Monitoring Comprehension

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Monitoring Comprehension

• Julie Trone, Krista Wayne, Melody Ratigan

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Reading

• Define Reading to your partner
• Reading Getting the meaning of something
  written by using the eyes to interpret its
  characters.
• Websters New World Dictionary (1991)

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Comprehension

• Goal- CONSTRUCT MEANING
• Teachers are too often assessing rather than
  teaching our students to better comprehend what
  they read.
• Comprehension strategies are to help students
  construct meaning from text.

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How do you construct meaning from text?

• Monitor Understanding
• Enhance Understanding
• Acquire and Actively Use Knowledge
• Develop Insight

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Strategies to use to Construct Meaning from text

• Connections- prior knowledge and new information
• Ask Questions
• Draw Inferences during and after reading
• Separate important from less important ideas in
  text
• Combine information within and across texts and
  reading experiences
• Monitor the adequacy of their understanding and
  repair faulty comprehension

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Purpose for Reading

• There is always one purpose for sure and that is
  understanding
• Teach kids to think about their purpose for
  reading
• WHY?
• Proficient readers adapt strategies for their
  purpose for reading
• You need metacognitive knowledge to match the
  strategies to your purpose for reading

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Reciprocal Teaching

• A teacher student dialogue where teacher models
  and gradually relinquishes control to the
  student.
• Based on Vygotskys zone of proximal development.
• Teacher provides instructional scaffold
• This sentence by sentence guidance is more
  appropriate for readers with severe reading and
  language problems.

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Reciprocal Teaching

• Why It Works
• 1. By having the teacher engage explicitly in
  comprehension monitoring, it provides a model for
  the novice reader of what expert readers do when
  they try to learn from texts.
• 2. It obligates even the quietest of students to
  respond openly, thus allowing teachers to assess
  students current level and provide appropriate
  feedback.

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Metacognitive Knowledge

• An awareness and understanding of how one thinks
  and uses strategies during reading.
• Four aspects of metacognitive knowledge- These
  help understand how learners adapt strategies to
  their purposes.

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Four Aspects of Metacognitive Knowledge

• Tacit Learners/Readers- lack an awareness of how
  they think while reading
• Aware Learners/Readers- Realize when meaning
  breaks down, but do not know enough fix-up
  strategies
• Strategic Learners/ Readers- Use their thinking
  and comprehension as tools, but are unable to
  monitor and repair meaning with it is disrupted.
• Reflective Learners/ Readers- Stratgic thinkers,
  apply strategies flexibly based off goals and
  purpose, and monitor thinking and understanding.
  Also reflect, ponder and revise their use of
  strategies.

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Monitoring
Questioning
Connencting
Reacting
Inferring
Inferring
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The Inner ConversationThe voice you hear when
you read silently is not silent, it is a speaking
out-loud voice in your head. Thomas Lux

• Voice in head while reading that allows to
  construct meaning
• You have to have an inner conversation to know
  when you stray from it
• Awareness quicker repair when meaning breaks
  down
• Teach readers to stay on top of their reading
• Readers move toward independence when they can
  monitor their comprehension

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Inner Conversation Cont.

• We teach readers to
• Become aware of their thinking during reading
• Monitor understanding and keep track of meaning
• Listen to the voice in their head to construct
  meaning
• Notice when they stray from thinking about text
• Notice when meaning breaks down
• Detect obstacles and confustions that detail
  understanding
• Understand how numerous strategies can help
  repair meaning
• Know when, why, and how to apply certain
  strategies to keep and continue understanding

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Krista

• Following the inner conversation
• Purpose Listen to the inner voice and leave
  tracks of thinking (Sticky Notes)
• Interactive Reading aloud- reading aloud for the
  purpose of instruction
• Steps
• Activate background knowledge
• Model
• Guided practice
• Sharing thinking

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Krista

• Noticing When we stray from the Inner
  Conversation
• Purpose Monitoring the inner voice to focus
  thinking and fix- up comprehension

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Melody

• Noticing and exploring thinking
• Purpose Listening to the inner voice and
  responding to the text
• Steps
• Talk about my own personal connection to story.
• Read book all the way through without stopping.
• Ask students to write down their inner
  conversation on a large sticky note.
• Share with a partner.
• Collect sticky notes and put them on anchor
  chart.

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Melody

• Knowing when you know and knowing when you dont
  know
• Purpose Monitoring comprehension to clarify
  confusion or answer questions about the text
• Materials Sticky notes coded Huh? for confused
  and with a light bulb for readers illumination.

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Julie

• Read, Write, and Talk
• Purpose Teaching readers to stop, think, and
  react to informational text

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Monitoring Comprehension Review

• Engagement
• Teach our students to be ACTIVE readers not
  PASSIVE