Teaching Comprehension in the early grades Leecy Wise

Technology Check  Mike muted? (Turn on for comments and presentations)  One person in charge?  Access my computer screen?

Other Checks  Be ready to go 5 min after  Report problems in sight and sound  Have a spokesman

Day 1 Agenda  Review Phonics Workshops  Presentation of activities

Whose Responsibility?  Reading Teachers?  Administration?  Assistants?  Parents?  Volunteers?

NRP Report Comprehension is critically important to the of children’s reading skills and therefore to the ability to obtain an education. NRP noted three predominant themes in the research on the development of reading comprehension skills.

NRP Report First, reading comprehension is a complex cognitive process that cannot be understood without a clear description of the role that vocabulary development and vocabulary instruction play in the understanding of what has been read.

NRP Report Second, comprehension is an active process that requires an intentional and thoughtful interaction between the reader and the text.

NRP Report Third, the preparation of teachers to better equip students to develop and apply reading comprehension strategies to enhance understanding is intimately linked to students’ achievement in this area.

A Few Findings  Using a combination of comprehension instructional methods is more effective than using a single method.  Comprehension is enhanced when readers actively relate the ideas in print to their own knowledge and experiences.

A Few Findings  Comprehension strategies must be taught.  Teachers should demonstrate comprehension strategies until students can perform them on their own.

Seven Effective Strategies

Comprehension Monitoring  Students learn to be aware of their understanding of the text and to use specific strategies when needed. Comprehension monitoring is “thinking about thinking.” Comprehension monitoring instruction has positive effects on standardized reading comprehension test performance.

Comprehension Monitoring  Track their thinking.  Notice when they lose focus.  Stop and go back.  Reread to enhance understanding.  Identify what's confusing.  Consciously select the best strategy.

Monitoring Suggestions  Skip the word and read to end of sentence or segment, trying to figure it out from the context.  Guess the meaning or substitute a word that seems to fit and see if it makes sense.

Monitoring Suggestions  Ask someone the meaning of the word, look for definition in text, look up in dictionary.  Reread the segment.  Read aloud—it can really help to hear the text. Or ask someone else to read it aloud to you.  Slow down and reread, or read aloud.

Cooperative Learning  Students work together to learn comprehension strategies. This leads to an increase in the learning of the strategies, promotes intellectual discussion, and increases reading comprehension including on standardized test performance.

Graphic Organizers  Students write or draw meanings and relationships of underlying ideas. Main effect appears to be in the improvement of the readers’ memory for the content that has been read. Improvement is also found in social studies and science content areas.

This class Reading in the Early Grades Reading Comprehension 1.___ 2.___ 3.___ 4.___ 5.___ 6.___ 7.___

This class Reading in the Early Grades Phonological DevelopmentPhonemic Awareness Phonics/Decoding Skills Reading Comprehension 1.Comprehension Monitoring 2.Cooperative Learning 3.Graphic Organizers 4.___ 5.___ 6.___ 7.___

Analyze Story Structure  Students are taught to use the structure of the story as a means of helping them recall story content in order to answer questions about what they have read; and

Story Structure  I’m going to read you a story. What would you want to know about this story?" Students would likely comment that they would like to know who the story is about, what happens in the story, where the story takes place, and how the story ends.

Story Structure  "Who" refers to characters, "where" and "when" involve setting and mood, "what happens" details events of the plot, "how did it end" involves the resolution of the story's conflict. "Why" questions get at the author's theme of the story.  Use a map for older learners.  Visualize where possible.

Question/Answer with Immediate Feedback  Readers answer questions posed by the teacher and receive immediate feedback

Question Generation  Readers ask themselves questions about various aspects of the story;

Summarization  Readers are taught to integrate ideas and generalize from the text information.

Comprehension is the purpose of reading IN ALL CONTENT AREAS!

Who’s Responsibility? Everyone’s!!!  If you teach math, teach reading.  If you teach science, teach reading.  If you teach language, history, geography, P.E., economics, basket weaving, technology, writing, art, music, ANYTHING …

TEACH READING COMPREHENSION!

 "Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." Benjamin Franklin

Next time:  Lesson activities  Vocabulary