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The Comprehension Revolution: Helping Teachers Take a Closer Look at the Reader, Text, Activity, and Context
Patricia A. Edwards, Ph.D.Michigan State University
President-Elect, International Reading AssociationSeptember 22, 2009
English/ Second Language Reading is Complex
(Genesee, TESOL 2008)
Phonological processing abilities in
English
Print Related abilities/
experiences in EnglishBackground
Knowledge in English
Oral language
abilities in English
LITERACY IN NATIVE
LANGUAGE
Factors that Influence Learning to Read for English Language Learners
Learning context
Reading skills in L1 & L2
Oral proficiency in L1 & L2
Teacher’s skills& behaviors
Instructional practices
Explicit
AppliedRelevant
Builds on students’ prior knowledge, interests, motivation, and home language. Helps students make connections.
Includes frequent opportunities to practice reading with a variety of materials in meaningful contexts. Promotes engagement.
Includes explicit instruction in oral language, phonological awareness, the alphabetic code, fluency, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension.
Evidence-based Literacy Instruction for ELLs
Effective Practices for Teaching EL learners
• Teacher observations data (Baker 2003)
• Models skills and strategies • Makes relationships between concepts overt• Emphasizes distinctive features of new concepts• Scaffold use of strategies, skills, and concepts• Changes focus of literacy activities regularly• Adjust speech
Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners
• Uses visuals and manipulatives to teach content
• Provides explicit instruction in English language use
• Encourages elaborate student responses• Teaches vocabulary using gestures and
facial expressions
Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners
Have high expectations for learning Facilitate the development of essential language and
literacy skills at a student’s level of oral proficiency in English
Develop literacy through instruction that builds on language, comprehension, print concepts, and the alphabetic principle
Use language during instruction that is comprehensible and meaningful to the students
Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners
Create an instructional program that meets the needs of your students:
design a plan for new students
• readjust schedules, make decisions based on data, and make
instruction comprehensible
provide opportunities for students to engage in extended dialogues
assess students’ progress frequently
incorporate community expertise into the curriculum
Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners
Integrate ESL strategies in content area instruction
Activate background knowledge and connect content to students’ lives
Use graphic organizers, charts, and other visuals to enhance comprehension
Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners
Provide opportunities for discussions of texts
Recognize and value the different discourse (speaking) patterns across cultures
Text ComprehensionText Comprehension
Comprehension is the reason for Comprehension is the reason for
reading. If readers can read the words, reading. If readers can read the words,
but do not but do not understandunderstand what they are what they are
reading, they are not really reading! reading, they are not really reading!
www.nifl.gov
What skills, knowledge, and attitudes are required for good reading comprehension?
Reading Comprehension
• What students need to learn• Before, during and after
strategies• How to identify main ideas
and supporting details• Identify text genres/purpose
of text• How to find information• Critical thinking
• How we teach it• Teach before, during and
after strategies• Build/activate background
knowledge• Teach predictions• Use graphic organizers• Teach metacognitive
strategies• Teach “fix-up” strategies• Teach summarizing• Set up cooperative groups
What is Comprehension?• Comprehension is the
understanding of what you read
• Comprehension is an active, intentional process in which the reader engages with the text to both extract and construct meaning from written language.
What is Good Comprehension Instruction?In effective comprehension instruction, teachers tell students why and
when they should use strategies, what strategies to use, and how to apply them.
• Direct Explanation: Teacher explains why the strategy helps comprehension and when to apply the strategy.
• Modeling: Teacher demonstrates how to apply the strategy
• Guided Practice: Teacher guides and assists students as they learn how and when to apply the strategy
• Application: Teacher helps students apply the strategy until they can apply it independently.
Source: Armbruster & Osborn, 2003
What is Reading Comprehension?
“building bridges from the new to the known”
Pearson & Johnson (1978)
What is Reading Comprehension?
“the construction of the meaning of a written text through a reciprocal interchange of ideas between the reader and the message in a particular text”
Harris & Hodges (1995)
What is Reading Comprehension?
“thinking guided by print”
Perfetti (1995)
What is Reading Comprehension?
“the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning throughinteraction and involvement with written language. It consists of three elements: the reader, the text, and the activity or purpose for reading”
Rand Reading Study Group (2002)
Comprehension Strategies• Specific procedures that guide
students to become aware of how well they are understanding as they attempt to read
Comprehension is a Process
•Comprehension is a dynamic process, a transaction between
the reader, the text, and the context.
Louise Rosenblatt
What we know about the factors that What we know about the factors that affect reading comprehensionaffect reading comprehension
Proficient comprehension of text is influenced by:Proficient comprehension of text is influenced by:
Accurate and fluent word reading skillsAccurate and fluent word reading skills
Oral language skills (vocabulary, linguistic comprehension)Oral language skills (vocabulary, linguistic comprehension)
Extent of conceptual and factual knowledgeExtent of conceptual and factual knowledge
Knowledge and skill in use of cognitive strategies to Knowledge and skill in use of cognitive strategies to improve comprehension or repair it when it breaks down.improve comprehension or repair it when it breaks down.
Reasoning and inferential skillsReasoning and inferential skills
Motivation to understand and interest in task and Motivation to understand and interest in task and materialsmaterials
Reading Reading ComprehensionComprehension
KnowledgeKnowledge FluencyFluency
MetacognitionMetacognition
LanguageLanguage
•ProsodyProsody•Automaticity/RateAutomaticity/Rate•AccuracyAccuracy•DecodingDecoding•Phonemic AwarenessPhonemic Awareness
•Oral Language SkillsOral Language Skills•Knowledge of Language Knowledge of Language StructuresStructures•VocabularyVocabulary•Cultural InfluencesCultural Influences
•Life ExperienceLife Experience•Content KnowledgeContent Knowledge•Activation of Prior Activation of Prior KnowledgeKnowledge•Knowledge about Knowledge about TextsTexts
•Motivation & Motivation & EngagementEngagement•Active Reading Active Reading StrategiesStrategies•Monitoring StrategiesMonitoring Strategies•Fix-Up StrategiesFix-Up Strategies
Taught by methods Taught by methods that are…that are…
Engaging, meaningful & Engaging, meaningful & motivatingmotivating
Phonemic AwarenessPhonemic Awareness
PhonicsPhonics
FluencyFluency
VocabularyVocabulary
Text ComprehensionText Comprehension
Identifying words Identifying words accurately and accurately and fluentlyfluently
Constructing Constructing meaningmeaning
The Five Essential Components
of Beginning Reading Instruction
One of the Big Five:One of the Big Five: ComprehensionComprehension
ComprehensionComprehension
Vocabulary
Fluency
Phonics
PhonemicAwareness
321K
ListeningReading
ListeningReading
MultisyllablesLetter Sounds & Combinations
Adapted from Simmons, Kame’enui, Harn, & Coyne (2003). Institute for beginning reading. Day 3: Core instruction: What are the critical components that need to be In place to reach our goals? Eugene: University of Oregon.
The Many Strands that are Woven into Skilled Reading(Scarborough, 2001)
BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE
VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE LANGUAGE STRUCTURES VERBAL REASONING
LITERACY KNOWLEDGE
PHON. AWARENESS
DECODING (and SPELLING) SIGHT RECOGNITION
SKILLED
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION
WORD RECOGNITION
increasingly
automatic
increasinglystrategic
Skilled Reading- fluent coordination of word
reading and comprehension
processes
3 Moments in the Teaching of Reading
PREPARING LEARNERS
INTERACTING WITH TEXT
EXTENDING UNDERSTANDING
Task 4
Task 5
Task 6
Task 1
Task 2
Task 3
Task 7
Task 8
Task 9
TEXT
• Activate prior relevant knowledge• Focus attention to concepts to be developed• Introduce vocabulary in context
• Deconstruct text, focus on understanding on a chunk• Reconnect chunk to whole text• Establish connections between ideas within text
• Connect ideas learned to other ideas outside the text• Apply newly gained knowledge to novel situations or problem-solving• Create or recreate based on new understandings
TEXT
The Construction-Integration Modelof Comprehension
Textbase:
The linking of idea units
Mental Model:
The idea units combined with the reader’s knowledge
Reader Text (purpose)
KnowledgeMathHistory LiteratureScience
Vocabulary knowledgeKnowledge of syntaxGenre knowledge
World knowledge/Topic knowledgeDiscipline knowledge - domain specific and domain general
Comprehension is the result of the interaction between the textbase and mental model.
Building a mental model from a text
• “Comprehension occurs as the reader builds a mental representation of a text message.”• ----Perfetti, C. A., Landi, N., & Oakhill, J. (2005).
Mental model
Word 1
Each word is fit into mental models (multiple structures) to the extent possible
Text messages are understood (and mental models are built) word by word
Mental model
Word 2
Each word is fit into mental models (multiple structures) to the extent possible
Text messages are understood (and mental models are built) word by word
Mental model
Word 3
Each word is fit into mental models (multiple structures) to the extent possible
Text messages are understood (and mental models are built) word by word
Mental model
Word 4
Each word is fit into mental models (multiple structures) to the extent possible
Text messages are understood (and mental models are built) word by word
What Does the Research Say?
Reading Comprehension as a synthesis of complex skills cannot be understood without examining the critical role and importance of vocabulary instruction.
(National Reading Panel, 2000)
Text Comprehension
• Text comprehension can be improved by instruction that helps readers use specific comprehension strategies.
• Effective comprehension strategy instruction is explicit, or direct.
(Put Reading First, pp. 49, 53)
Old and New Definitions of Reading
Traditional Views New Definition of Reading
Research Base Behaviorism Cognitive sciences
Goals of Reading Mastery of isolated facts and skills
Constructing meaning and self-regulated learning
Reading as Process Mechanically decoding words; memorizing by rote
An interaction among the reader, the text, and context
Learner Role/Metaphor Passive; vessel receiving knowledge from external sources
Active; strategic reader, good strategy user, cognitive apprentice
Thinking about Reading Comprehension
• Comprehension results from an interaction among the reader, the strategies the reader employs, the material being read, and the context in which reading takes place.
Important Findings from Cognitive Sciences
Most of the knowledge base on this topic comes from studies of good and
poor readers. However, some of it is derived from research on expert
teachers and from training studies.
• Meaning is not in the words on the page. The readerconstruct meaning by making inferences and interpretations.
• Reading researchers believe that information is stored long-term memory in organized “knowledge structures.” Theessence of learning is linking new information to priorknowledge about the topic, the text structure or genre, andstrategic for learning.
Important Findings from Cognitive Sciences
• How well a reader constructs meaning depends in part on metacognition,the reader’s ability to think about and control the learning process (i.e., toplan, monitor comprehension, and revise the use of strategies and comprehension); and attribution, beliefs about the relationship among performance, effort, and responsibility.
• Reading and writing are integrally related. That is, reading and writing have many characteristics in common. Also, readers increase their comprehension by writing, and reading about the topic improves writing performance.
• Collaborative learning is a powerful approach for teaching and learning. The goal of collaborative learning is to establish a community of learners in which students are able to generate questions and discuss ideas freely with the teacher and each other. Students often engage in teaching roles to help other students learn and to take responsibility for learning.
Characteristics of Poor/Successful Readers
Characteristics of Poor Readers Characteristics of Successful Readers
Think understanding occurs from “getting the words right,” rereading.
Understand that they must take responsibility for construction meaning using their prior knowledge.
Use strategies such as rote memorization, rehearsal, simple categorization.
Develop a repertoire of reading strategies, organizational patterns, and genre.
Are poor strategy users:
•They do not think strategically about how to read something or solve a problem.
•They do not have an accurate sense of when they have a good comprehension readiness for assessment.
Are good strategy users:
•They think strategically, plan, monitor their comprehension, and revise their strategies.
•They have strategies for what to do when they do not know what to do.
Characteristics of Poor/Successful Readers
Characteristics of Poor Readers Characteristics of Successful Readers
Have relatively low self-esteem. Have self-confidence that they are effective learners; see themselves as agents able to actualize their potential.
See success and failure as the result of luck or teacher bias.
See success as the result of hard work and efficient thinking.
Milestones in Reading Research
• Evidence that meaning in not in the words, but constructed by the reader.
• Documentation that instruction in the vast majority of classrooms is text driven and that most teachers do not provide comprehension instruction.
• Documentation that textbooks were very poorly written, making information in them difficult to learn; subsequent response of the textbook industry to include real literature, longer selections, more open-ended questions, less fragmented skills, and “more considerate” text.
• Changes in reading research designs from narrowly conceived and well-controlled laboratory experiments with college students to (1) broadly conceived training studies using experimenters and real teachers in real classrooms and (2) studies involving teachers as researchers and colleagues in preservice and inservice contexts.
Milestones in Reading ResearchBecoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading (1984)
Publication of A Nation of Readers reaching out to parents, policymakers, and community members as legitimate audiences for direct dissemination of research information.
Important Trends in Reading Instruction
• Linking new learnings to the prior knowledge and experiences of students. (In contexts where there are students from diverse backgrounds, this means valuing diversity and building on the strengths of students.)
• Movement from traditional skills instruction to cognitive strategy instruction, whole language approaches, and teaching within the content areas.
• More emphasis on integrating reading, writing, and critical thinking with content instruction, wherever possible.
Important Trends in Reading Instruction
• More organization of reading instruction in phases with iterative cycles of strategies: Preparing for reading—activates prior knowledge by brainstorming or summarizing previous learnings; surveys headings and graphics; predicts topics and organizational patterns; sets goals/purpose for reading; chooses appropriate strategies.• Reading to learn—selects important information, monitors
comprehension, modifies predictions, compares new ideas with prior knowledge, withholds judgment, questions self about the meaning, connects and organizes ideas, and summarizes text segments.
• Reflecting on the information—reviews/summarizes the main ideas from the text as a whole, considers/verifies how these ideas are related; changes prior knowledge according to new learnings; assesses achievement or purpose for learning; identifies gaps in learning; generates questions and next steps.
Brief History of Comprehension Instruction
• Last Turn of the Century• Simple view of reading was dominant
• Comp=Decoding times Listening Comprehension
• Teach decoding via the alphabetic approach
• Kids could then understand to the degree that their knowledge and oral language skill permitted
• The best way to improve comprehension is, therefore, to increase knowledge
The first paradigm shift
• While the seeds of demise for the alphabetic approach began in the 1840s, they did not bear fruit until about 1910.
• Two major movements• Testing (an outgrowth of the scientific
movement in education)• Silent reading (the transparent evidence
from oral reading was longer available)
Developments from 1915-1970
• The expansion of comprehension assessment• Open ended• Multiple choice
• The development of skills to match the assessment and the workbook (1930-1970)
• The final straw (skills management systems—codified the skills)
The Comprehension Revolution: 1970-1990
IImpact of Chall’s book on early readingmpact of Chall’s book on early reading
The Comprehension Revolution: 1970-1990
• A gnawing feeling that there was something more to reading than decoding
• Durkin’s embarrassing little (1978)• Some 4,000 minutes of classroom
observation • A grand total of 11 minutes devoted to
comprehension instruction• Lots of testing and lots of questioning
during discussion
The Comprehension Revolution: 1970-1990
• New intellectual tools• Psycholinguistics• Cognitive Science
• Text analysis• Schema theory
• Old instructional ideas• Direct instruction• Model-guided practice-independent practice
Reading Comprehension: What Works Educational Leadership, Fielding and Pearson
All Teacher All Student
Joint
Responsibility
Modeling Independent
Guided PracticeGradual Release of Responsibility
Attempts to achieve a research-based approach to comprehension instruction
• Determine the skills that are associated with skilled reading
• In small scale experiments, teach the skills to kids who do not excel at them and determine whether learning them leads to improved comprehension for that skill and for comprehension more generally construed.
• Build a streamlined comprehension curriculum of mainline skills/strategies
• By 1985, we had documented the efficacy of a whole set of instructional routines and strategies…
• But…
Why did comprehension take a back seat for a decade?
• Did not really fit either of the big movements of the late 80s/early 90s.
Why did comprehension take a back seat for a decade?
• Whole language found the tradition of explicit instruction in comprehension strategies a little too “skillsy” in feel.
• Preferred to have comprehension emerge from genuine encounters with authentic, engaging texts.
• Provide good texts and good assignments and it will happen (and if it doesn’t, well at least…)
Why did comprehension take a back seat for a decade?
• Does not really fit the new phonics renaissance either
• Those who champion phonics first and fast tend to hold a “simple view” of reading• Reading Comprehension equals the
product of listening comprehension and decoding prowess• RC=[LC * Dec]
• If you want to build oral language, fine.• But comprehension strategies don’t really
matter
We seem to be ready for a comprehension renaissance
• Realization that no mater how important the code is, it is not the point of reading
• Suspicion that the simple view (RC =LC x Dec) will not get us where we want to go
• That we will have to work on strategies directly.
• RC = [(LC x Dec)] x CompStrat]• So how do you design a comprehension
curriculum?
What would it take to re-energize our K-12 comprehension curriculum?
• A goal
• A supportive context
• A model
• A comprehension curriculum
1. You need a goal: what is an expert reader
Active Integrate text with PK
Purposeful Infer word meanings
Monitor for achievement Evaluate text quality
Size things up Fit strategies to text genre
Attend selectively Plot, setting, character
Evolving summaries
Structural representations
Revise meaning models
2. You need a supportive classroom context
• Opportunity: large amounts of time for actual text reading
• Authenticity: reading real texts for real reasons• Range: reading THE range of text genres• Talk: talking about text with a teacher and one
another• Words: conceptually driven vocabulary development• Enabling Skills: solid base of decoding, monitoring
and fluency• Writing: writing text for others to comprehend
3. You need a model: Cognitive apprenticeship
You need a model: Cognitive Apprenticeship
0
100
0 100
Student Responsibility
Tea
cher
Res
po
nsi
bili
ty
4. You need a comprehension curriculum: sure fire strategies and routines.
Individual Strategies Routines
Making predictions Reciprocal Teaching
Think-alouds SAIL/Transactional Strategies Instruction
Uncovering text structure Questioning the Author
Summarizing
Question-generation
Reciprocal Teaching (Palinscar)
• Premise: teachers who guide students in the acquisition of a routine that can be applied iteratively to text segments help them get to and through texts that would otherwise baffle them.
• Pick a small set of key strategies and apply them again and again.
• Gradual release of responsibility
Reciprocal Teaching: The strategies
• Summarize
• Ask and answer a good question
• Clarify puzzling parts
• Predict the next bit
The evidence
• Really helps improve comprehension
• Works across the grade levels: K-12
• Pretty easy to apply
• Pretty biased toward a• Cognitive emphasis• Meaning-is-in-the-text perspective
Transactional Strategies Instruction(Pressley and colleagues)
Basic Goals1. Using strategies in a flexible and opportunistic manner
(problem-solving).2. Acquiring strategies while engaged in authentic reading3. Exploring the strategy environment that is created by both
teacher and student.4. Broadening strategies to include both cognitive and
interpretive strategies.
For a full treatment of SAIL, a curricular approach to TSI, see several articles in Elementary School Journal [(1992, 94 2)]
Basic Components of TSI
Cognitive Strategies
•Think Aloud
•Constructing images
•Summarizing
•Predicting (prior knowledge activation
•Questioning
•Clarifying
•Story grammar analysis
•Text structure analysis
•Italics=also in Reciprocal Teaching
Interpretive Strategies•Character Development:
•Imagining how a character might feel; identifying with a character
•Creating themes
•Reading for multiple meanings
•Creating literal/figurative distinctions
•Looking for a consistent point of view
•Relating text to personal experiences
•Relating text to other texts
•Responding to certain text features- point of view, tone, mood
Comparison with Reciprocal Teaching
Feature Reciprocal Teaching Transactional Strategies Instruction
Philosophy Cognitive apprenticeship Cognitive apprenticeship & Explicit teaching
Goal Cognitive strategies Cognitive and interpretive strategies
Questions Text-based and content specific
Text-based and content free
Metaphor Routine Tool kit
The evidence for TSI
• Solid evidence of improvement on• specific strategies• content of the lessons• more general comprehension
• Used in grades 1-9, but most of the research has been conducted in grades 2-4
Questioning the author (Beck, McKeown and colleagues)
• Basic premise: Try to get inside the author’s head to ask why (s) he might have said things the way (s) he did.
• Critical, but within the boundaries of the intended message.
• Basic strategy: Ask questions that encourage the reader into questioning the author’s goals and motives.
Questioning the Author
Goal Candidate Questions
Initiate the discussion What is the author trying to say?
What s the author’s message?
What is the author talking about?
Help students focus on the author’s message That is what the author says, but what does it ,mean?
Help students link information How does that connect with what the author already told us?
What information has the author added here that connects to or fits in with…?
Identify difficulties with the way the author has presented information or ideas.
Does that make sense?
Is that said in a clear way?
Did the author explain that clearly?
Why or why not? What’s missing? What do we need to figure out or find out?
Encourage students to refer to the text either because they’ve misinterpreted a text statement or to help them recognize that they’ve made an inference
Did the author tell us that?
Did the author give us the answer to that?
The evidence for Questioning the Author
• Teachers can learn the techniques
• Students double their participation in discussions
• Students increase their performance on higher order comprehension and monitoring
Teacher-Directed Instruction in Comprehension Strategies
• Some key aspects of strategy instruction• Authenticity of strategies (things that real
readers use)• Demonstration by teachers (what, why,
when, and how): making thinking public• Genuine apprenticeships: gradual release
of responsibility, learning from one another• Authenticity of texts (essential that it be
applied to real texts)
Teacher-Directed Instruction in Comprehension Strategies
• Embedding Strategy Instruction in Text Reading• The paradox of generalization: to get
strategies that generalize, we have to focus on the particular text at hand.
• Situated cognition: what we have to guide us in new situations are more like precedents than general routines
The use of visual displays and other “structural” devices
• Why they work• Help students “see” relationships and
structure (render the structure of the text transparent)
• They carry an implicit syntax (help students see relationships)
• Allow for active “transformation” of information (Representation)—a summary yes, but an “interpreted” summary
Four levels of Metacognitive Knowledge:
• Tacit readers
• Aware readers
• Strategic readers
• Reflective readers
Tacit Readers Readers who
lack awareness of how they think when they read.
Aware ReadersReaders who realize when meaning has broken down but do not know how to fix the problem.
Strategic Readers Readers who use
comprehension strategies to enhance understanding.
Reflective ReadersReaders who are reflect on their thinking and apply strategies flexibly depending on their purpose for reading.
We must teach students to:
• Track their thinking • Notice when they
lose focus• Stop and go back to
clarify thinking• Reread to enhance
understanding• Read ahead to
clarify meaning
• Identify what’s confusing about the text
• Think critically about the text
• Match the problem with the strategy that will best solve it
Strategies used by Proficient Readers:
• Making Connections
• Asking Questions
• Visualizing
• Drawing Inferences
• Determining Important Ideas
• Synthesizing Information
Making Connections
When students have had an experience similar to that of a character in a story, they are more likely to understand the character’s motives, thoughts, and feelings.
A.K.A.Prior KnowledgeSchema Theory
Three types of connections
• Text-to-self are connections that readers make between the text and their past experiences.
• Text-to-text are connections that readers make between the text they are reading and another text.
• Text-to-world are connections readers make between text and the issues, events, or concerns of society and the world at large.
Teaching children to make connections• Choose stories
close to their own lives and experiences
• Move from close to home to more global issues
• Model using “think-alouds”
Asking Questions
Questioning is the strategy that propels readers forward. When readers have questions they are less likely to abandon the text. Proficient readers ask questions before, during, and after reading.
Readers ask questions to:
• Construct meaning• Enhance understanding• Find answers• Solve problems• Find specific information• Acquire a body of information• Discover new information• Propel research efforts• Clarify confusion
Teaching children to question
• Share questions about your own reading• Stress that some questions are
answered, others are not• Demonstrate how to list and categorize
questions• Use “wonder books” and “question
webs”
Visualizing
Visualizing enables a reader to make the words on the page real and concrete. It is the ability to create a movie of the text in your head. When students create these “movies” while reading, their level of engagement increases and their attention doesn’t flag.
When readers visualize it…• Allows them to create mental images • Enhances meaning with mental imagery• Links past experiences to the text• Enables readers to place themselves in the story• Strengthens a readers relationship to the text• Stimulates imaginative thinking• Heightens engagement with text• Brings joy to reading
Teaching children to visualize
• Use wordless picture books
• Merge prior experience and the text to create mental images
• Use non-fiction trade books (with pictures) to make comparisons
• Use all senses to comprehend text
Making Inferences
Inferring is the bedrock of comprehension. It allows us to “read between the lines,” to make our own discoveries without the direct comment of the author. If readers do not infer they will not grasp the deeper meaning of the text.
When readers infer they
• Draw conclusions based on clues in the text
• Make predictions before and during reading
• Surface underlying themes• Use implicit information from the text to
create meaning during and after reading• Use the pictures to help gain meaning
Teaching children to infer• Help them better
understand their own and other’s feelings
• Use all aspects of the book to infer ( cover, pictures and text)
• Understand difference between prediction and inference
• Differentiate between plot and theme
• Using inferring to better understand textbooks
Determining Important Ideas
The ability to determine importance in text often requires us to use related comprehension strategies. We may have to infer the lesson or moral in a fairy tale or summarize the information in a science text. What we determine to be important depends on our purpose for reading.
When determining importance
• Learn new information and build background knowledge
• Distinguish what’s important from what’s interesting
• Discern a theme, opinion, or perspective
• Answer a specific question
• Determine the author’s message: inform, persuade, or entertain?
Teaching children to determine important ideas
• Activate prior knowledge• Note characteristics of
text length and structure• Note important headings
and subheadings• Determine what to read
and in what order
• Determine what to pay careful attention to
• Determine what to ignore
• Decide to quit when the text contains no relevant information
• Decide if the text it worth careful reading or just skimming
Synthesizing Information
Synthesizing allows us to make sense of important information and move on. It requires the reader to sift and sort through large amounts of information to extract the overall meaning. Synthesizing is the strategy that allows readers to change their thinking.
When readers synthesize, they• Stop and collect their thoughts before reading
on• Sift important ideas from less important ones• Summarize the information by briefly
identifying the main points• Combine these main points into a bigger idea• Make generalizations and/or judgments about
the information they read• Personalize their reading by combining new
information with prior knowledge to form a new idea, opinion or perspective
Teaching children to synthesize
• Retelling a story• Make margin notes
while reading• Summarize the
content and add personal response
• Taking notes and/or highlighting
• Read like a writer• Asking/Answering
difficult questions
Testing your knowledge…
Making Inferences
This strategy allows us to “read between the lines.”
Asking Questions
Proficient readers do this before, during, and after reading.
Synthesizing Information
This allows readers to change their way of thinking.
Summary: Comprehension improves when
• We support it with other types of instruction (vocabulary, word identification, fluency, writing)
• We teach strategies and routines explicitly• We provide lots of opportunities for just plain
reading• We contextualize it with engaging discussions
that embrace ideas, feelings, and insights embedded in clear purposes for reading
Questions?Questions?
For More Information...
• Contact:Patricia A. Edwards, Ph.D.
Michigan State University
Teacher Education Department
304 Erickson Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824-1034
Phone: 517 432-0858
E-mail: [email protected]