Boosting Achievement through Content Area Reading Comprehension Strategies

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Boosting Achievement through Content Area
Reading Comprehension Strategies
Jim Miles Senior Associate International Center
for Leadership in Education Jim_at_Leadered.com

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Reading Instruction
Reading in the Content Area
Learn to Read
Read to Learn
K 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
8 9 10 . . .
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Reading Research

• College vs. Workplace
• Entry-level vs. Management-level
• High-stakes State Tests
• NCLB Legislation
• Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP)
• Academic Rigor
• Reading Comprehension Strategies
• Best taught in the content area

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Lexile Framework for Reading

• Process for managing reader progress and reading
  comprehension
• Measures text readability and student reading
  ability can match text with student reading
  level
• Determines difficulty of reading by word
  frequency and sentence structure/length
• Most widely used reading measure

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Lexile Framework for Reading

• Lexile measure reported in increments from 200L
  to 2000L
• Can be used in any curriculum content
• Tens of thousands of books, tens of millions of
  articles, hundreds of publishers, and all major
  standardized tests have Lexile measures

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READING COMPREHENSION CAN BE INCREASED BY

• Teaching reading comprehension strategies
• Matching text to students reading level
• Using collaborative activities
• Using technology
• Writing before, during, and after reading

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Literature / Text Lexile

• Grisham, The Firm 680L
• Word 2003 Glencoe/McGraw-Hill 800L
• Brown, The DaVinci Code 850L
• Harry Potter Series 940L
• World Cultures A Global Mosaic PH 900L
• Pride and Prejudice 1100L
• War and Peace 1200L
• Psychology An Introduction 1300L
• The Scarlet Letter 1400L

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Personal Reading

• Aetna Health Care Discount Form 1360L
• Medical Insurance Benefit Package 1280L
• Application for Student Loan 1270L
• Federal Tax Form W-4 1260L
• Installing Your Child Safety Seat 1170L
• Microsoft Windows User Manual 1150L
• G.M. Protection Plan 1150L
• CD DVD Player Instructions 1080L

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Newspapers

• NY Times 1380L
• Washington Post 1350L
• Wall Street Journal 1320L
• Chicago Tribune 1310L
• Associated Press 1310L
• USA Today 1200L

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16 Career ClustersDepartment of Education
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Entry-Level Occupational Reading Materials

• Agriculture / Natural Resources 1270-1510L
• Architecture / Construction 1210-1340L
• Business Administration 1210-1310L
• Health Science 1260-1300L
• Hospitality / Tourism 1230-1260L
• Human Services 1050-1200L
• Law Public Safety 1420-1740L
• Retail / Wholesale Sales 1180-1270L
• Transportation, Distribution 1170-1350L

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Health Services
 
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Business and Administration
 
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Architecture and Construction
 
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Government Public Administration
 
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Reading Comparison
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Lexile Framework for Reading Study Summary of
Text Lexile Measures
Interquartile Ranges Shown (25 - 75)
1600
1400
1200
Text Lexile Measure (L)
1000
800
600
High School Literature
College Literature
High School Textbooks
College Textbooks
Military
Personal Use
Entry-Level Occupations
SAT 1, ACT, AP
Source of National Test Data MetaMetrics
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Reading Comprehension Strategies

• increase students comprehension and retention of
  information
• activate students prior knowledge to connect
  with new information
• teach / reinforce skills that all good readers
  normally use

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Teaching key reading comprehension strategies for
only 15 minutes a week can significantly increase
student achievement.
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Increase Reading Comprehension by

• Instruction in and support for strategies
• Engaging discussion of reading content
• Set rigorous level for text, conversation,
  questions, and vocabulary
• Use practices to increase motivation and
  engagement with reading
• Use specific instructional strategies for
  learning and retention of content

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Reading Comprehension Strategies

• Affinity
• Anticipation Guide
• Cloze
• Concept Definition Map
• Cornell Graphic Organizer
• DR/TA
• Fishbone
• K-W-L-S
• Learning Logs
• Minute Paper

• Pairs-Read
• Paraphrasing
• QAR
• RAFT
• Reciprocal Teaching
• Rock Around the Clock
• SQ3R
• Structured Note-taking
• Summarizing
• Venn Diagram
• Vocabulary in Context

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Essential ELA Skills

• Preview text to anticipate content
• Identify, collect, select pertinent information
  while reading
• Discriminate important ideas from unimportant
  ideas while reading
• Apply, extend, and expand on information while
  reading

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Tips for Reading Specific Text

• Brochures
• Classified Advertisements
• Editorials
• Electronic Mail
• Employee Handbooks
• Forms and Applications
• Graphs and Charts
• Instructions
• New Stories
• Operational Manuals

• Illustrations and Captions
• Primary Sources
• Reference Books
• Research Reports
• Secondary Sources
• Tables
• Textbooks
• Timelines
• Web Sites

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Direct Reading Thinking Activity Reading
Comprehension Strategy
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DIRECTED READING / THINKING ACTIVITY (DR/TA)
What I know I know FOCUS FACTS SURE ABOUT
What I think I know FACTS AND ASSUMPTIONS I THINK I KNOW REVEALS MISINFORMATION UNCLEAR THINKING
What I think Ill learn PREDICT FORECAST AROUSES INTEREST
What I know I learned FACTS LEARNED FROM READING DISCUSSION
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Concept Definition Map Reading Comprehension
Strategy
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(No Transcript)
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VENN DIAGRAM Reading Comprehension Strategy
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Venn Diagram
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Bacteria
Virus
Common to Both
Unique to Bacteria
Unique to Virus
Venn Diagram
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Vocabulary is the Gateway to Inferential Thinking

• Most of us learned to teach vocabulary by having
  students
• Write the word several times
• Find the definition
• Write it in a sentence
• Meta-research from William Nagy, Teaching
  Vocabulary to Improve Comprehension, ERIC, 2000
  reports that

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Verbal Rehearsal

• Connect with prior learning
• Association method
• Think-Pair-Share

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Visual Clueing

• Post key words
• Color code or place with pictures, clip art

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Larry Bells 12 Powerful Words 1.
Trace          List in steps 2.
Analyze        Break apart 3.
Infer             Read between the lines 4.
Evaluate       Judge 5. Formulate     Create
6. Describe      Tell all about 7.
Support       Back up with details 8.
Explain         Tell how 9. Summarize   Give
me the short version 10. Compare   All the
ways they are alike 11. Contrast    All the
ways they are different 12. Predict      What
will happen next
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Graphic Organizers

• Brain friendly
• Creates patterns for the brain
• Supports concept development
• Multi-purpose
• Cross content application with little
  modification (101 Uses)
• Motivating to reluctant writers small spaces

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Frayer Method
Examples Non-examples
Non-linguistic Representation Use or Application put in context
Now write your own definition Now write your own definition
Concept
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Vocabulary Strategies, Writing Strategies and
Graphic Organizers Combine for High Payoff

• Add some cooperative grouping and you have
  instant results based learning

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Writing Strategies
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When Students Write

• They are obliged to organize concepts,
• to place concepts in their own language,
• and to connect concepts with their own
  analogies.
• Writing often, several times a week, provides
  constant reinforcement of the content.

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Writing to Learn

• 1 to 3 minutes at the beginning, during, or at
  the end of class
• Several times a week - Daily
• Writing to Learn becomes a habit in the
  classroom.

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Writing in response to course content helps
students

• Think independently
• Develop insight
• Explore thoughts and feelings
• Develop intellectual courage

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Examples of Quick Writes

• Learning Logs
• Entry and Exit Slips

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Prompts for Exit / Entry Slips

• What one idea from todays lesson most interested
  you? Why?
• What was the clearest point? The foggiest point?
• What are the main points we made today in class?
• If you had to restate the concept in your own
  terms, how would you do that?
• How does todays discussion build on yesterdays?

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Advantages of Exit / Entry Slips

• Check for Student Understanding
• Judge if Lesson Needs Re-teaching
• Students Gain Confidence
• Chance to Listen to Students
• Develop a Dialogue with Students

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Quick Write Prompt Unit Topic Question /
Prompt Key Points
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(No Transcript)
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I have come to a frightening conclusion. I am
the decisive element in the classroom. It is my
personal approach that creates the climate. It
is my daily mood that makes the weather. As a
teacher, I possess tremendous power to make a
child's life miserable or joyous. I can be a
tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration.
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all
situations, it is my response that decides
whether a crisis will be escalated or
de-escalated, and a child humanized or
de-humanized." Haim Ginott