Reading Comprehension Strategies English for Professionals 1 Dias Agata, S.S., M.Pd.

Reading Is A Complex Activity A skilled reader rapidly and accurately decodes the words, attaches the meaning to words and sentences, connects text information to relevant background knowledge, maintains a mental representation of what he or she has already read, forms hypotheses about upcoming information and makes decisions based on his or her purpose for reading – all at the same time. Use this quote to help participants see all the interconnections that occur when one reads. Review all the areas we’ve discussed in training (decoding, sight word recognition, comprehension and vocabulary knowledge) and discuss the purpose for reading – meaning. Relate this to the Adams’ model in Unit 2. This quote is from Improving Comprehension by JoAnne Carlisle and Melinda Rice. Carlisle and Rice, 2002

What Do Good Readers Do? Make predictions based on background knowledge Identify key ideas from text they are reading Are aware of text structures Monitor their comprehension Have a knowledge of and use a variety of reading strategies effectively. Paraphrase, explain and summarize information and construct conclusions Ask participants before clicking the points under the title. Most of these will be given through discussion and you can just use this slide as a quick summary. Summary of Good Readers is from both Birsh editions. Page 185 in 1st ed and p. 379 in 2nd ed. The main point to make here is that good comprehenders are ENGAGED while reading. They may be having a conversation with the author, they are questioning, scanning expository text – reading the picture headings, studying the graphs, etc. You may just have your participants generate these ideas before showing the slide and then use this slide as a summary. Most participants will bring these things up and then you can use this slide just to verify their ideas.

Retelling (Visualization) Read a passage related to the topic As you read, draw simple pictures that mark the actions, events, or key points. After reading, retell the passage as you point to the pictures in sequence. Incorporate important vocabulary into the retelling. Students retell the passage after you have modeled. Retelling. This strategy is not exclusive to Neuhaus Education Center but these are the structured steps they use to teach teachers how to use the strategy. Retelling is used to develop oral language and help students understand the structure of a story or nonfiction text. It will help students be more succinct and use vocabulary that you want them to practice. This is a good strategy for students who have difficulty visualizing and who have memory and/or sequencing difficulties.

“A New Way Of Travel” We see cars everywhere we go. Can you imagine a world without any cars. Cars have been around for only about a hundred years. Before cars were invented, people traveled by horse or by a carriage or wagon pulled by horse. Travel was very slow. At one time cars were a rare sight on the city streets. Cars were expensive. Most people could not afford them. It took a long time to make a car. There were so many parts to put together. It took a few people many, many hours to put a car together, so there were not many cars available. A man named Henry Ford came up with an idea to make cars low cost and faster to make. His idea was known as an assembly line. Activity: Modeling the retelling strategy, Use this text to use to model the retelling strategy. The sentences with the picture codes will come in one at a time as you click. You can use this opportunity to discuss that for many students this is the only amount of text they can handle. For other students, they may be able to handle two to three sentences and draw one picture to represent those ideas. Have another sheet of paper handy to draw the pictures (directions in brackets) on while you read the text. You are modeling here. After you have drawn all the pictures – hit “b” on computer for your screen to go black. Teacher Practice: Teachers pair up and retell the passage using the pictures. Hit “b” again and the screen will come back. Go over the usefulness of this strategy and discuss any other options, ideas, and/or modifications. Brainstorm other ways to use this strategy. For some students this may only be at the Listening Comprehension level since they may not be able to read text yet. To assemble a car, many workers stood in a line. Each worker was responsible for putting on only one part of a car. As a car moved down the line of workers, each worker put on their one part. With more workers and each worker responsible for putting on only one part repeatedly, more cars were made in a shorter period of time. All of the cars were similar, with the same parts and colors, and less expensive.

100 $$$$$$$$  1 Ask a volunteer to retell the story using these pictures.  $$

Now You Try… With a partner, read the next story and draw a picture to represent each story part. Use just the pictures to retell the story. OPTIONAL ACTIVITY: This is an independent activity which can be skipped unless you want them to try on their own and then discuss their pictures, etc.

“The Contest” Once upon a time, the wind and the sun were having an argument about who was the stronger of the two. “We must have a contest. That is the only way we will ever know who is the stronger one,” said the sun. “I am ready for any contest. What should it be?" said the wind. “Look at all those people in the city. Whichever of us can make all the people in the city take off their coats is the winner,” said the sun. “OK,” said the wind, “It is hardly a challenge, but I will do it. Who should go first?” “Because I am so sure that I will win, I will let you go first,” said the sun. The sun hid behind a large fluffy cloud and the wind got to work. His idea was to blow an icy blast that would blow the coats right off the people in the city. The wind blew and blew and blew. The blast was the coldest, strongest blast that the people had ever felt. Instead of blowing the coats right off the people, a strange thing happened. The people wrapped their coats tightly around themselves. The harder the wind blew, the tighter the people wrapped their coats around themselves. At last, the exhausted wind gave up. Now, it was time for the sun to get to work. The sun came out from behind the clouds and shone down on the city with all his strength. The people began to feel the warmth of the sun. They loosened their coats. The sun continued to shine with all his might. The people grew warmer and warmer. Soon they were so warm that they had to take their coats off. So the sun won the contest. He was indeed the stronger of the two! HANDOUT: THE CONTEST You will need to print out this slide as a handout to be copied for participants.

Pictures for checking themselves.

Multiple Strategies for Reading Comprehension Summarizing – identifying and paraphrasing main ideas. Questioning – formulating and answering questions about the content. Clarifying – recognizing and correcting “breakdowns” in comprehension Predicting – forming hypotheses about upcoming events or information. NRP found two multiple strategy instructions effective – Reciprocal Teaching Process and Collaborative Strategic Reading – Klingner and Vaughn, 1999. This is found in Birsh 2nd ed p. 387. It is similar to RTP as it uses 4 strategies: preview (activate knowledge and predict), Click and Clunk (monitor comprehension during reading by identifying difficult words and concepts using fix-up strategies when text doesn’t make sense), get the gist (restate the main ideas) and wrap up (generate questions a teacher may ask). You can see that both multiple strategies are very similar. Reciprocal Teaching is a scaffolded discussion technique that is build on four strategies that good readers use to comprehend text: predicting, questioning, clarifying, and summarizing (Palincsar & Brown, 1984). It was originally designed as a paragraph by paragraph discussion technique in which the teacher would model each of the four strategies in a think aloud. It has evolved into a strategy that can be used whole class or in cooperative groups with the students being the “teacher” for sections of text. Cue cards help students with the strategy. Each strategy needs to be practiced individually with test portions before using all 4 in one session. Teachers need to model using think alouds to assist students with these strategies. Working on different types of questions will help keep those from being too simple. Teachers can require students to use “2 think and search questions” for example so they do not stay at the Literal level. Or teachers can use the Costa’s Levels of questions – see handouts as a guide for students.

Read the following passage and try to use the 4 strategies Let’s Practice! Read the following passage and try to use the 4 strategies

Having no language, infants cannot be told what they need to learn Having no language, infants cannot be told what they need to learn. Yet by the age of three they will have mastered the basic structure of their native language and will be well on their way to communicative competence. Acquiring their language is a most impressive intellectual feat. Students of how children learn language generally agree that the most remarkable aspect of this feat is the rapid acquisition of grammar. Nevertheless, the ability of children to conform to grammatical rules is only slightly more wonderful than their ability to learn words. It has been reckoned that the average high school graduate in the United States has a reading vocabulary of 80. 000 words, which includes idiomatic expressions and proper names of people and places. This vocabulary must have been learned over a period of 16 years. From the figures, it can be calculated that the average child learns at a rate of about 13 new words per day. Clearly a learning process of great complexity goes on at a rapid rate in children.

1. What is the main subject of the passage 1. What is the main subject of the passage. (A) Language acquisition in children (B) Teaching languages to children (C) How to memorize words (D) Communicating with infants 2. The word "feat" in line 5 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Experiment (B) Idea (C) Activity (D) Accomplishment 3. The word "reckoned' in line 7 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Suspected (B) Estimated (C) Proved (D) Said 4. In line 8, the word "which" refers to (A) their ability (B) reading vocabulary (C) idiomatic expression (D) learning process 5. According to the passage, what is impressive about the way children learn vocabulary. (A) They learn words before they learn grammar (B) They learn even very long words. (C) They learn words very quickly. (D) They learn the most words in high school.

1. What is the main subject of the passage 1. What is the main subject of the passage. (A) Language acquisition in children (B) Teaching languages to children (C) How to memorize words (D) Communicating with infants 2. The word "feat" in line 5 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Experiment (B) Idea (C) Activity (D) Accomplishment 3. The word "reckoned' in line 7 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Suspected (B) Estimated (C) Proved (D) Said 4. In line 8, the word "which" refers to (A) their ability (B) reading vocabulary (C) idiomatic expression (D) learning process 5. According to the passage, what is impressive about the way children learn vocabulary. (A) They learn words before they learn grammar (B) They learn even very long words. (C) They learn words very quickly. (D) They learn the most words in high school.

1. What is the main subject of the passage 1. What is the main subject of the passage. (A) Language acquisition in children (B) Teaching languages to children (C) How to memorize words (D) Communicating with infants 2. The word "feat" in line 5 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Experiment (B) Idea (C) Activity (D) Accomplishment 3. The word "reckoned' in line 7 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Suspected (B) Estimated (C) Proved (D) Said 4. In line 8, the word "which" refers to (A) their ability (B) reading vocabulary (C) idiomatic expression (D) learning process 5. According to the passage, what is impressive about the way children learn vocabulary. (A) They learn words before they learn grammar (B) They learn even very long words. (C) They learn words very quickly. (D) They learn the most words in high school.

1. What is the main subject of the passage 1. What is the main subject of the passage. (A) Language acquisition in children (B) Teaching languages to children (C) How to memorize words (D) Communicating with infants 2. The word "feat" in line 5 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Experiment (B) Idea (C) Activity (D) Accomplishment 3. The word "reckoned' in line 7 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Suspected (B) Estimated (C) Proved (D) Said 4. In line 8, the word "which" refers to (A) their ability (B) reading vocabulary (C) idiomatic expression (D) learning process 5. According to the passage, what is impressive about the way children learn vocabulary. (A) They learn words before they learn grammar (B) They learn even very long words. (C) They learn words very quickly. (D) They learn the most words in high school.

1. What is the main subject of the passage 1. What is the main subject of the passage. (A) Language acquisition in children (B) Teaching languages to children (C) How to memorize words (D) Communicating with infants 2. The word "feat" in line 5 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Experiment (B) Idea (C) Activity (D) Accomplishment 3. The word "reckoned' in line 7 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Suspected (B) Estimated (C) Proved (D) Said 4. In line 8, the word "which" refers to (A) their ability (B) reading vocabulary (C) idiomatic expression (D) learning process 5. According to the passage, what is impressive about the way children learn vocabulary. (A) They learn words before they learn grammar (B) They learn even very long words. (C) They learn words very quickly. (D) They learn the most words in high school.

1. What is the main subject of the passage 1. What is the main subject of the passage. (A) Language acquisition in children (B) Teaching languages to children (C) How to memorize words (D) Communicating with infants 2. The word "feat" in line 5 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Experiment (B) Idea (C) Activity (D) Accomplishment 3. The word "reckoned' in line 7 is closest in meaning to which of the following? (A) Suspected (B) Estimated (C) Proved (D) Said 4. In line 8, the word "which" refers to (A) their ability (B) reading vocabulary (C) idiomatic expression (D) learning process 5. According to the passage, what is impressive about the way children learn vocabulary. (A) They learn words before they learn grammar (B) They learn even very long words. (C) They learn words very quickly. (D) They learn the most words in high school.