Comprehension 1 Why we teach kids to read! October CRF Institute

Comprehension
Why we teach kids to read!
October CRF Institute
2006
1
Activating Your Thinking
Using three different color sticky notes:
• Indicate on one sticky note a brief definition or
explanation of comprehension
• Indicate on another sticky note the problems or
roadblocks you observe with your students in
comprehending text
• Use your third sticky to describe one strategy,
technique, or method you currently use to teach
reading comprehension
2
Significant Statistics
• Recent NAEP results indicate 37% of fourth
grade students fall into the “below basic”
category, 59% in the “below proficient”
category. These percentages rise as the
grade levels increase.
3
• Among eighth graders, those who are non-white
or who are from low-income families read 3-4
grade levels lower than students who are white or
those who are economically more advantaged
• More than 8 million students in grades 4-12 are
struggling readers. Each school day, some 3000
students drop out of high school
(Biancarosa and Snow 2004)
4
The purpose of this workshop…
…is to examine what research tells us about factors
that affect reading comprehension and about
what instruction must contain and what it must do
to help students become proficient in
comprehending text.
It is not enough to teach them the words, they must
know how to use the words to understand
sentences, passages, and whole texts!
5
Workshop Objectives
• Understand the major factors that influence
comprehension
• Understand how the reader, the text, and background
experience interact to influence meaning
• Examine the challenges of ‘Academic Language’ within
sentences, phrases, and whole texts and absorb
strategies to support students with these challenges
• Determine the most effective instructional strategies to
use before, during, and after reading
• Plan for comprehension instruction by outlining specific
activities that will support children’s comprehension of the
text
6
Why Teach Comprehension?
• Goal of reading instruction is to ensure
students gain meaning from text.
• Students need strategies to read and
understand text independently
• Teachers need processes to help kids
connect to difficult text
• Kids need to understand the importance of
reading well and reading early
7
The GAP Widens!!!!
• Children at the 20% in amount of independent
reading, read approximately less than 1 min/ day
• Children at the 50% in amount of independent
reading, read approximately 4.6 min/day or about
½ hour/week
• Children at the 80% in amount of independent
reading read approximately 14.2 min/day
Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding (1988)
8
What is Reading Comprehension?
• Intentional thinking during which meaning is
constructed through interactions between a
reader and a text
Durkin 1993
• A multidimensional process that involves
factors related to the reader, the text, and
the activity of gaining meaning.
9
Let’s go back
• Remember:
Link your lessons!!!!
• Review Æ Preview
– Increases understanding
– Increases on-task
10
Good morning
• What does: I do it. We do it. You do it
mean as you plan your lesson?
• When should you use the 3 do its? Why?
• When should you use the You do it? Why?
• What is the best way to correct students
during initial learning?
• Why is expanding on vocabulary
important?
11
Factors Related to the Reader
• Reader
Competencies
– Foundational
Skills
– Higher Order
Reading
Processes
– Social and
Cultural
Influences
12
Factors Related to the Text
• Text genre and structure
• Language features
13
Factors Related to the Reading Activity
• Purposes for reading
• Engagement in reading
14
Critical Question
• How do we use this information to
identify the kinds of instruction that
will best help students
comprehend what they read?
15
Partner Activity: Share different
instructional considerations for each factor
• Reader competencies
– Skills
– Higher order reading processes
– Social/cultural influences
• Text factors
– Genre
– Language features
• Purpose
• Engagement
16
Your turn
• Discuss the two points (factors) that affect
your instructional decisions the most.
17
Why do children have trouble
comprehending?
•
•
•
•
Fluency
Vocabulary
Failure to use text structure
Failure to monitor comprehension
• Decoding
18
Becoming an automatic reader
•
•
•
•
Read words 4-14 times correctly
Read and reread large amounts
Read fluently at proficiency level
Read at independent reading level (95%)
19
Vocabulary Instruction
• Explicit instruction
• Expansion of vocabulary to provide indepth word knowledge
Research suggests that reading
comprehension requires a high level of
word knowledge- higher than the level
achieved by many types of vocabulary
instruction. (Nagy 1988)
20
What are Comprehension Strategies?
• Comprehension strategies are specific
cognitive procedures that guide readers to
become aware of how well they are
comprehending as they attempt to read and
write
• What? Why? When? How?
21
General framework
for teaching comprehension
• Before
– Pre-teach new vocabulary
– Tap students’ prior knowledge
– Chunk text
• During
– Chunk text and ask questions
– Model on-going comprehension monitoring
– Use graphic organizers
• After
– Use strategic questions
– Review
22
What Strategies Should be Taught?
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Previewing/predicting
Answering questions (prior knowledge)
Retelling
Comprehension Monitoring
Generating questions
Using the structure of stories
Summarization
Using Graphic and Semantic Organizers
23
Participant Discussion
• Which strategies might you use with students as
you preview a selection?
• Which strategies would be helpful to students
when they encounter unfamiliar words?
• Which strategies might you use with students if
they don’t understand something they have read?
• After reading, which strategies would help
students check their understanding of what they
have read?
24
What do I know activity
25
Your turn
What do you understand?
• The day progressed well. We stopped and got a
few snacks to eat while we were waiting. I
pushed the stroller, and my toddler walked along
holding his yogurt. The pace was relaxing.
Stopping to make a final check on the plan, I set
down my heavy bag, rounded up the toddler, and
began the search through the layers of child stuff
for the critical papers. Finding them and locating
the pertinent information seemed to take forever.
My eyes scanned the page. My heart stopped as
I read 10:30. Oh no, it was 10:15. My bag kept
slipping while I ran carrying my toddler . Would
we make it?
26
• Was it difficult to comprehend the
passage?
• Why?
• Tell you partner some things that would
have helped you understand what you
read.
27
Predicting/Previewing
• Looks fors
– Title
– Pictures
– Links to other related stories
• Scan story
• Create “What do you predict will happen?”
questions. “Was your prediction accurate?”
“How would you change your prediction?”
28
Predict and Prove Activity
Prediction
Prove
29
Prediction activity
30
Using Prior Knowledge
• Establishes quicker understanding
• Motivates engagement in reading
• Helps in determining vocabulary use
(definition) through context
• May increase comprehension monitoring
31
Your turn
Build on prior knowledge
Discuss with your partner some questions
you might use with you students.
It was Sam’s first day at his new school and
he missed his old friends. He felt all alone
as he watched other boys play at recess.
He …
32
Retelling
• Requires attention to main idea (theme),
details and sequence
• Telling in own words
• Chunk text
“Tell me what your read? Who…? What
happened? What happened next? …”
33
• Retelling organizer
character
end
beginning
middle
34
Story elements activity
35
Comprehension Monitoring
Effective readers monitor their
comprehension by thinking about their
thinking. They are aware of what they
understand and are able to identify
breakdowns in their comprehension. They
use “fix up” strategies when they run into
problems.
36
Steps to Monitor Comprehension
• Identifying where in the
text the difficulty occurs
• Restating a difficult
sentence or passage in
one’s own words
• Looking back through
text to clarify thinking
• Varying reading rate
• Rereading
• Reading ahead
37
More Fix up Strategies
• Look under headings and subheadings
(expository)
• Look back to find key words
• Look at pictures
• Adjust pace
• Can you think of other ways?
38
Comprehension monitoring
Things I Can Do
• Before
– Think- What do I know?
– Predict- What do I think will happen?
• During
– Ask- Did I understand what I just read?
Were there any words I didn’t understand?
Was anything confusing?
Can I retell in my own words?
• After
– Summarize
39
Comprehension Monitoring
Activities
• To help kids focus their attention more
– Cause-effect: Why…
– Express own opinion…….explain
– Note details
– Main idea
40
Compare 2 characters activity
41
Read-Ask ( partner read )
42
Cause/effect activity
43
Strategies to Support
Comprehension Monitoring
Think Aloud
Using Read Alouds!!
44
• Use short passages or read-alouds
provided with the core materials to initiate
modeling of the target strategies.
• Most core programs start with teachers
eliciting information or background
knowledge. A powerful guidance strategy
should include initial modeling and
presentation.
45
Your turn
Work with a partner
• Find a new passage that you will be
reading soon.
• Discuss how you would elicit prior
knowledge and practice a short “read
aloud” with your partner.
46
Strategies to Support
Comprehension Monitoring
Think, Pair, Share
Paraphrasing
47
• Provide students many opportunities to
stop and paraphrase or rephrase big ideas
in the text. They should stop and THINK,
then PAIR, then SHARE with a partner.
• Partner or table group sharing with
incremental CHUNKS of texts will enable
students to hold onto big ideas and connect
background experience.
48
Think, Pair, Share
Steps
•
•
•
•
T poses question
T says, “Think”
T waits … (Powerful Pause)
T says, “Tell your partner… Partners, listen carefully to your
partner’s answer, then share your answer.”
• Correction procedure: If several students are incorrect, say
– “The answer is ________
– “What is the answer everyone?”
(for short and the same response)
– “Everyone tell your partner the answer.”
(for longer responses)
49
Whole Group vs Individual Responses
• Simple answer (short and same)
• T- If something is beneath something else, it is
(under) it.
• Think
• (cue) Tell me
• Complex answer (long and not same)
• T - How do you know when fall is here?
• Think
• Tell you partner.
50
Your turn
• Read this passage. Come up with a question the
whole class can chorally answer and one more
complex question.
Sam and his friend went camping this summer.
They went with Sam’s parents. His mother had
been a Girl Scout, so she know all about
camping. She knew how to set up camp, how to
build a campfire and how to blaze a trail.
. Practice with your partner using the given script.
51
• What vocabulary word might you need to
teach?
• What concept might you need to expand?
52
Strategies to Support
Comprehension Monitoring
Text Coding or Text Marking
53
Strategy to hold onto the big
ideas in text
• Use small sticky notes, highlighting tape, or
bookmarks to mark pages and ideas
according to coded targets.
V
!
?
to highlight new or unusual vocabulary
to indicate important ideas
to indicate question or confusion
54
Summarizing
• Summarizing is “expressing in a brief form
the central idea or ideas of a text.”
• Effective readers summarize during reading
and after reading using a combination of
skills.
55
Summarization requires
• Making judgments- determine what is
important, condense this information, and
to put into own words
• Sequencing events- increase student
awareness of how a text is organized and
how its ideas are related
• Noting details- make connections amongst
the main ideas of a text
• Making generalizations56
• Summarizing involves identifying the
‘who’ or ‘what’ and the action.
Eliminating adjectives to give just the
gist.
• To summarize at the sentence level
we can ask Who (or What?)
happened?
Example: The brown spotted cat ran
down the street.
Summary: A cat ran.
57
Table discussion
• What do you do with students who can’t
highlight the important pieces of what they
read?… They restate details or make
unrelated connections.
• What graphic organizers have you used to
help kids focus in on the critical ideas?
58
Summarize activity
59
Summarizing Tips
• Summarize small chunks of informationoften!
• Teach summarizing at the sentence level
and paragraph level, before asking
students to summarize whole passagesscaffolding
• Use sticky notes to make brief summaries
and combine to create whole text
summaries
60
Question Cube
Addresses all strategies
• Make your cube
What is going
to happen
next?
Summarize
Discuss
What else
what you
words you
do you
read
don’t know? want to know
Have you
experienced
this before?
glue
What did
you
read?
glue
glue
61
• Roll cube, read question and answer
What do you think
is going to happen
next?
62
2 Kinds of Text Structure
• Narrative
• Information (expository)
63
Narrative Text
• Organized text: character, plot, setting,
conflict, resolution…
• Recounts personal experience - what
happened or what might have happened
• Beginning Æ middle Æ end
• Sequenced
– What happened first
– What happened next, etc.
64
Character characteristics activity
65
Story line up
Sequence activity
66
Informational Text
• Provides information
– Explain
– Teach concepts
– Provides event information
• Has many structures
– Chronologically sequenced
– Information chunks/units
– Compare and contrast
–…
67
Recognizing Story Structure
• How content and events are organized into
a plot
• Ability to recognize story structure
increases appreciation, understanding, and
memory for text
68
• Helps to identify story contentinitiating events, internal reactions, goals,
attempts, and outcomes-and how this
content is organized to make up a coherent
plot
• Helps with relationship understanding:
cause and effect, compare and contrast,
problem solution and other relationships
among parts of text
69
Recognizing Story Structure
Students learn
• to identify story content
• to understand who, what, where, when,
why, and how
• to recognize how the content is
organized into a plot
• to infer causal and other relationships
70
Story element key ring
71
Recognizing Story Structure
Students learn to recognize story structure
through
• explicit instruction
• answering and asking questions
• constructing story maps
72
Questions Students Learn to
Ask and Answer Include
•
•
•
•
•
Who is the main character?
What does the main character do and why?
Where and when does the story take place?
How does the main character feel?
How does the story end?
73
Story Maps
• Story maps can be a timeline or sequence
chart that shows the sequence of events in
a story.
• Other story maps show how events or
concepts in a story are related
• More complex story maps may show rising
action, climax, falling action, and resolution
74
SOMEBODY
WANTED
BUT…
SO…
75
Using Graphic and Semantic
Organizers
• Helps students form a memory for concepts
and ideas
• Can be used as a prereading, during
reading, or post reading support structure
76
Ways Authors Organize Text
• Cyclical Organizers
• Hierarchical Organizers
• Sequential Organizers
• Conceptual Organizers
77
Sample
Generic Organizer
Spider map
Topic
Concept
Theme
78
Example
Cyclical Organizer
1
3
1
22
79
Samples
Hierarchical Organizer
Descriptive or
Thematic Map
Detail
Detail
Detail
Sub.
Idea
Main
Idea
Detail
Sub.
Idea
Detail
Detail
Sub
Idea
80
Network tree
81
Sample
Sequential Organizer
Episodic map
Main idea
Cause
Effect
Cause
82
Conceptual Organizers
• Spider map, descriptive map, network map
• Compare/contrast map
Concept 2
Concept 1
Diff.
Features
Diff.
Feature
Sim.
Features
83
Participant Activity
• Analyze the text example in your
packet
• Identify a story map that would
make the text accessible for
students
• Create a story map to share with
the group
84
• Using some future story from your text,
create a interesting organizer that
illustrates story structure and will attract
your students’ attention.
• Make this fun and unique to the story
85
Question Answering
• Question answering INSTRUCTION can
help students get more from their reading
by showing them how to find and use
information from the text to answer different
types of questions.
• QAR (Question Answer Relationship) has
been shown to increase students’ ability to
interact with text
86
Question Generation
• Focuses - learning to ask questions about
what they read
• Teaching to ask themselves questions
improves their active processing of text and
so improves comprehension
• By generating questions students become
aware of whether they can answer their
own questions, and thus, whether they can
understand what they are reading
87
Question-Answer Relationships QAR
text-based
textually
explicit
Right There
answer stated
within a single
sentence in the
text
scriptal
not specifically in the text, based on
reader’s prior knowledge
textually
implicit
Think and
Search
answer can be
found in several
sentences
Author and You
On My Own
requires reading can be answered
the text but
based on reader’s
answer is not
prior knowledge
found in the
without reading
text
the text
88
Right There
The text states:
George Washington was the first president of
the United States.
The question asks:
Who was the first President of the United
States?
89
Think and Search
The text states in one place
The desert climate is hot and dry.
Elsewhere, it states:
In the rain forest, the climate is moist and hot.
The questions ask:
How are the climates of the desert and rain
forest similar? How are they different?
90
You and the author
• Your packet - comparing California in
1800s to now….
• Another example
• Students must understand WWII and read
Diary of Anne Frank.
• How would you feel if you had experienced
what Anne Frank experienced?
91
On my own
• Your packet- skateboarding example
Another• If your were poor and homeless like Sara
(fictional character in some story), how
might your life be different?
92
Partner Activity
• Using your text, create a question for each
of the types:
– Right There
– Think and Search
– Author and You
– On My Own
Compare and share with a partner.
93
ClosingHow Should Strategies be Taught?
Strategy instruction is most effective when
teachers use a
Æ Model
Æ Teach
Æ Practice/Scaffold
(80-90% previously learned material
combined with 10-20% new information)
Æ Apply
Teach ...adjust…teach…adjust…teach…
94
Model for Instruction
•
•
•
•
•
•
Select the text
Select the strategy
Give a clear explanation
Model the strategy
Support student practice
Have students apply the strategy
95
Direct Definition
• Explain to students what the strategy is and its
purpose.
Teach/Model
• Demonstrate the strategy for students using a think
aloud while interacting with the text.
• Clarify for students that you are thinking aloud. Use
a transition statement that tells students you have
left the text of the story to provide the think aloud.
• Don’t ask students questions about strategy used
during the modeling step.
• Provide additional models for students as needed
during reading of selection.
.
96
Guided Practice
• Work together with students to help them learn
how and when to use the strategy.
• Use the strategy name while guiding students.
• Prompt students to use multiple strategies when
appropriate.
• Provide opportunities for active participation for
all students.
• Provide many opportunities for guided practice,
and remember to prompt students to use
strategies every time they read
97
Apply/Feedback
• As students participate in guided practice,
provide feedback regarding correct and incorrect
usage of the strategy (praise students for strategy
steps they used and remind them of steps they
left out).
Extend
• Remind students to use the strategy while they
continue to read the current text and while they
read other texts.
98
Last activity•
•
Review Card #15- Procedure for
Strategy Instruction
Choose a comprehension strategy from
your TE that you and your team
members would like to practice.
99
Work with a group of four:
- complete the planning sheet
- practice the teaching procedure for
strategy instruction. (One person should
act as the teacher, one as a student, and
one as a coach. Take turns performing
each role.)
100
Comprehension Planning Sheet
Comp. strategy
Example
Before, ,during, after
Direct
explanation
Modeling
Guided practice
Feedback
Application
101
Remember! There’s no time to lose.
– “The average child at the 90th% reads almost
2,000,000 words/year outside of school…
200 times more words than the child at the
10th % who reads just 8,000 words outside of
school
– The entire year’s out-of-school reading for the
child at the 10th% amounts to two days of
independent reading for the child at the 90th%!”
(Anderson, Wilson, and Fielding, 1988)
102
Thank you.
103
104
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