Comprehension Strategy Instruction

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Comprehension Strategy Instruction
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A Good Choice

• Much of the comprehension strategy instruction
  (CSI) today is based on a review of the research
  reported in Developing Expertise in Reading
  Comprehension What Should Be Taught? How Should
  It Be Taught? by P. David Pearson and colleagues
• There has been multiple research studies since
  that time supporting CSI for students struggling
  in the area of reading as well as a part of the
  total reading program.
• Harvard Universitys suggested reading strategies
  for freshmen. (handout)

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Comprehension Strategy Instruction

• Comprehension strategies are a means to an end,
  not an end in themselves.
• Comprehension strategies are tools readers employ
  in order to make meaning from text.
• Comprehension means that readers think about what
  they are learning as they read. As they build
  their store of knowledge, they must also develop
  understanding. They must go beyond literal
  understanding in order to develop insight and to
  think more deeply and critically.

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The goal is for students to be able to use the
reading strategies flexibly and independently,
applying them if and when they enhance learning.

• Learning how to drive a stick shift step by step
• Practicing the process with prompts
• Driving with minimal attention
• Driving under adverse conditions with increased
  attention

• Learning to comprehend strategy by strategy
• Practicing the process with verbal and written
  prompts
• Orchestrating strategies with minimal attention
• Reading more challenging texts with increased
  attention

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Teaching requires careful listening. Being a
sensitive observer helps answer the questions
How do I know what my students know and are able
to do? How will I use what I learned about
students today to help them learn more tomorrow?
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Developing a Common Language
It is helpful to readers if we settle on a common
language across grade levels within a school.
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Tools for Active Literacy

• Think-Alouds
• Read-Alouds
• Interactive Read-Alouds
• Lifting Text
• Guided Discussion
• Anchor Lessons with Anchor Charts
• Rereading for Deeper Meaning
• Sharing Our Own Literacy by Modeling With Adult
  Literature

Strategies That Work, second edition
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Thinking Aloud

• makes our thinking public by showing how we
  construct meaning
• demonstrates how proficient readers think
• is central to CSI
• remains focused and focuses student attention
• includes identifying the purpose of the
  demonstration
• ends with students sharing what they noticed

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Choosing a Think-Aloud Text

• Short selection or excerpt with several natural
  stopping points to pause and think aloud
• Interesting/provocative text which is relevant,
  compelling or intriguing
• More challenging than a text that most of the
  children could read independently
• Should come from a variety of genres
• May be new, or familiar and well-loved

Mosaic of Thought, second edition
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Practice Approx. 20 min.Groups of three

• Find one book that you think all or a portion of
  would be a good selection for a think-aloud and
  one book that you think would be a poor
  selection.
• Share with your small group the reasoning behind
  each of your selections.
• Share opposing view points. (We need to become
  more accustomed to having our thinking
  challenged.)

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Reading Aloud

• If the only reading aloud we do is for the
  purpose of instruction, we will be losing the
  opportunity of demonstrating reading for
  pleasure.
• We need to read aloud every day for the sheer joy
  of it.
• We need to lift language into the air, savoring
  its beauty and power as well as its ability to
  provoke laughter and tears.

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Interactive Reading Aloud

• Focuses on listening comprehension
• Students do not have a copy of the text
• Teacher reads and guides the discussion while
  students listen and talk to each other
• Teacher jots down student thinking
• Decoding doesnt interfere with understanding
• Not a strategy for teaching fluency, but when
  students take what they learn and apply it to
  independent reading, it can impact both
  comprehension and fluency

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Steps for Interactive Reading Aloud

• Activating background knowledge
• Modeling
• Guided practice
• Sharing thinking

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Lifting Text

• Overhead transparency of the lifted piece of
  text, charts, big books
• Copy for each student
• Gather students close with copies and clipboards
• Read, stopping to point out how the strategy is
  used and to allow students to share
• Newspaper articles, portions of textbooks,
  excerpts from longer fiction and non-fiction
  texts
• Reason through the text together

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Guided Discussion

• Show your thinking first, give students clear,
  explicit language for talking about their reading
  before they join in
• Move quickly from thinking aloud to guided
  practice
• Not a free-for-all discussion, focused
  conversation
• Develop a line of thinking by listening to each
  other and building on one anothers comments
• Clear up misconceptions

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Anchor Charts

• Identify and choose your most effective
  mini-lessons as anchors
• Refer back to that lesson
• Co-construct anchor charts to record student
  thinking so that you can return to it to remember
  processes
• Elaborate and add to previously constructed
  anchor charts

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Types of Anchor Charts

• Strategy Charts
• Content Charts
• Genre Charts

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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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Rereading for Deeper Meaning

• The more the children hear or read a story,
  the better they comprehend it, and the more they
  love it.

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Sharing Our Own Literature

• Don Graves Those of us who teach reading must
  be readers ourselves.
• Bring in magazines, novels, newspaper articles,
  essays, poetry, etc to share with students and
  to model your own reading processes.
• Share reading material you are passionate about,
  demonstrating the importance of reading in your
  daily life.

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Know your tools and match them to the task
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Lets Not Forget

• Provide ample time for text reading

• Opportunity to orchestrate all of the skills and
  strategies that are important to proficient
  reading
• Results in the acquisition of new knowledge
  which fuels the comprehension process
• Teachers must assure students are actively
  engaged in actual reading, not reading related
  activities
• P. David Pearson (Michigan State Univ.) and
  Linda Fielding (Univ. of Iowa) recommend that of
  the total block of time set aside for reading,
  students should be given more time to read than
  the combined total time allocated for learning
  about reading and talking or writing about what
  has been read
• Avoid the Matthew effect

Balancing Authenticity and Strategy Awareness in
Comprehension Instruction Pearson and Fielding
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Simply allocating time for text reading is not
enough.

• Things teachers can do to increase the
  likelihood that text reading translates into
  improved comprehension
• Choice
• Optimal difficulty
• Multiple readings
• Negotiating meaning socially

Balancing Authenticity and Strategy Awareness in
Comprehension Instruction Pearson and Fielding
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• Responding to Reading
• Purposeful
• Authentic
• Open-ended responses tell us the most about what
  children understand or dont understand when they
  read
• Create a safe, respectful environment in order
  to increase risk taking
• Teach active listening and conversation skills
• A place to differentiate instruction

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Activity

• Discuss the handout about how children can record
  their thinking about text.
• Clarify terms
• Add other ideas

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Gradual Release of Responsibility
STUDENT
TEACHER
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Gradual Release of Responsibility
Explicitly Taught
Shared and Guided
Collaborative
Demonstrated
Independent
www.rememberit.org
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Gradual Release Explicitly Taught

• Naming and explaining the strategy gives students
  knowledge of the strategy.

www.rememberit.org
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Gradual Release Demonstrating

• Demonstrating explicitly gives students
  comprehension of what the strategy looks like.
• Think Aloud

www.rememberit.org
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Gradual Release Shared and Guided Practice

• Shared and guided reading and discussing give the
  students the opportunity to do part of the work
  of using the strategy with support from teachers
  and peers.

www.rememberit.org
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Gradual Release Collaborative Practice

• Collaborative reading and discussions give
  students the chance to do more of the work of
  using the strategy with peer and teacher feedback.

www.rememberit.org
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Gradual Release Independent

• Independent reading and reflecting gives students
  the chance to practice it by themselves with new
  or familiar text.

www.rememberit.org
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Activity

• Using the handouts Optimal Learning Model
  Across the Curriculum and Planning for Gradual
  Release, discuss the following talking points
• Where along the gradual release continuum do I
  tend to spend too much or too little time and
  effort?
• Why is that the case?
• How does my instruction need to change in order
  to adequately move myself and my students across
  the continuum?
• How might things look different in my classroom
  if I implemented the gradual release model?