1. Teaching Comprehension and Response in Elementary School
EDC 423:
Teaching Comprehension and Response in Elementary School
Dr. Julie Coiro
Chafee 615

2. Chapter 5: Key Ideas Explicit Teaching of Comprehension Strategies
I Do, We Do, You Do, Redo Sequence: Define/Explain, Model with think-aloud, Scaffolded Practice, Debrief/Reflect; Independent Application and Practice
Techniques for teaching key comprehension strategies: inferring, connecting, questioning, monitoring (fix-up strategies), summarizing
Differentiating Strategy Instruction

3. Chapter 5: Key Ideas Explicit Teaching of Text Characteristics
Defining the type of text (and linking to specific text features)
Genres and Text Concepts (page 138)
Teaching about internal text structure
Narrative text structure (story grammar) (Chart on p. 142 – narrative elements)
Expository text structures (Organizational patterns: Chart on p. 143) Description, compare-contrast, sequence, cause-effect, problem-solution
Technology-Based/Web-based texts: challenges for searching, navigating, evaluating

4. Today’s Objectives
Practice comprehension: Creating mental representations of typical expository text structures
Use visual graphic organizers to support your comprehension
Review aspects of key reading comprehension/thinking strategies and apply them to a text [Comprehension Self-Assessment]
Fill this out as a group after partners work to complete the activity sheet: Identifying and Addressing Students’ Reading Comprehension Needs

5. Teaching Comprehension
GOAL: Create a mental representation of the text (comprehend it) so you can use it later to recall, integrate, or apply [keep asking and giving independent practice] but then model, explicitly teach, and give repeated guided practice
IF NEED SUPPORT:
Read the text and underline the important ideas (for your purpose)
Re-read the text and circle the text markers that establish coherence (explicitly or implicitly help you determine how the author connects the ideas)
Identify the type of informational text structure
Review the text’s important ideas and linking words and try to summarize using the format of that informational text structure

6. Big Ideas about Best Practices… (in Chapter 2)
CPS and Before/During/After framework
BEFORE: Set a purpose, activate background knowledge
DURING: Big ideas, infer, connect, visualize, question/wonder, analyze, synthesize
AFTER: Organize, shape, reflect, revise, publish
Think-aloud and modeling thinking strategies (define, show, give examples, when/why use)
Gradual Release of Responsibility
(I do > We do > You do)
The Teacher
The Students
I do
You watch
You help
I help
You do
I watch
These ideas are coming up in Chapter 2 and are the framing ideas for the course and best practices

7. The Olympics
Apply comprehension strategies (e.g., determining main ideas, inferencing, making connections, analyzing, summarizing, or organizing) and your PK about common informational text structures to answer the following:
How does the author structure the text in this article?
How do you know? Does the author provide explicit clues, implicit clues, or both?
How can you use visual graphic organizers to help you create a mental representation of the text?

8. Activating Your PK About Common informational text structures
Description
Cause/Effect
Compare/Contrast
Problem/Solution
Sequence/Time

9. Olympic Rings 5 rings 5 continents 5 colors flags DESCRIPTION
Text markers: consists of; represent

10. SEQUENCE (Timeline and interesting facts)
Text markers: began; ended; then, continued
776 BC
Athletic festival honor Greek gods
394 AD
Roman emperor ended the games
None for 1,500 years!
1896
Modern games; 300 male athletes
1900
Female athletes allowed
Now every four years, except WWI

11. COMPARE/CONTRAST Text markers: unlike, alike, some/but also
ANCIENT Olympics
BOTH
MODERN Olympics
Chariot races
Javelin
Discus Throw
Swimming races
No females
All nude athletes
Cheating
nationalism
professionalism
Males & females ?
(inferred PK)
Wear clothes
(background PK)

12. Expository Text Structures
Quickwrite:
What are they and how do they make comprehension more difficult?
How can you help?

13. BEFORE Reading Strategies
Set a purpose
Create motivation > Focus on the goal
What’s the problem? Why am I using this text?
Predict and Connect: Overview to activate prior knowledge
What’s the title?
Do a picture walk.
What do I already know about this?
What do I predict will happen/I will learn?
What questions do I have?

14. DURING Reading Strategies (or listening or viewing)
MONITOR: Be aware of mistakes and apply strategies to repair/revise understandings (CLARIFY)
Make Connections: Text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world
Determine important ideas: Use text clues as evidence
Ask Questions: Readers asks ?’s and reads to clarify before, during, and after reading
Analyze/Critique: Use text features and structures to reflect on what stands out (overall gist) and how it stands out
Visualize (Image): Use imagination and senses to picture, smell, taste, or feel something in the text
Infer: Use clues from text & background knowledge
Summarize: Identify the main idea and supporting details from the text
Synthesize: Tell the main ideas and add original reflection/interpretation that connects to bigger ideas beyond the text

15. Key Reading Strategies M+MDAAVISS
MAKE
CONNECTIONS M
SYNTHESIZE S
DETERMINE
IMPORTANT
IDEAS D
SUMMARIZE
MONITOR
AND
CLARIFY S M
ASK QUESTIONS A
INFER/
PREDICT I
VISUALIZE V
ANALYZE/CRITIQUE A

16. AFTER Reading Strategies
Create and share a “mental representation”!
Organize and Shape
How can I best show my understanding of the most important big ideas?
Reflect and Revise
What works and what doesn’t work
Publish: Make comprehension public
How can I share? With whom? When? Where?
(How can we, as teachers, make this experience authentic – to address a real purpose)

17. Homework (on wiki) Comprehension Self-Assessment
Finish Olympics text structures class activity
Read short article about online text structures
Study for Quiz