1. Module 1 Teaching Materials required: Participant workbook
NB: Instructions for the presenters are written in regular font.
Dialogue for the presenters is written in bold font.
Teaching

2. Acknowledgement of Country
Module 1
Acknowledgement of Country
We acknowledge the traditional Custodians of this Land, where the Aboriginal People have performed age-old ceremonies of storytelling, music, dance and celebration.
We acknowledge and pay respect to the Elders past and present, and we acknowledge those of the future, for they will hold the memories, traditions and hopes of Aboriginal Australians.
We must always remember that under the concrete and asphalt this Land is, was, and always will be traditional Aboriginal Land.
Acknowledge Country where it is appropriate to do so.
Follow protocols if Aboriginal participants are present.
Invite Aboriginal participants to do Welcome/Acknowledgement of Country. If none, proceed to do this one. 2

3. Module 1 Professional Teaching Standards
Standards addressed at Professional Competence in this workshop include:
1.2.1: Apply and use the knowledge of the content/disciplines through effective, content-rich, teaching activities and programs relevant to the stage.
4.2.5: Create, select and use a variety of appropriate teaching strategies and resources, including ICT and other technologies to make content meaningful to students.
6.2.1: Reflect critically on teaching and learning practice to enhance student learning outcomes.
State that: These are the Professional Teaching Standards covered in this workshop.

4. Module 1 Session 3 During this session you will:
deepen your understanding of comprehension
understand the importance of talk in comprehension
differentiate between comprehension strategies, teaching ideas, teaching strategies and teaching routines
become familiar with the ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies
be provided with a process to support the explicit teaching of comprehension strategies.
State that: This session further explores comprehension, establishes the importance of talk in comprehension, clarifies some common comprehension terminology, introduces the ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies and provides a lesson structure for explicit comprehension strategy instruction.
Link: We will begin by thinking about what you currently know about comprehension.

5. Module 1 Exploring comprehension
Task
What do you believe
comprehension to be?
2. What does it look like?
What does it sound like? 1. 3. 2.
Materials:
Participant workbook: Y chart
Read the visual on the slide. Allow 10 mins for this activity.
Note to presenters:
Depending on the size and structure of the audience, this discussion can be organised in a number of ways:
partners/table groups/small groups/whole group
Ask participants to: Discuss as a group and then record your responses to these questions individually in your Participant workbook and keep for future reference.
Provide examples for each question such as:
1. Comprehension is about understanding a text after it has been read.
2. Comprehension looks like students doing worksheets.
3. Comprehension sounds like students answering questions.
Link: We will now look at a definition of comprehension that has been developed as a result of in-depth consideration of research in the area of comprehension.

6. Module 1 What is comprehension?
Task
Comprehension involves responding to, interpreting, analysing and evaluating texts
(DET, 2009).
Materials:
Participant workbook: Deepening understanding of the definition of Comprehension
Explain that: This definition was briefly introduced in Session 1.
Ask participants to: Work with a partner to complete the sheet, Deepening understanding of the definition of Comprehension in your workbook.
Share responses.
Note for Facilitator: Answers are in the brackets beside each skill.
respond to [answer, give a reply, react]
interpret [explain, translate, represent, construe]
analyse [determine constituent parts, examine critically]
evaluate texts. [find or state value of, appraise carefully]
Ask participants to discuss in groups: How would this definition be applied at K, at Y5, at Y10? How would it apply to a struggling/reluctant reader in Y5?
Allow time to share responses.
If not given, suggest the following:
Oral in K; with more difficult texts in Y5; at a higher level in Y10 & probably in relation to a subject text. Struggling Y5 readers could be supported to read the text first; view a film; work with a peer, etc.
Emphasise that: The definition applies to all students in all classes K-6.
Link: We will now examine some common classroom comprehension tasks and think about how you, as skilled readers, comprehend text.

7. Module 1 How do you comprehend texts?
Read the text and answer the questions.
Which was easy – Q&A; MC; WS?
Did you understand the text?
Did the tasks engage you in responding to, interpreting, analysing and evaluating the text?
Task
Materials:
Participant workbook: Task 1 - Question and answer, Task 2 - Multiple choice, Task 3 - Written summary
Allow 10 mins for task and 5 mins for group discussion (15 mins total).
State: We’ll engage in three fairly common classroom comprehension tasks.
Allocate participants to Task 1, Task 2 and Task 3 so that there is an even spread of participants across the 3 tasks completing Question & Answer; Multiple Choice; Written summary.
Ask participants to: Read the text individually and respond accordingly.
CLICK to bring first question. Which was easy: Question & Answer; Multiple Choice; Written Summary?
Ask: Were there literal, inferential and critical/evaluative/interpretive questions? Could you answer them? Conclusion: Most common comprehension tasks are able to be carried out by using knowledge of grammatical features rather than comprehension.
CLICK to bring in second question. Did you understand the text? Conclusion: It is possible to carry out traditional comprehension ‘tasks’ without fully understanding a text.
CLICK to bring in third question. Did the tasks require real comprehension of the text? That is, responding to, interpreting, analysing and evaluating the text. Ask participants to think back to their Y charts and reflect on implications for their own teaching of comprehension.
Link: We’ll now think about how you could have been supported to better comprehend the text.

8. Module 1 Connections and predicting:
The text presents two theories about the effects of alcohol on the brain.
Nerve cells in the brain are called neurons. Dendrites are the antennae of neurons that receive inputs.
Materials:
Participant workbook: Medical text – Additional information
Ask: What could I have done to help you comprehend the text?
Suggestions may include:
More information – background knowledge to help make connections and predict.
Explain unfamiliar terms – to help make connections and predict.
Talk to others – to problem solve and listen to other interpretations.
A diagram or visual – to help interpret the dense text.
State: I’ll give you some support and then ask you to carry out a task.
CLICK to bring in first piece of information.
CLICK to bring in second piece of information.
State: I have provided some background information and explained some of the technical language such as ‘neurons’ and ‘dendrites’ and you have a visual to support this information.
In your Participant workbook, the page titled Medical text - Additional information provides additional background information that you might find useful.
Ask participants to: Re-read the text and discuss with your group/partner to come up with a plain English interpretation of the text. Record this in your Participant workbook.
Link: We will now reflect on how you, as competent readers, approached the task.

9. What did you do to interpret the text? What helped you most?
Module 1 What helped you?
What did you do to interpret the text?
What helped you most?
What did you do to interpret the text?
What helped you most?
Discussion
Ask participants to: Discuss with your partner/group the two questions on the slide.
Explain that: Scott Paris talks about the need for:
repeated interactions with a text to gain comprehension. He uses the example of people who study the Bible. It requires more than one reading. He uses this to make the point that we often expect deep comprehension from students after only one reading of a text.
involving students in deep conversations about texts – metacognitive conversations – to reflect on their own thinking. For example, I wonder what dendrites are? Could you find any clues?
Link: This leads us to look at how discussions/deep conversations support comprehension.

10. Module 1 The role of conversations in comprehension
... discussion is defined as a dialogic classroom event in which students and teachers are cognitively, socially, and affectively engaged in collaboratively constructing meaning or considering alternate interpretations of texts to arrive at new understandings.
Almasi, 2002 (in Israel & Duffy, 2009)
Read Almasi’s definition of discussion on the slide.
Ask participants to: Think about how much time teachers and students spend collaboratively constructing meaning or considering alternate interpretations of texts to arrive at new understandings.
Link: Talk is one of the main media for instruction in classrooms.

11. Module 1 What sort of conversations?
Comprehension improves when we engage students in rich discussions that allow students to integrate knowledge, experience, strategies and textual insights.
(Pearson, 2008)
Read Pearson’s quote.
Ask: Is the role of talk in your classrooms mainly instructional, organisational, teacher-directed?
How might you be able to include more deep and extended conversations and discussions in your classroom?
Remind participants to: Reflect on how talk helped your understanding of the text in the previous activity.
State that: There are excellent resources for further reading on this subject available on the wiki. We will be continuing to examine the role of talk in future sessions.
These will all be shown on the Bibliography slide at the end of this session and are included in the Bibliography section of your workbook.
Alert participants to the fact that the use of discussions/conversations about texts will continue throughout the program.
Link: For the remainder of this session, we will look more closely at the six comprehension strategies and how to explicitly teach them.

12. Module 1 Clarifying comprehension terminology
Compr ehensi on strateg ies
(e.g. Visuali sing)
Teachi ng ideas
(e.g. Picture this, Storyb oard)
Teachi ng strateg ies
(that is, modell ed, guided and indepe ndent teachin g)
Teachi ng routine s/practi ces
(e.g. Recipr ocal teachin g)
Materials:
Participant workbook: Clarifying terminology
State that: We need to begin the discussion by clarifying the terms that we will be using in relation to comprehension.
There is much variation in the use of these terms, however, we have been able to identify in the research the most commonly used terms. While it may take a while, we need to try to use these terms accurately so that we are speaking a common language in relation to comprehension.
Refer participants to Clarifying terminology in their workbooks.
CLICK to bring in the four terms.
1. Comprehension strategies are the metacognitive strategies used to accomplish the goal of Comprehension. The six comprehension strategies were introduced in Session 1.
Ask participants to: Read the bottom of Clarifying terminology and then turn to a partner and explain the difference between cognitive and metacognitive strategies.
2. Teaching ideas are the activities that teachers use with students to help them learn how to use a comprehension strategy. For example, Picture This, Storyboard. You will learn more about these in Module 2.
3. The teaching strategies, modelled, guided and independent teaching, are used to support all students to achieve the learning/lesson goals. You will learn more about these in Module 3.
4. Teaching routines/practices are ways to contextualise and integrate comprehension strategies.
For example, Reciprocal teaching, Literature circles. You will learn more about these in Module 4.
Link: We will now look at the six comprehension strategies.

13. Module 1 The ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies
Making connections
Summarising
Questioning
Predicting
Visualising
CLICK to bring in each of the six strategies.
Emphasise that: These are metacognitive strategies, not activities. Because they are metacognitive, the most effective way to explicitly teach them is by modelling through ‘think aloud’. Students practise these metacognitively as they are reading.
Scott Paris states that strategies are deliberate goal-directed efforts to decode, understand, etc. He refers to these as ‘tactics’, whereas skills are such things as note-taking, highlighting, etc.
Make connections to the strategies used by participants when trying to understand the medical text.
Ask participants to: Work with your partner or group from the previous activities when you examined the medical texts. Did you use any of these strategies? If so which ones?
Link: Let’s look at each of these strategies in terms of:
What is it?
Why is it important?
How is it used?
Monitoring

14. Module 1 Making connections Text to self; Text to text; Text to world
What is it?
Connecting prior knowledge with new information while reading. As readers engage with texts, they make connections to their personal experiences (Text to self); to other texts they have read, seen or heard (Text to text); and to things occurring in the world (Text to world).
Why is it important?
When readers link personal background knowledge, understanding or experiences to the text, they are able to construct meaning.
How is it used?
Readers let themselves ‘be reminded’ of things as the text is being read, viewed or heard. Background
knowledge is combined with ideas and actions
in the text that readers can relate to.
[Time allocation = 50 mins to here]
Materials:
Participant workbook: ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies
Allow only 3 mins maximum for each strategy.
NB: The term ‘reader’ should be taken to include reader/viewer/listener.
CLICK to bring in the information for each question. Read the information on the slide.
State that: Readers comprehend better when they actively think about and apply their knowledge of the text's topic, their own experiences, other things they have read or heard about the topic, and the world around them.
Harvey and Goudvis in their book, Strategies That Work (2000, p. 68), state that, When children understand how to connect the text they read to their lives, they begin to make connections between what they read and the larger world. This nudges them into thinking about bigger, more expansive issues beyond their universe of home, school and neighbourhood.
Refer participants to ‘Super Six‘ comprehension strategies in their workbook. Ask participants to: Quickly read through the information for this strategy.
Link: We will now look at Predicting.

15. Module 1 Predicting Beware the wild guess, make educated guesses
What is it?
Making an educated guess about something that will come later in the text. Reading detectives find evidence to back up predictions.
Why is it important?
When readers make a prediction, they engage with the author’s clues about what is important in the text.
How is it used?
Readers stop every once in a while and think about what the author has written and provided (such as a picture or chart).They check for clues about what might be important. Readers try to predict what will happen next or
the theme or main idea that the author
will emphasise.
Materials:
Participant workbook: ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies
CLICK to bring in the information for each question. Read.
State that: Duke & Pearson stated in 2002: As they read, good readers frequently make predictions about what is to come.
Explain that: Predicting is also a previewing strategy. Good readers hypothesise about what a text may be about based on textual clues or their own experiences. It also includes activating prior knowledge.
Refer to ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies in their workbook and ask them to: Quickly read through the information for this strategy.
Note that ‘predicting’ in this sense goes beyond looking at the cover and guessing what the text might be about. Predicting occurs throughout a text and follows a cycle of predicting, confirming, predicting.
Link: Let’s now look at Questioning.

16. Module 1 Questioning I wonder …
What is it?
Generating queries to guide thinking while reading, viewing or listening. Reading serves to answer the questions created. Readers generate and respond to why questions as well as how and what questions.
Why is it important?
The ability to generate questions underpins not only this strategy, but many interactions with texts (e.g. monitoring) Students need to learn how to generate and respond to questions.
How is it used?
Readers approach a text with questions and develop new questions as they read. Even after they have
read a text engaged readers still ask questions.
Materials:
Participant workbook: ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies
CLICK to bring in the information for each question. Read.
Explain: Through the use of self questioning or question generating, students understand the text on a deeper level because questions clarify confusion and stimulate further interest in a topic, e.g. ‘What in the text helped me/you know that?’
Refer participants to their booklet ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies. Ask participants to: Quickly read through the information for this strategy.
Link: Let’s now look at the fourth metacognitive comprehension strategy, Monitoring.

17. Module 1 Monitoring The ‘fix up’ strategy
What is it?
Constantly checking whether their reading is making sense. They stop and think about their reading and know what to do when they don’t understand.
Why is it important?
When readers monitor, they are actively engaged in thinking while reading. Students learn to be aware of what they do understand and identify what they don’t understand.
How is it used?
Readers adjust reading speed to fit text difficulty and ‘fix’ any comprehension problems. Readers could: identify where the difficulty occurs; identify what the difficulty is; restate the difficult sentence or passage in their own words; look back
through the text; look forward in the text.
Materials:
Participant workbook: ‘Super Six‘ comprehension strategies
CLICK to bring in the information for each question. Read.
State that: Teachers can provide charts that have ‘fix up’ strategies/suggestions on them, such as re-read, slow down, draw a diagram, make a connection, stop and think, ask a question, retell what you’ve read, notice patterns in text structure, etc.
Encourage students to ask questions as they read, such as: Is this making sense?/What can help to fill in the missing information?
Refer participants to ‘Super Six ‘ comprehension strategies in their workbook.
Ask participants to: Quickly read through the information for this strategy.
Link: Let’s now look at Visualising.

18. Module 1 Visualising The pictures that the author paints using words; the cinema unfolding in the mind
What is it?
Creating mental pictures based on what is read or heard. Students can imagine they are inside the scene described or take on the perspective of an historical figure, imagine the same scene from more than one perspective, etc.
Why is it important?
Students gain a more thorough understanding of the text by consciously using the words to create mental images. Students who visualise as they engage with a text not only have a richer experience but can recall what they have read for longer periods of time.
How is it used?
Readers stop at key points and create a picture, movie or sound clip. These images are used to draw conclusions,
create distinct and unique interpretations of the text,
to recall significant details.
Materials:
Participant workbook: ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies
CLICK to bring in the information for each question. Read.
State that: There is an old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. When it comes to comprehension, this saying might be paraphrased, a visual display helps readers understand, organise, and remember some of those thousand words (Duke & Pearson, 2002).
Remind participants that visualising is about the mental images or pictures that are created as the text is read or heard, and is not necessarily a visual such as a mind map or diagram in the text.
Refer participants to ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies in their workbook.
Ask participants to: Quickly read through the information for this strategy.
Link: Let’s now look at Summarising.

19. Module 1 Summarising Extracting essential information
What is it?
Compiling a shortened version of written or spoken material, stating the main points and leaving out everything that is not essential. It is more than retelling; it involves analysing information, distinguishing important from unimportant elements and translating large chunks of information into a few short, cohesive sentences.
Why is it important?
Summarising assists comprehension monitoring, helps students understand the organisational structure of texts and is a skill that most adults must be proficient in to be successful. It integrates and reinforces the learning of major points.
How is it used?
Readers pause periodically and summarise
what has happened so far. Summaries might use words, images or pictures to capture key ideas.
Materials:
Participant workbook: ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies
CLICK to bring in the information for each question. Read.
State that:
Some key points to remember when summarising include:
state topic or theme (capture main ideas and key information)
identify key information (have the right amount of detail – not too much, not too little)
combine several ideas or facts into one statement
paraphrase (use own words)
sequence important events.
To summarise non fiction:
skim the text to get a general idea of the topic
delete unnecessary or redundant material
find the main ideas in the text
find or create a topic sentence
substitute general or ‘umbrella’ terms when appropriate (e.g. trees instead of gum, willow and pine).
Refer participants to ‘Super Six’ comprehension strategies in their workbook.
Ask participants to: Quickly read through the information for this strategy.
Link: We’ll now apply this knowledge of the six comprehension strategies.

20. Module 1 The strategies in action
Task
Refer to the HSIE text from Session 2 and think about the comprehension strategies that:
a reader might use to engage with the text
you might be able to explicitly teach using this text.
[Time allocation = 65 mins to here]
Materials:
Participant workbook: Strategies bookmark
Allow 10 mins for this activity.
Allow time for participants to read the instructions on the slide.
Ask participants to: Refer to the HSIE text Terra nullius and Aboriginal peoples from Session 2 in your workbook.
Work with your partner or group to complete the activity. Use your Strategies bookmark as a visual reminder of the six strategies.
Provide time for sharing of ideas.
NB: A class set of bookmarks has been made for each participant. The purpose is for your students to use them as a reminder as you explicitly teach each strategy.
Link: Research has shown that explicit instruction of the comprehension strategies is essential.

21. Module 1 Explicit instruction
This involves fully teacher supported whole-group instruction.
Step 1: Select a text
Step 2: Explain the strategy
Step 3: Model the strategy
Step 4: Guided support
Step 5: Independent practice
Step 6: Reflect
Materials:
Participant workbook: Explicit instruction of comprehension strategies, and Think Aloud
Explain that: As stated previously, these strategies need to be explicitly taught.
CLICK to bring in each step.
As you bring in each step, ask participants to: Read the elaboration of each step in Explicit instruction of comprehension strategies in your workbook.
State that: Also included in your Participant workbook is information on Think Aloud.
Link: As you return to your classroom, there is a lot to think about from this session and lots you could try. The Between session mini task gives you just two things to try.

22. Module 1 Between session mini task
Start incorporating more extended conversations and deeper discussions in your classroom.
Video your students as they engage in these conversations and discussions.
For each group (of no more than four), nominate a team member who will a bring a recording to be viewed and discussed.
Have a go at explicitly teaching your students at least one of the comprehension
strategies. Complete the SWOT
analysis in your workbook.
Materials:
Participant workbook: Between session mini task, SWOT analysis
Read the task on the slide.
Explain to participants that: You will each have a turn to bring some video footage of your class as students engage in conversations and discussions. Even though you might not be the nominated person for the next session, each participant needs to video their class between sessions to establish a baseline on which to begin building evidence of student progress in this area.
State: You will need to complete the SWOT analysis in your workbooks to record your experiences as you explicitly teach the comprehension strategy/ies. These will be used as starting points for the Teaching session in Module 2.
Remind participants that: There is a copy of this task in your Participant workbook.
Link: We’ll now spend some time reflecting on your learning.

23. Module 1 Reflection Reflect on this session:
List four ‘take home messages’ that you think are the most important.
Rank these in order of importance from 1–4 (1 being least important).
List words under each message that provide justification for the ranking.
Discuss ranking with a partner.
Materials:
Participant workbook: Reflection: What is important?
State: This reflection is based on a teaching idea, What is important? on pp of Revisit, Reflect, Retell. This idea is useful to use with students to evaluate and justify facts or story elements.
Read the information on the slide.
Say: Refer to the Reflection page in your workbook and reflect on this session by completing the sheet.
CLICK to show reflection visual while participants complete their reflection sheet.

24. REFLECTION

25. Module 1 Bibliography
Almasi, J. cited in Almasi, J .& Garas-York, K. (2009)’ Comprehension and discussion of text’, In Israel, S. E. & Duffy, G. G. Handbook of research on reading comprehension, Routledge, New York, NY, pp
Duke, N. K. & Pearson, P. D. (2002) ‘Effective practices for developing reading comprehension’, in Farstrup, A. E. &. Samuels, S. J. (eds.) What research has to say about reading instruction (3rd edition), pp , IRA, Newark, DE.
Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. (2000) Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension to enhance understanding, Stenhouse, Portland, ME.
Hoyt, L (2009) Revisit, Reflect, Retell: Time tested strategies for teaching reading comprehension, Heinemann, Portsmouth, NH.
NSW Institute Teachers The Digest Talking to learn: Dialogue in the classroom.
Professional Teaching Standards located on NSW Institute of Teachers’ website viewed 16 September,
Paris, S. G. (2005) ‘Reinterpreting the development of reading skills’, Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 40, No. 2, April/May/June, pp. 184–202.
Pearson, P. D. (2008) Teaching reading comprehension: Research, best practice and good teaching < Teaching-Reading-Comprehension- Research-Best-Practice>
Say: A copy of the Bibliography is in your Participant workbook and all readings will be available in the Focus on Reading 3-6 wiki.