1. Listening Comprehension Instruction
North Dakota Kindergarten
Teacher Reading Academy

2. What is Listening Comprehension?
An understanding of stories and other texts that are read aloud to them
It lays the foundation for children to later be able to “understand what they read, remember what they read, and communicate with others what they read.”
National Institute for Literacy, 2001, p. 48

3. Listening Comprehension…
…is enhanced as kindergarten children listen to stories that are read aloud, participate in discussions of stories, and engage in other literacy –related activities.

4. When we read aloud, encourage children to…..
Make predictions
Answer questions about the book’s content
Read and talk along
Share their own interests related to the book’s content
Ask questions of you and their peers
Reenact or retell the story

5. How We Learn… 10% of what we READ 20% of what we HEAR
30% of what we SEE
50% of what we SEE and HEAR
70% of what is DISCUSSED with OTHERS
80% of what is EXPERIENCED PERSONALLY
95% of what we TEACH TO SOMEONE ELSE
William Glasser

6. Comprehension instruction can include showing children how to…
Monitor their comprehension
Summarize
Recognize story structure
Use graphic organizers
Answer and generate questions

7. We model what good readers do by thinking aloud
Demonstrate:
How you picture in your mind what is happening in a story or book
How you reread certain parts
How you stop and summarize what has happened
How you regularly make predictions

8. Reading Aloud Different Types of Texts
Narratives
Tell a story using a familiar story structure that includes a beginning, middle, and end
Expository (or informational) text
Tells about one or more topics in different and varied ways

9. Reading narrative and expository texts aloud to children helps them:
Make connections to real life experiences and build background knowledge
Increase their vocabulary and understand different types of books

10. Graphic Organizers
Can guide children’s thinking and help them remember important elements and information in both narrative and expository texts
Can be used before, during and after reading

11. Effective Questioning
Gives children a purpose for listening and reading
Focuses children’s attention on a topic and what is to be learned about the topic
Helps children think about what they hear read aloud
Encourages children to be aware of what they do and do not understand
Helps children to relate the content of what they are learning to what they already know.

12. Scaffolding: Using Different Types of Questions
Literal Questions
Encourage children to become aware of the information in the text
Open-ended Questions
Encourage children to extend their thinking about the text and to use more elaborated language as they discuss the text

13. Kindergarten Strategies
Preview and Predict
Use illustrations (picture walk)
My Lucky Day
Use text features to predict
If You Could Go To Antarctica
Visualize and predict
Old MacDonald Had a Woodshop
Recognize text structure
Building Beavers

14. Ten Core Comprehension Skills at Each Grade
Character
Setting
Sequence
Classify and Categorize
Compare and Contrast
Main Idea
Realism and Fantasy
Plot
Cause and Effect
Draw Conclusions

15. Asking Questions Along the Continuum
Write several questions to ask before reading and several questions to ask after reading
Use handout “Developing Questions to Enhance Listening Comprehension”
At your table, role-play a read aloud session
Use the handout “Asking Effective Questions”