1. Monitoring Comprehension
Julie Trone, Krista Wayne, Melody Ratigan

2. Reading Define Reading to your partner
Reading: “Getting the meaning of something written by using the eyes to interpret its characters.”
Webster’s New World Dictionary (1991)

3. Comprehension Goal- CONSTRUCT MEANING
Teachers are too often assessing rather than teaching our students to better comprehend what they read.
Comprehension strategies are to help students construct meaning from text.

4. How do you construct meaning from text?
Monitor Understanding
Enhance Understanding
Acquire and Actively Use Knowledge
Develop Insight

5. Strategies to use to Construct Meaning from text
Connections- prior knowledge and new information
Ask Questions
Draw Inferences during and after reading
Separate important from less important ideas in text
Combine information within and across texts and reading experiences
Monitor the adequacy of their understanding and repair faulty comprehension

6. Purpose for Reading
There is always one purpose for sure and that is understanding
Teach kids to think about their purpose for reading
WHY?
Proficient readers adapt strategies for their purpose for reading
You need metacognitive knowledge to match the strategies to your purpose for reading

7. Reciprocal Teaching
A teacher student dialogue where teacher models and gradually relinquishes control to the student.
Based on Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development.
Teacher provides “instructional scaffold”
This sentence by sentence guidance is more appropriate for readers with severe reading and language problems.

8. Reciprocal Teaching Why It Works:
1. By having the teacher engage explicitly in comprehension monitoring, it provides a model for the novice reader of what expert readers do when they try to learn from texts.
2. It obligates even the quietest of students to respond openly, thus allowing teachers to assess student’s current level and provide appropriate feedback.

9. Metacognitive Knowledge
An awareness and understanding of how one thinks and uses strategies during reading.
Four aspects of metacognitive knowledge- These help understand how learners adapt strategies to their purposes.

10. Four Aspects of Metacognitive Knowledge
Tacit Learners/Readers- lack an awareness of how they think while reading
Aware Learners/Readers- Realize when meaning breaks down, but do not know enough fix-up strategies
Strategic Learners/ Readers- Use their thinking and comprehension as tools, but are unable to monitor and repair meaning with it is disrupted.
Reflective Learners/ Readers- Stratgic thinkers, apply strategies flexibly based off goals and purpose, and monitor thinking and understanding. Also reflect, ponder and revise their use of strategies.

11. Monitoring
Questioning
Connencting
Reacting
Inferring
Inferring

12. The Inner Conversation “The voice you hear when you read silently is not silent, it is a speaking out-loud voice in your head.” –Thomas Lux
Voice in head while reading that allows to construct meaning
You have to have an inner conversation to know when you stray from it
Awareness= quicker repair when meaning breaks down
Teach readers to stay on top of their reading
Readers move toward independence when they can monitor their comprehension

13. Inner Conversation Cont.
We teach readers to…
Become aware of their thinking during reading
Monitor understanding and keep track of meaning
Listen to the voice in their head to construct meaning
Notice when they stray from thinking about text
Notice when meaning breaks down
Detect obstacles and confustions that detail understanding
Understand how numerous strategies can help repair meaning
Know when, why, and how to apply certain strategies to keep and continue understanding

14. Krista Following the inner conversation
Purpose: Listen to the inner voice and leave tracks of thinking (Sticky Notes)
Interactive Reading aloud- reading aloud for the purpose of instruction
Steps
Activate background knowledge
Model
Guided practice
Sharing thinking

15. Krista Noticing When we stray from the Inner Conversation
Purpose: Monitoring the inner voice to focus thinking and “fix- up” comprehension

16. Melody Noticing and exploring thinking
Purpose: Listening to the inner voice and responding to the text
Steps:
Talk about my own personal connection to story.
Read book all the way through without stopping.
Ask students to write down their inner conversation on a large sticky note.
Share with a partner.
Collect sticky notes and put them on anchor chart.

17. Melody Knowing when you know and knowing when you don’t know
Purpose: Monitoring comprehension to clarify confusion or answer questions about the text
Materials: Sticky notes coded Huh? for confused and with a light bulb for reader’s illumination.

18. Julie Read, Write, and Talk
Purpose: Teaching readers to stop, think, and react to informational text

19. Monitoring Comprehension Review
Engagement
Teach our students to be ACTIVE readers not PASSIVE