Transcript Slide 1

Make Reading Count
Why teach comprehension?
Teaching words alone is not enough!
 The ability to read words is necessary for comprehension,
but not sufficient
 Comprehension uses complicated cognitive processes
that take time and practice
Text Model
Building a structure for comprehension
 External building materials
 Text
 Pictures
 Internal building materials
 Background knowledge
 Word knowledge
 Comprehension strategies
 Comprehension is an interactive process of building
understanding
Comprehension breakdowns
Breakdowns in comprehension happen when:
 background knowledge is inconsistent with author’s
expectation
 vocabulary knowledge is inconsistent with author’s
expectation
 child has limited knowledge of English language
 child has few strategies to make processes work together
 Good News: Each breakdown area can be taught!
 How stories work
 How to make inferences
 Strategies to build on text model
How to teach comprehension
 Name strategies
 Teach kids when and where to use them
 Inappropriate use of strategies are a waste of cognitive
energy
Goal: Help kids develop a text model
Start early!
 Kindergarteners can learn to use text information to
understand what they read
PICTURE acronym
A tool to remember comprehension strategies
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Predict – guess what will happen next
Imagine – visualize, create a mental image
Clarify – make sure your text model makes sense
Try – ask yourself ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions
Use – use what you know, background knowledge
Review – summarize during and after reading
Evaluate – Did this text meet my purposes? How is it
connected to other texts?
Comprehension-focused classroom
 Lots of language
 talking as well as reading
 conversations about books
 Teachers model thinking
 ask questions as they read
 encourage questions from students
 High quality literature
 complex books and characters
You can’t teach comprehension quietly!
Connecting across grade levels
 PICTURE acronym can be applied to all different age
groups
 CORE program materials offers strategies for use
across grades
4th Grade challenge
Why do comprehension scores decrease after 4th grade?
 Text is more complex and demanding
 Kids are reading in areas with little background knowledge
 Reading to build background knowledge
 May have word recognition problems or fluency problems
What can elementary teachers do?
 Make sure kids can decode easily and well
 Give kids practice so they can read fluently
 Support development of:
 Vocabulary
 Concept knowledge
 Comprehension strategies
 Provide chances to interact with teachers, text, and peers
Assessment
 Ask questions!
 Ask child to tell you what they understood from the text
 Children with dyslexia
 Assessment covers a spectrum of language skills, from
decoding to comprehension
 Dyslexics generally have higher vocabulary and
comprehension ability than decoding ability
Video: Understanding Themes
Community School 200, Harlem, NY
 Theme Scheme
 Focuses on underlying theme of story
 Helps kids understand messages, lessons
 Relates themes to other stories and real life
Helping kids make connections
 Build coherent representation
 Connect parts of text
 Ask kids how pieces of information fit together
 Read, then talk about it
 Ask “How does that connect with what we read before?”
Vocabulary and comprehension
Teaching vocabulary for literacy
 Teach little kids big words
 Allow kids to practice reading words they already know and
words they don’t know (literary words)
 Kids learn literary words from books, not from everyday
conversation – even in highly educated households
 Make words the focus of instructional time everyday
 Explaining a definition is not enough
 Discuss good and better examples of uses of a sophisticated
word (example: “reluctant”)
Which words do you teach first?
No hierarchy for word knowledge
 Kids can learn complex words early on
One rule:
Must be able to explain word using concrete, simple terms
Ramifications of low vocabulary
Knowledge of word meaning and comprehension is almost
the same thing
 If you have a good vocabulary, you will likely be good at
comprehension
Solutions:
 Teach big words to little kids
 Keep kids engaged with good literature and inspired
teaching
Children with learning disabilities
Take instruction to a sensory level
 Help child experience the word through imagery
 Create a picture of the word’s meaning
Video: Students Take Charge
Frank Love Elementary School, Seattle, WA
 Reciprocal Teaching
Prepares kids to run discussions, taking turns as leaders
 Ask questions, generate a good discussion
 Summarize, find the main idea
 Predict outcomes
Importance of mental images
Good readers “make movies” in their heads when they read
Dual coding theory: reading involves interpreting verbal and
nonverbal codes
 Interplay between verbal and nonverbal codes gives text
meaning
 Individual differences alter ability to get meaning from text
• Weak decoders have difficulty with verbal code
• Weak comprehenders have difficulty with nonverbal code
How can teachers improve mental imagery?
 Start with mental image of word, then a phrase, then a
sentence
 Help kids connect images into a connected whole, not just
separate images
 Harder for kids with weak vocabulary
Research base:
National Reading Panel Report of 2000 cited mental imagery
as helpful
Mental imagery for ELLs
 Research project in Pueblo, Colorado
 25,000 children
 Low socioeconomic status
 High percent minority
 Low-achieving on state tests
 After 8 years of lessons on imagery and verbal processes,
Pueblo out-performed the state
Characteristics of successful schools
For comprehension:
 Large capacity for collaboration; opportunity for teachers
to work together to discuss and practice techniques
For vocabulary:
 Willingness to go beyond traditional “look it up and write a
sentence” approach to teaching vocabulary
 Introduces hard words in interesting ways
Impact of federal funding
 Reading First money brings new resources to low SES
schools
 Commercial reading programs that define and highlight
comprehension strategies
 Classroom libraries – better books!
 Institute for Educational Sciences supports research in
comprehension
Using writing to improve comprehension
 Writing is an extension of reading
 Expression is a way to interact with text
 Utilizes vocabulary, decoding, and mental imagery
 Students’ writing should create a mental image for reader
 Demands use of adjectives
 ‘Structure words’ to make writing richer
Teaching comprehension to ELLs
 Define issues
 English labels for words they know in native language?
 Difficulty with everyday conversation in new language?
 Opportunity to teach older kids (4th grade +) sophisticated
words – ELL and native English speakers
 Same teaching methods, some unique challenges
What can we learn from brain studies?
 Studies are starting to focus on reading comprehension
 Recent fMRI studies show that parts of the brain relate to
mental imagery
 Hyperlexia: flip side of dyslexia
• Have strong decoding skills and weak comprehension
• Often on the autism spectrum
 Autism
• Studies show autistic children may be able to read individual
words, but have difficulty accessing neural connectors to
understand what they read
Comprehension assessment
Does written evaluation show what kids understand?
 Difficult to test whether kids have built a text model
 Likely to underestimate comprehension of novice writers
and spellers when evaluated in written form
 Written test is an important way, but not the only way
What can parents do?
 Volunteer
 Read to children and talk about what’s going on, ask
questions
Final thoughts
 Nanci Bell:
 Comprehension is now getting attention it deserves
 Hopeful that we will find new information about sensory
components of comprehension
 Sharon Walpole:
 Both decoding and comprehension are critically important
to reading
 Both can be taught
 Isabel Beck:
 Use big words!
Thanks for watching!
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visit www.readingrockets.org