the selection?
• Two examples
• Story about a plant.
• Story about a museum.
• What are generally useful words to know?

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Vocabulary Words

• Beck, McKeown Kucans book, Bringing Words to
  Life
• A wonderful book that explains which words you
  should teach
• Tier 1 words-- e.g. dog, house, horse, animals.
• Tier 2 words--generally useful words to know,
  e.g. normal, routine, especially.
• Tier 3 words--content-specific vocabulary, e.g.
  ecosystem, habitat, mammals, species.

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Vocabulary Words

• Beck et al. argue elementary teachers should
  teach Tier 2 words--
• These are generally useful words we all need to
  know to get along in our society.
• Which ones are generally useful words to know?
• Which ones are specialized terms?
• Isotope, coincidence, absurd, lathe.

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Vocabulary Words

• Which Tier 2 words to teach?
• Words that students can define easily on their
  own with knowledge they already have
• Tend --to take care of
• Maintain--to keep doing
• Fortunate--lucky
• Benevolent--kind

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Vocabulary Words

• Which Tier 2 words to teach?
• Words for which students already have a
  conceptual understanding of
• Despise--hate
• Hurl--throw
• Mumble--speak in a very small voice

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Vocabulary Words

• A caveat
• With ELLs it is often easy and helpful to teach
  Tier 1 words in English
• For example, gato means cat. So it may be
  helpful to teach the English label cat so ELLs
  can make the easy connection between gato and
  cat.
• Remember, cat can easily be associated with
  gato.

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Vocabulary Words

• When do you teach Tier 3 words?
• In content area subjects--social studies, earth
  science, biology, physical science.
• Entomologist
• Scientist
• Metamorphosis

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Prior Knowledge and Vocabulary

• Different ways to activate and build conceptual
  knowledge and prior knowledge
• Discussions.
• Semantic webs, Venn diagrams.
• Think, pair, share.
• Writing.
• Picture walks for very young ones only.
• KWLs.

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Text Structures

• What are text structures?
• narrative and expository texts.
• basically like fiction and nonfiction, but a
  better way of thinking about it.
• Why?

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Text Structures

• Narrative and expository?
• Why do we call text structures this?
• Why not call them fiction and nonfiction?
• Text structures--a way to think about how the
  texts are organized.

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Narrative Texts

• Depicts events, actions, emotions, situations,
  people.
• Story structures, story grammars, story maps
• Character
• Setting
• Problem
• Events
• Resolution

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Story Maps

• Story maps gives low-achieving readers an
  organizational framework for understanding the
  story.
• You can make predictions only if you have a story
  organization in your head.

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Story Map Instruction

• Students can complete story maps.
• Students can make semantic webs of story
  structures.
• Story maps can be turned into summaries
• Summary is problem and resolution.

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Expository Texts

• Expository texts have different organizations
  than narrative texts.
• Expository texts have
• Descriptions.
• Sequences.
• Compare/contrast.
• Problem/solution.
• Cause/effect.
• Question/answer.

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Expository Texts

• If you know the text structure of an expository
  text, then you can summarize it more easily.

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Expository Texts

• From This Place is Dry, V. Cobb.
• A day without water in this blazing sun could
  cause death.
• Cause no water in the hot, blazing sun.
• Effect you die.

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Expository Texts

• There are three ways plants survive with very
  little water. The first is to be able to go into
  a kind of sleepThe second way plants survive
  dryness is to grow and make new seeds when there
  is waterA third way plants live through dry
  periods is to store water after a rain.

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Expository Texts

• Plants survive on little water by
• 1. Going to sleep.
• 2. Growing and make new seeds.
• 3. Storing water after rain.
• This structure
• Problem/solution

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Expository Texts

• Well-organized texts increases comprehension of
  main ideas and topics when
• There is clarity in and clear location of main
  idea statements.
• There are cues to the relations between
  important ideas--e.g. first, next, if, then.

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Expository Organization

• Introduce expository text as a different kind of
  text.
• For example, introduce fiction and nonfiction.
• Read a lot of nonfiction materials.
• For fiction, use story map elements.
• For nonfiction, use different structures like
  question/answer, problem/solution,
  compare/contrast.

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Comprehension Strategies

• What is a strategy?
• A strategy is a routine or procedure to help you
  to get something done.
• What are comprehension strategies?
• Routines and procedures you can use to help you
  comprehend what you read.

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Comprehension Strategies

• National Reading Panel report
• Several kinds of comprehension strategies improve
  comprehension
• Visualizing.
• Making predictions.
• Summarizing.
• Drawing inferences.
• Monitoring understanding.
• Asking questions.

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Comprehension Strategies

• If you stepped outside the Sonoran Desert in
  Arizona on a summer day, the first thing you
  would notice is the heat. The hot air hits you in
  the face like opening an oven door. Temperatures
  in the summer can go as high as 130 degrees.
  (from This Place is Dry, Cobb).

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Comprehension Strategies

• Visualizing
• Can you visualize the desert on a hot summer day?
  Think about how it feels to open an oven door.
  Think about walking outside into the heat. You
  open the door of the hotel and you walk into the
  heat. The heat hits you like you just opened an
  oven door.

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Comprehension Strategies

• Making predictions.
• What other information do you think will be in
  this book about the desert? Remember that the
  title of the book is called, This Place is Dry.
• Summarizing
• The Sonoran Desert is so hot that it feels like
  you are opening an oven door.

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Comprehension Strategies

• Drawing inferences
• Is it easy to live in a desert like the Sonoran
  Desert? Why or why not?
• Monitoring Understanding
• Do you understand how hot it is in the summer?

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Comprehension Strategies

• Asking questions
• How do people survive in the incredible heat?
• Do people actually live in the Sonoran Desert?
• How do plants and animals live in the hot sun?

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Comprehension Strategies

• Goal of strategy instruction is NOT to learn the
  strategies by heart.
• Instead, the goal of strategy instruction is to
  make comprehension an ACTIVE process.
• Reading is an active process.
• Reading is a strategic process.

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Comprehension Strategies

• Strategy instruction is best delivered through
  EXPLICIT INSTRUCTION
• What is explicit instruction?
• Introduction, what, why.
• Demonstration, modeling, explanation.
• Guided practice and feedback.
• Independent practice.

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Explicit Instruction

• Introduction--what, why?
• Today we are going to learn about a comprehension
  strategy that you can use to help you read
  better.
• Today we are going to learn more about stories.
  We already learn how stories have characters and
  settings. Every story also has a problem and
  resolution to the problem.

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Explicit Instruction

• Demonstration, modeling, explanation.
• Pencil-dropping experience.
• Problem/solution.
• Guided practice with feedback.
• Okay, now we are going to read a story about a
  girl named Prudy. Prudy has a problem and we are
  going to find out how Prudy solves her problem.

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Explicit Instruction

• Guided Practice with Feedback.
• Before I read you this story, I want to introduce
  a word to you that is important for your
  understanding of the story.
• The word is museum. What is a museum and what is
  it for? Why do we have museums?

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Explicit Instruction

• Independent Practice
• Think of another way Prudy could have solved her
  problem. Draw a picture and write a sentence that
  tells how Prudy could have solved her problem.

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Summary

• Theory and Research in Comprehension.
• Major Issues in Comprehension Instruction.
• Building conceptual and linguistic knowledge.
• Conceptual knowledge and vocabulary.
• Text structures--narrative and expository.
• Comprehension strategies--like visualizing,
  asking questions, predicting outcomes.