1. Comprehension

2. What IS reading anyway? Peter led Bridget into the waiting room.
He realized that she was extremely nervous, so he gently suggested that she sit down.
Bridget ignored him and began to pace frantically.
The other patients watched her warily, and several also began pacing.
Interactive: demonstration of comprehension process. Ask questions below after each bullet.
What did you do? (assigned meaning to words; made a mental image based on your prior knowledge) What questions are you asking?
Now what did you do? (connect first sentence to this one; how does your mental image of office change?)
What are you using? (prior knowledge/text) What are you doing? (predicting)
Now what are you using? (vocabulary <patients, warily>)

3. As a scream rang out from the inner office, Peter angrily forced Bridget to sit down.
Bridget moved closer to Peter,who leaned down and tenderly scratched her ears.
How do you feel about Peter now? What about the screaming? What does it do to your interpretation?
So…were you surprised?

4. Review what we did…
We read all the words…didn’t have to decode…most were known to us.
We assigned meaning to words based on our prior knowledge and experience with text and the world.
We made inferences and predictions…

5. We constructed visual images.
We monitored our own comprehension…no one else did it for us…we changed our predictions based on new information.
We constructed meaning!

6. Virginia Standards of Learning for Comprehension
1.9 The student will read and demonstrate comprehension of a variety of fiction and nonfiction.
First Grade: Volume 2, Page 9

7. “Comprehension is the reason for reading
“Comprehension is the reason for reading. If readers can read the words but do not understand what they are reading, they are not really reading.”
Bonnie B. Armbruster, B.B., Lehr, F., & Osborn, J. (Eds.). (2001). Put Reading First:The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read.

8. Vocabulary Topic Knowledge Knowledge Reading Comprehension
One of the oldest findings in educational research is the strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Readability formulae use vocabulary as a key factor.
Knowing words in a passage may not be enough. Prior knowledge of the topic comes into play as well. Vocabulary knowledge is related to topic knowledge, which, in turn, is related to reading comprehension. People who know a lot about a topic know a lot of the related vocabulary.
Vocabulary is strongly related to IQ as well…this is why many people use measures of vocabulary knowledge as a proxy to IQ.
General Intelligence

9. Role of Text Structure on Comprehension
Narrative vs. expository
Story structure
Beginning: setting, character(s), problem, goal
Middle: series of episodes
End: resolution of problem, attainment of goal
RF NOTEBOOK, VOLUME 2, PAGE 21 (NARRATIVE AND EXPOSITORY TEXT)

10. What does comprehension instruction look like?
Think-pair share:
What is comprehension instruction?
What is NOT comprehension instruction?

11. Before, During, After Before During After
Activate, access, and build background knowledge
Organize background knowledge
Make vocabulary connections and set a purpose for reading
During
Keep students actively engaged when reading
Ask yourself, “What are my students ‘observably’ doing?”
Teach students how to monitor understanding
After
Monitor understanding
Elaborate on what was read
Organize the information in the text
Make vocabulary connections
RF NOTEBOOK, VOLUME 2, PAGE 13 (EFFECTIVE READ ALOUD SESSIONS); PAGE 55 (SAMPLE BEFORE READING); PAGE 63 (SAMPLE AFTER READING); PAGE 51 (INSTRUCTIONAL PROCEDURES THAT PROMOTE COMPREHENSION)

12. What are effective research-based comprehension strategies?
Monitoring meaning & metacognition
Answering & generating questions
Graphic & semantic organizers
Recognizing story structure
Summarizing
Some research support for:
using prior knowledge
using mental imagery
RF NOTEBOOK, VOLUME 2, PAGE 35 (CONTINUUM OF QUESTIONS); PAGE 39 (ASKING EFFECTIVE QUESTIONS)

13. Comprehension Strategies: How to teach them
Think aloud during read-alouds and during small group reading instruction to model the strategy you want to teach.
Include declarative knowledge: What is the strategy?
Include procedural knowledge: How is the strategy employed?
Include conditional knowledge: When and why should the strategy be used?
RF NOTEBOOK, VOLUME 2, PAGE 29 (THINK ALOUD PROMPTS)

14. Comprehension Focus Areas

15. Activities you might try:
Predicting
Activities you might try:
Anticipation Guides
DR-TA
DR-LA
Story Impressions
This is an example of an anticipation guide for the book A Fox Lives Here.

16. Visualizing
Discuss how the words in the text make a picture in your mind:
I get a picture in my mind…
It’s like a movie in my head...
I can see how it looks…
Responses: draw or describe what is seen
Select quotes or books with rich imagery:
Good Dog Carl by Alexandra Day
Abuela by Arthur Dorros
The Seashore Book by Charlotte Zolotow
What is the seashore like? A little boy asks his mother. So she brings it to life for him.
The seashore is a place where the sea and sky are the same smoky gray until… the morning sun breaks through. The hot noonday sun feels warm as a big soft cat covering you. And it seems there is nothing in the world except the sound of the wind and the rising and falling song of the waves.

17. Asking & Answering Questions? ? ?
Questioning ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Asking & Answering Questions

18. “Most teachers are good enough at the age-old method of checking students’ comprehension by asking questions at the end of a story. But it is not good enough for children if teachers only test reading comprehension rather than teach it.”
Srickland, D. & Snow, K. (2002). Preparing our teachers: Opportunities for better reading instruction. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press. [emphasis added to original, p. 56]

19. Good readers ask questions.
A page from Day of Ahmed’s Secret by Florence Parry & Ted Lewin.
What questions do you have about this page?
Good readers ask questions.

20. Question - Answer Relationships
In Your Head
Author & You
Question-Answer Relationships (QARs) were developed by Raphael (1982) to provide students with a system for knowing how to answer questions. Students identify questions as one of three types: “right there” (answer is right in the text); “author and you” (require integration of reader’s knowledge and text); and “in your head” (reader must use own experiences to answer).
Right There!

21. Monitoring Meaning
Think about their own thinking:
Examples: booknotes, sticky notes, simple notetaking skills
Introduce & use a simple system for monitoring understanding:
Examples: T-S (text-self connection)
T-T (text to other texts)
?, C (don’t understand or confusion)
(word) (unknown word)
Teach children to use a few fix-up strategies:
Examples: Stop & Go Back Read it out loud
Read ahead for meaning Write a question note
Sound it out Speak to another reader Slow down
How could you use these for assessment? Discuss collecting notes & keeping a copy to analyze their errors

22. Making Connections It reminds me of: to self/world to author’s craft
to other texts
Building prior knowledge from ground up:
allow children to listen to books on a topic
generate questions from pictures, heard, etc.
sort questions together by category
have children write what they have learned
Make connections to their small group reading lessons:
what books are you using right now? What strategy are you using to teach comprehension? Do you tend to focus on a particular area of comprehension?
Read-alouds: how do you model comprehension strategies during your read-alouds? Do you tend to focus on a particular area of comprehension?

23. Page from Owen by Kevin Henkes.
What connections might students make with Owen?

24. Inferences= What We Know + Text Information
Weaving Activity (Hansen, 1981)
Materials: colored strips - grey strips
Students write what they know about topic on grey strips
Students preview the text itself & write down predictions about the topic on colored strips.
Strips are woven together to demonstrate how inferences are drawn from texts.
Teaching Students About Inferences
Materials: less familiar kitchen utensils, e.g., apple corer
Ask students to decide what the object is used for. Provide an apple as a clue. Discuss how inferences are based on prior knowledge plus specific information from author.

25. Useful Titles for Teaching Inferring:
George & Martha series by James Marshall
Fables by Arnold Lobel
Tight Times by Barbara Shook Hazen
The Garden of Abdul Gasazi by Chris van Allsburg

26. Importance of understanding text structure:
Summarization
Importance of understanding text structure:
fiction: characters, setting, problem, attempts to resolve, resolution
Try story maps, summary cubes, retellings
nonfiction: table of contexts, index, pictures, charts, captions, headings, glossary, etc.
Try main idea table, K-W-L-S charts

27. Comprehension Instruction
Small Group Activity:
1. Choose a comprehension strategy to use with the assigned text.
2. Complete the handout.
3. Share.
Split the participants into small groups. Give each group a sample text and have them come up with 1 comprehension strategy that would be appropriate for the text. Have groups complete the accompanying handout as they discuss. Small groups share & discuss.

28. Comprehension Activity

29. Guidelines for Strategy Instruction
1. Provide direct, explicit instruction for using a strategy:
i) model the strategy using a read-aloud: directly explain what, when, why, & demonstrate its use for students
2. Give ample opportunities for guided practice:
ii) children practice using the strategy in partners, THEN
students practice the strategy in groups of 3
3. Promote independent application of the strategy
iii) use the strategy independently during guided reading
4. Assess students’ use of the strategy
iv) re-tellings, questions following a running record, analyze children’s booknotes from a reading, observe student discussions

30. What Should be Taught to Facilitate Comprehension
Accurate decoding and automatic word recognition
Self monitoring of decoding in context
Meanings of individual words
Asking of Why Questions
Self monitoring of understanding
Comprehension Strategies: prior knowledge activation, construction of mental images, summarization, text structures
Pressley, M. (2000). What should comprehension instruction be the instruction of? In M.L. Kamil,
P.B. Mosenthal, P.D. Pearson, & R. Barr (Eds.), Handbook of Reading Research: Volume III (pp.
). Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

31. Comprehension at Different Stages
Emergent
Beginning
Instructional
Discuss how comprehension development and instruction differ across the 3 stages of reading.

32. How is comprehension addressed in your literacy block?

33. Copyright 2005-2007 by the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia.