COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES -Why we read the word and the world-

Basic Goals of Reading To enable the learner to gain understanding of the world and of themselves To develop appreciations and interests To help the learner to find solutions to their personal and group problems To develop strategies to support independent understanding and thinking

Teachers’ Role To support comprehension teachers need to: Activate students’ prior knowledge Guide students’ reading of a text Foster active and engaged reading Reinforce concepts gleaned from the text reading Encourage careful/critical thinking Pursue inquiry on different topics

Approaches for constructing meaning Visualizing Monitoring Inferencing, including predicting Identifying important information Generating and answering questions Synthesizing Summarizing

More approaches for constructing meaning Tapping prior knowledge Organizing ideas Figuring out unknown words Making connections Comprehension monitoring Applying fix-up strategies Revising meaning Playing with words

Guidelines for Skill and Strategy Instruction Teach mini-lessons Differentiate between skills and strategies Provide step-by-step explanations Use modeling Provide practice opportunities Apply in content areas Use reflection Hang charts of skills and strategies

Modeling The process of showing or demonstrating for someone how to use or do something s/he does not know how to do. The process by which an expert shows students (non-experts) how to perform a task. A component of scaffolding learning within the constructivist framework.

Types of Modeling Implicit modeling Explicit modeling Talk-alouds Think-alouds

Where modeling takes place During daily activities Process writing Literacy lessons Mini-lessons

Guidelines for Effective Strategy Instruction Determine the need for instruction on the basis of student performance Introduce only 1 or 2 strategies at a time Model and practice the strategy in the meaningful context of a reading experience Model each strategy at the point where it is most useful

Guidelines – (cont’d) Be sure that modeling and practicing are interactive and collaborative activities Gradually transfer modeling from yourself to the students Help students experience immediate success Encourage the use of a strategy across the curriculum Guide students to become strategic readers

Mini-lesson Introduction (includes telling why and when strategy can be useful) Teacher modeling Student modeling and guided practice Summarizing and reflecting

Follow-up to mini-lesson Independent practice Application Reflection

Comprehension Strategies

Reciprocal Teaching(RT) RT is an interactive process in which the teacher and students take turns modeling 4 strategies after reading a meaningful chunk of text Strategies in RT Predict Question Clarify Summarize

Summarizing steps Delete trivial information Delete redundant information Substitute superordinate terms for lists of terms Integrate a series of events with a superordinate action term

K-W-L Purpose: intended to help teachers become more responsive to helping students access appropriate knowledge when reading Rationale: students need a mix of individual and group activities and procedures to scaffold their own ideas and interests Audience: any age level with expository text

K-W-L Procedures Step K- What I know Step W- what do I want to learn Step L- What I learned

K-W-L modifications K-W-L Plus (incorporates mapping and summarizing) K-W-H-L (H stands for How do I intend to learn; what resources, tools will be needed K-W-L with paragraph frames (incorporates writing) K-W-L with focus questions

Anticipation Guides Purpose: to activate student;s knowledge about a topic before reading, and provide purpose by serving as a guide for subsequent reading Rationale: prediction serves to activate prior knowledge; controversy can be an effective motivational device Audience: any grade level

Anticipation Guides-procedure Identify major concepts Determine students’ knowledge of these concepts Create statements Decide statement order and presentation mode Present guide

Anticipation Guides-procedure (cont’d) Discuss each statement briefly Direct students to read the text Conduct follow-up discussion

Text Preview Purpose: build students’ background knowledge about a topic before reading Motivate students to read Provide an organizational framework for comprehending a text

Text Preview Rationale: comprehension is enhanced when readers draw on their prior knowledge and are interested in the topic Audience: upper elementary through high school

Text Preview-Procedure Preparation and construction of text previews An interest-building section A synopsis of the selection A section that includes a purpose-setting question or directions for reading

Text Preview-Procedure Presentation of text previews Tell students that you’re going to introduce a new story Read the interest-building section of the preview Give time for students to relate the information to their prior knowledge and discuss it Read remainder of preview Direct students to read the selection

ReQuest Procedure Purpose: Formulate their own questions and develop questioning behavior Adopt an active, inquiring attitude to reading Acquire reasonable purposes for reading Improve independent reading comprehension skills

ReQuest Procedure Rationale: it is important for students to develop their own abilities to ask questions and set their own purposes for reading Audience: all levels and all ages

ReQuest Procedure Procedures Preparation of material Development of readiness for the strategy Development of students questioning behaviors Development of students predictive behaviors Silent reading Follow-up activities

Question-Answer Relationships Purpose: enhance students’ ability to answer comprehension questions by giving them a systematic means for analyzing task demands of different question probes Rationale: students become independent comprehenders by learning how to respond to different types of comprehension questions Audience: grade four through eight

Question-Answer Relationships Procedure Lesson 1: introduce students tot the task demands of different questions, provide practice at identifying task demands related to answering questions Lesson 2: provide students with review and further guided practice as they read slightly longer passages Extend task to longer selection

Think-Alouds Purpose: to help readers examine and develop reading behaviors and strategies Rationale: with teacher modeling students will realize how and when to use effective processing strategies for understanding Audience: all levels

Think-Alouds: Procedures Teacher modeling Make predictions or show students how to develop hypotheses Describe your visual images Share an analogy or show how prior knowledge applies Verbalize a confusing point or show how you monitor developing understandings Demonstrate fix-up strategies

Think-Alouds: Procedures Student partnerships for practice Independent student practice using checklists Integrated use with other materials

More Effective Comprehension Strategies Dialogical-Thinking Reading Lesson Inquiry Chart Graphic Organizers (story maps, semantic web) DRA and DR-TA Inferential reading SQ3R Discussion Reciprocal Teaching