The Comprehension Process

Improving Adolescent

Literacy

Essential Question

How do middle school leaders ensure teachers are using reading and writing to deepen students’ understanding of content?

Can you relate?

It is true that older students must be skilled at reading to learn; but it is also true that

they never finished learning to read.

Alliance for Excellent Education, 2006

Goal: Comprehension

• Need intensive instruction in comprehension skills and strategies

• Instruction should be explicit• Students need to do more of the work• Example: Summarizing

– Summarize every day with think alouds– Students summarize with the teacher– Practice summarizing every day for 3-4 weeks with

immediate corrective feedback– Independent practice (with feedback)

Timothy Shanahan, University of Illinois at Chicago

A four-part agenda for literacy in the content areas

• Some reading comprehension strategies should be taught in every content area.

• In every content area, teachers should provide instruction in the reading and writing skills that are specific to that content area.

• Schools and districts should invest in reading specialists to address local needs for the teaching of basic reading skills to middle- and high school-age students.

• Districts and states should revise their standards, accountability systems, and other policies to encourage more reading and writing in the content areas.

Alliance for Excellent Education, 2006

Why Secondary Text is Hard to Read

1. There is a lot of information covered in the text

2. The books include many unfamiliar concepts

3. The text is written in different organizational structures from those encountered in fiction

4. Information is presented in graphic formats: maps, charts, tables, cartoons, and photographs

5. The text contains content-specific terminology that is unknown to the student and may have special meanings that are different from ordinary English

And more reasons…

6. Text expands beyond procedural knowledge and skill-acquisition to include sense-making & conceptual understanding

7. Students don’t view technical manuals or textbooks as “something to read”

8. Generally students do not read their textbooks for the purpose of learning anything. They may use them to find their homework problems

Require Reading

• Reading needs to be required and expected in EVERY class, EVERY day

• Collective expectations for the department, school, district

Timothy Shanahan, University of Illinois at Chicago

A Framework for thinking about reading in content…

Before Reading

–Teach essential vocabulary• Limit the number of words• Student-friendly explanations• Multiple exposures • Graphic Organizer

Do Now

Think about the vocabulary instruction provided in your school.

• What are the 2 vocabulary instructional strategies you see most often in classrooms?

• On average, how many words are students in your school expected to learn per week?

• How do teachers know if students have developed a deep understanding of the words taught?

Guidelines for Choosing Words

• Goal: 15 to 25 total words per week (in all classes combined)

• Essential subject-area words– Words critical for understanding concept/text

• Useful words– Words student likely to see/use again and

again in many contexts and across disciplines• Difficult words

– Words with multiple meanings– idiomatic expressions

A word about dictionary use…

• Poor practice with the dictionary:– Students look up words in dictionaries or

glossaries and copying the definition(s) into a notebook.

• Effective practice with dictionary– Using the dictionary as a resource, with teacher

guidance– Discussing the language of the dictionary– Analyzing the information and matching

definitions to context

How to Teach Vocabulary

1. Clearly convey the meanings of words1. describe, explain, give examples

2. Students restate the term in their own words

3. Students construct a picture, symbol, or graphic representation

4. Engage students in activities 1. comparing and classifying 2. generating metaphors & analogies

5. Engage students in discussions about the words

6. Involve students in games using the words

Marzano (2004)

Ensuring Multiple Exposures

Play games using the words

• Jeopardy

• Pictionary

• Pyramid

• Charades

• Password

• Talk a Mile a Minute *

Talk a Mile a Minute

• Partners A & B• Partner A faces the screen• Partner B has back to the screen• Partner A gives verbal clues• Partner B guesses the vocabulary word• When done stand up and yell! This stops the

game.

Talk a Mile a Minute

• yield• megabyte• nutrition• interest• culture• tone• budget• modification

Talk a Mile a Minute

• advocacy• developmental• conjugate• rhythm• perspective• supply and demand• stamina• blueprint

Before Reading

–Set a purpose for reading• Pose a question • Give students a follow-up task• Use an anticipation guide

The House

During Reading– Text is chunked into meaningful sections

• Sticky Note Strategy• Text Rendering Strategy

– Students Read Together• Monitor Students’ Reading• Whisper Read; Partner Read; Ask Questions

– Time is Provided to Process each Chunk of Text• Think-Pair-Share; Quick Write; Collaborative Discussions

– Misconceptions are Corrected Immediately– Explicit Connections are Made

• Text to text, Text to self, Text to world

After Reading

– Go Back to the Purpose• Check and Clarify

– Summarize Learning• Salsa Writing • Structured Discussion• Jigsaw…Teach Someone Else

– Provide Extensions• RAFT Writing

Take a moment..

• In what ways do teachers in your school have students summarize their understanding?

What we should see in all content classrooms:

• Students reading in class everyday

• Teachers using before, during and after reading strategies throughout the instructional day

Benefits of Content Writing

• Students become more actively engaged in the subject matter.– Understand concepts and information more

deeply– Make connections and raise questions more

fluently– Remember ideas longer and apply learning in

new situations

http://resources.curriculum.org/secretariat/april18_reeves.shtml

Recommendations

1. Have students write about the texts they read.

2. Teach students the writing skills and processes that go into creating text.

3. Increase how much students write.

Writing to Read, Alliance for Excellent Education, 2010

What Works?

Strategy Effect Size

1. Respond to a text. (personal reactions, analyze, interpret)Write about the text they read.

0.77

2. Write summaries of a text. 0.52

3. Write about the text they read. 0.51

4. Write notes about a text. 0.47

5. Answer questions about a text in writing or create and answer written questions about a text.

0.27

Writing to Read, Alliance for Excellent Education, 2010

You are now dispatched to augment your pubescent scholars’ lexicon!

Resources

Wordgeneration.org Now found at http://wg.serpmedia.org/

Writing Next

Reading Next

Writing to Read