1. LITERACY-BASED DISTRICT-WIDE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
LEADERS IN LITERACY CONFERENCE
LITERACY-BASED DISTRICT-WIDE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
Aiken County Public School District
January 15, 2016

2. Collaborative Strategic Reading
LEADERS IN LITERACY CONFERENCE
Collaborative Strategic Reading
Combining Strategies & Interventions
Prepared by Chelsea Montgomery, Ed.S.
Presented by Ashley Bouknight Wingard, PhD, BCBA

3. Agenda and Contact Information
Reading Comprehension Basics
CSR
Preview
Click or Clunk
Get the Gist
Wrap-up
How to Implement
Cooperative Learning
Preparing the Class
Materials
Contact
Ashley Bouknight Wingard
Chelsea Montgomery
Student Intervention Site

4. Reading Comprehension Skills
Reading comprehension is critical to the development of all students’ reading skills. This is particularly true in the upper grades, where the curriculum requires that students comprehend increasingly complex expository text. Consequently, teachers expect that once students complete third grade, they will be able to read and understand their textbooks.
Unfortunately, many middle and high school students haven’t learned effective strategies for comprehending expository text and for navigating this type of information. In addition, a lack of sufficient background knowledge and content-specific vocabulary also impede students’ ability to comprehend the subject matter.
What are some other skills that are important for your students to learn?
Do they typically have the background knowledge and vocabulary necessary for success in your class?

5. Reading Comprehension
Other Outside Factors
The reader 
The text 
The instructional activity 
The environment or context
The reader — This includes the reader’s cognitive capabilities, motivation, knowledge, and experiences.
The text — This includes the wording of the text and the way that the information is selected, described, or presented.
The instructional activity — This includes the purpose of the activity, the nature of the activity itself, the operations performed to process the text, and the outcomes of the activity.
The environment or context — This includes the classroom environment, especially the native language, culture, and ethnicity of the reader, the teacher, and the other students.

6. Focus on four Elements
Prior knowledge: Students are taught to think about what they already know about a particular topic. Next, students are asked to try to make a connection between their prior knowledge and the text they are reading.
Vocabulary development: Students are taught to use diagrams or graphic organizers to help them to learn and remember the meanings of new words.
Questioning techniques: Students are taught to generate questions before, during, and after reading. Students are asked to predict what they are going to read, to ask themselves during reading whether what they have read makes sense, and to generate questions about the text after reading.
Opportunities to practice new skills: Students are given ample time in the day for independent reading and are encouraged to share what they have read.

7. Good Readers POOR Readers Clarify their purpose for reading
Make a plan for how to read the text
Connect information to their prior knowledge
Ask questions about the text
Monitor their comprehension
Focus on decoding words
Do not see connections among parts of the text
Do not realize that they do not understand what they have read
Do not understand the concept of reading for meaning

8. Collaborative Strategic Reading

9. What is it?
CSR is a multi-component reading approach developed to help students improve their reading comprehension.
Its overall goal is to improve reading comprehension in a way that maximizes student engagement.

10. Text Considerations High-interest for the students Several paragraphs
One main idea per paragraph
Written at an appropriate reading level
Contains clues to help students predict what they will be learning (e.g., highlighted vocabulary terms, headings, illustrations)
CSR was designed for use with the type of expository text found in subject area textbooks (although some teachers have adapted it to be used with narrative text). Despite the fact that teachers may not be able to select the textbook, it is easier initially to implement CSR if the selected passage:

11. 4 CSR Components

12. Procedural Considerations
Opportunity for practice
Time to learn the strategies
Time to practice each strategy
Teacher instructs students until they are able to perform it independently.
Support for students
Teacher introduce longer sections of text (e.g., first paragraphs, then sections, then chapters).
Teachers help students make connections between the content and their prior knowledge.
Opportunity for practice — Because CSR incorporates multiple strategies, students will require time and opportunity to learn each strategy before they are able to use them effectively in combination. The teacher instructs the students on how to use each strategy until students are able to perform it independently.
Support for students — Once the students have mastered the strategies, the teacher should introduce longer sections of text (e.g., first paragraphs, then sections, then chapters). Teachers should also help students to make connections between the content and their prior knowledge.

13. Procedural Considerations
Student progress
Students to record their thinking for each strategy in their learning logs.
Students use learning logs to:
Record their predictions, clunks, gists, and wrap up review questions
Create a permanent record so that teachers can review their progress
Study for future tests and quizzes on the material
Keep track of their learning and create a basis for follow-up activities
Student progress — As students utilize the CSR approach, they will apply each strategy in turn. It is beneficial for students to record their thinking for each strategy in their learning logs. Students use learning logs to:

14. Component #1: Preview (Pre-Reading)
Purpose:
Learn as much as they can about the text in a short period of time
Think about what they already know about the topic covered by the text
Predict what the text might say about the topic using the features of the text (e.g., titles, subtitles, graphs and illustrations, terms in bold print)

15. COMPONENT #1 Preview (Pre-Reading)
Preview Strategy
Activities: brainstorming, making predictions/ Estimated time: 12 minutes
The teacher introduces the topic of the passage.
Students write down everything they already know about the topic in the Preview section of their learning log under What I already know about the topic.
Students in pairs share their responses with each other.
Students skim the passage, using textual features (headings, pictures, graphs, etc.) to predict what they might learn as they read. They write down these predictions in the Preview section of their learning logs under What I think I will learn.
Students share their best ideas with the class.

16. Component #2 Click or Clunk (During Reading)
Purpose:
Monitor their understanding of word meanings as they read
Identify unfamiliar vocabulary and use fix-up strategies to understand the text
Click- words that students instantaneously understand
Clunk- words that make no sense to them and so interfere with comprehension
In the Click and Clunk strategy, the words that students instantaneously understand are called clicks. The words that make no sense to them and so interfere with comprehension are known as clunks. Clunks are analogous to potholes in a road that impede the process of smooth driving. To decipher the meanings of these clunks, students can use a cluster of word-identification strategies (i.e., fix-up strategies).

17. Component #2 Click or Clunk (During Reading)
Click and Clunk Strategy
Activities: applying fix-up strategies
The teacher demonstrates the difference between a click and a clunk. The teacher reinforces this distinction by reading or asking the class to read a short section of text and then having students report any clunks they may have encountered.
Students who encounter a clunk must apply one or more of four fix-up strategies:
Reread the sentence as though the clunk was a blank space and try to guess another word that might be appropriate in place of the clunk. There is a good chance that the clunk is a synonym.
Reread the sentence with the clunk and the sentences before or after the clunk to look for clues (i.e., other words or phrases that may partially indicate the meaning of a clunk).
Look for a prefix or suffix in the clunk that may help to define its meaning.
If possible, break the clunk into smaller, more familiar words that may indicate the clunk’s meaning.

18. Considerations for Click or Clunk
Teachers should decide how much text students should read before they stop to Click and Clunk. For example, the text might consist of:
A paragraph
A multiple-paragraph section
One page
Each of these has its pros and cons: Generally, reading shorter passages leads to increased comprehension but may take up more class time, whereas longer passages shorten the overall activity time but may not foster as deep an understanding of the text. 

19. Component #3 Get the Gist
Purpose:
help students to identify main ideas as they read
increase the likelihood that they will understand the text. 

20. Component #3 Get the Gist
Get the Gist Strategy
Activities: identify main idea, restate main idea in ten words or fewer
The teacher explains how to restate the most important point of a section of text in one’s own words. The teacher assigns a passage for the student to read.
Students identify the most important idea in a section of text by using the following steps:
Identify whether the paragraph is primarily about a person, place, or thing.
Identify which person, place, or thing is being discussed.
Identify what is being said about the person, place, or thing that the paragraph is principally about (i.e., identify the basic argument, angle, spin, or perspective that the section adopts regarding its topic).
Restate the essence of the paragraph in a sentence containing ten words or fewer.

21. Component #4 Wrap-Up (After Reading)
Purpose:
help students to understand and remember what they have learned. The general procedure requires two steps:
generate questions
review important ideas

22. Component #4 Wrap-Up (After Reading)
Wrap Up Strategy
Activities: generate questions and review important ideas
Teachers start by asking students to imagine that they are teachers trying to write test questions based on the text’s content.
Generate and answer questions from text:
Students brainstorm a number of possible questions and write them in their learning logs in the Wrap Up section under Questions about the important ideas in the passage.
The students then arrange the questions according to a question hierarchy that reflects lower to higher order thinking.
Students should next try to answer the questions. A question that cannot be answered might not be a good question or might require clarification.
Review what was learned:
Students write down the most important ideas from the day’s reading in their learning logs in the Wrap Up section under What I learned. This requires them to mentally organize the information and to focus on comprehending the text as a whole.
Students take turns sharing with the rest of the class what they consider to be their best ideas.

23. Sample Question Hierarchy
The answer is in the text and can be stated in one or two words.
The answer is in the text but requires more than a couple of words to answer.
The answer is in the text but not all in the same place. The reader has to synthesize the parts in order to arrive at the correct answer.
The reader has to synthesize his or her prior knowledge with the text content in order to answer the question.

24. Implementing CSR

25. Cooperative learning
Cooperative learning is a teaching method that uses heterogeneous (mixed ability) groups and that seeks to maximize the learning of everyone in those groups.
Helps students develop social skills by requiring them to interact with one another.
Cooperative learning has been found to:
Lead to greater motivation toward learning
Increase time on task
Improve self-esteem
Once the students are able to independently apply the four reading strategies, the next step is to teach them to work in pairs or small groups. One of CSR’s great strengths, and a key to its effectiveness, is that it requires students to apply the four reading strategies in cooperative learning groups.

26. Cooperative Learning Roles are assigned to each student
Provides structure for the task
Ensures that all students participate
Research has demonstrated that cooperative learning methods have yielded especially favorable results for students in at-risk groups, such as those with learning disabilities. Despite such findings, some teachers have expressed concern about whether mixed-ability cooperative groups actually decrease the participation of lower-ability students, including those with learning disabilities, because higher-performing students do most or all of the work. CSR, however, addresses this concern by assigning specific roles and responsibilities to everyone in the group, requiring each member to participate while also establishing the structure of that participation.

27. Preparing the Class-Groups
Teachers should determine group size based on how many groups they feel is a manageable
CSR seems to work best when the number of students is limited to four.
CSR is more efficient when the teacher assigns students to groups rather than allowing them to select their own groups or partners.
In general, teachers should determine group size based on how many groups they feel is a manageable number and on an estimation of their students’ abilities to work together. Although it is effective with groups of three to five students, CSR seems to work best when the number of students is limited to four. Groups larger than that tend to be noisier and less efficient. And although students who work in pairs have demonstrated academic improvement, they tend to lose the benefits of the group dynamic. Regardless of group size, CSR is more efficient when the teacher assigns students to groups rather than allowing them to select their own groups or partners.
See handout for a great option for grouping

28. Classroom management

29. Assign Roles
Role Cards
Cue Cards

30. Teaching Roles Option #1
Teaching the Roles Independently in “Expert” Groups
Step 1: Pull together all of the students who are going to assume the role of Leader. Explain to them the purpose of the role and how they will interact with other students in the group.
Step 2: Review their responsibilities and model how they should implement them. It may be beneficial to give each student in the group a copy of the cue card for that respective role.
Step 3: Allow each student the opportunity to practice the role and ask other students to offer feedback.
Step 4: Continue with each “expert” group until all students know and have had an opportunity to successfully demonstrate how they would implement their roles.

31. Teaching Roles Option #2
Teaching Group Interaction Through Class Critique
Step 1: Pull together one cooperative learning group that includes students representing each role. Work with this group to develop proficiency in performing their roles.
Step 2: When the students have developed a certain level of proficiency, ask them to demonstrate to the rest of the class.
Step 3: Critique the group’s performance. Be sure to praise what was done correctly far more than you criticize what was done incorrectly.
Step 4: Rotate groups, allowing another group to perform the roles for the class while the rest of the class critiques its performance.

32. Materials Learning Logs Cue Cards
Enable students to keep track of their learning and provide a basis for follow-up activities. Teachers may choose to create a separate learning log for each CSR session, each week, or each instructional unit.
Learning logs perform two primary functions, serving as:
A written account of learning, assuring individual accountability
A study guide that students can use for future tests and quizzes on the relevant material
Cue Cards
Cue cards (also called cue sheets) outline the steps to be followed for each role.
They help students to understand their role and to stay focused on their responsibilities as they undertake the process of learning how to implement each role. Students should discontinue the use of cue cards once they feel secure in carrying out their roles.

33. Materials Clunk Cards Timer *Optional
The clunk cards are used by the Clunk Expert. Each of the four clunk cards contains one fix-up strategy:
Reread the sentence and look for key ideas to help decipher the clunk.
Examine the sentence just before and just after the one containing the clunk for any information that might indicate its meaning.
Look for a known prefix or suffix in the clunk that might indicate its meaning.
Break the clunk apart and look for smaller words that might hint at its meaning.
Timer
*Optional
Help student remain on-task and move through the sections
Adjust timer use based on class needs
Although optional, a timer can help groups to remain on-task and to avoid getting bogged down in any one strategy or step. At first, the teacher can set one timer for all of the groups and direct them to carry out each of the strategies for a set period of time. This approach might be preferable during the first few days when the students begin to work together and are still developing an understanding of the process. Once the groups are able to function more-or-less on their own, the teacher can allow each group to keep its own time.

34. Stages of Implementation
Stage 1: The teacher introduces the steps of the strategy and highlights the strategy’s advantages and benefits. The teacher explicitly explains what the strategy is for, how it is used, and in what circumstances it is useful
Stage 2: The teacher models each reading strategy and each group role, and explains their integrated use to the class as a whole. One effective method of modeling is for the teacher to apply the strategy (or strategies) to a passage while thinking aloud for the class
Stage 3: Following the modeling phase, the teacher creates opportunities for students to practice the strategies and roles. During this practice time, the teacher guides students through the steps
Stage 4: Once students have achieved some familiarity with each strategy, they are ready to practice them independently. The same is true of the roles. The teacher will monitor students’ practice and offer corrective feedback

35. How long will it take? Depends on student age!
Practice several times in one week to teach it to middle- and high- school students.
As they teach CSR, teachers can continue to teach their subject matter content and so are not losing instructional time.
The amount of time it takes to teach students the CSR strategy depends on their age. A teacher who implements the strategy several times a week will find that it typically takes two to three weeks to teach the CSR strategy to third-grade students and one week to teach it to middle- and high-school students. As they teach CSR, teachers can continue to teach their subject matter content and so are not losing instructional time.

36. Monitoring CSR The teacher acts as a facilitator
The teacher can make certain students are participating by:
Listening to students’ discussions
Monitoring students’ learning logs
Checking clunk definitions and clarifying troublesome or difficult words
Checking and offering feedback on gists
Modeling the strategies or roles
Encouraging students to be active participants
Modeling cooperative behaviors
While students are independently implementing CSR in collaborative groups, the teacher acts as a facilitator, moving from group to group, spending approximately three to five minutes with each. Doing so allows the teacher to ensure that all of its members are actively participating and learning.

37. Monitoring CSR
As they monitor their students, teachers should make mental or written notes of clunks and gists that they wish to discuss with the entire class. In addition, teachers can:
Highlight the performance of students or groups who are implementing the strategies or roles exceedingly well
Share and discuss innovations created by the groups

38. Final Task
Describe the differences between a good reader and a poor reader.
Name four elements that can be used to teach comprehension. Explain how CSR addresses these four elements.
What are the four reading strategies that make up CSR? Explain each.
Imagine that you are a ninth-grade social studies teacher. Having decided to implement CSR, you have divided your students into groups of five. Of the six roles described in this Module, which five would you select for the groups? Explain.

39. Resources
This presentation was a adaptation of the Vanderbilt IRIS CSR Module. For more information please visit:

40. Thank you!! Questions? Contact Ashley Bouknight Wingard
Chelsea Montgomery
Student Intervention Site
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