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SUMMARY OF SLIDES

PART 1Key contextual issues about reading comprehension

Effective adult readers use a range of flexible reading comprehension strategies so quickly and automatically we hardly notice they are taking place.

(Pressley)

In fact Eagleman says… “The price we pay for our expertise is that the strategies we use have become hidden from us”.

As you read the following passage catch yourself thinking about the following: background knowledge prediction/asking a question (and reading on to “find out”) inference determining importance and linking these elements together

I can’t convince my boys that their beds aren’t trampolines. The building manager is pressuring us to move to the ground floor.

(Willingham and Lovette)

Reading comprehension is crucial in all subjects across school. Weak comprehension mean that pupils:

Become less motivated readers with weaker vocabulary, text and background knowledge because they read less.

Writing skills tend to be weaker because our reading experience shapes how we write.

Experience lower attainment across most curriculum areas.

A severe obstacle to educational attainment. (Perfetti, Landi and Oakhill)

Challenges for adults and childrenChildren need to develop skills and strategies in different areas of reading. Adults need to be sensitive to the strengths and weaknesses of readers in the classroom who will have different reading profiles. For example four important elements to facilitate success in reading are shown below. A difficulty in just one area will likely result in significant reading difficulties.

Word recognition. Fluency. Strategies when reading text.(e.g. detecting and correcting errors) Comprehension and enjoyment.

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Added to this is the challenge that around 70% of words in the English language have more than one meaning:

What type of apples did you buy?They are cooking apples.

What are those people doing in the kitchen?They are cooking apples.

Readers need to be able to decode effortlessly and fluently in order to free up capacity for ‘meaning making’ activity as they read.

The simple view of reading (Hoover and Gough) suggests a way to map readers in a class.

weak decoding good language

comprehension

good decoding good language

comprehension

weak decoding weak language

comprehension

good decoding weak language

comprehension

Adults in the classroom need to be aware of these four types of readers, and adjust teaching and learning to cater for their needs.

Evidence suggests children associate reading strongly with decoding and perhaps their awareness of other reading areas is weaker. Yet metacognition (knowledge about the how of reading) is highly correlated with reading success. Moreover many weaker comprehenders fail to realise they are missing meaning when they read. Some pupils seem to decode and read fluently yet struggle to understand what they read.

Problems in mastering reading comprehension skills are quite common and often go unnoticed in the classroom. (Clarke Truelove Hulme and Snowling)

It’s thought that up to 10% of effective decoders may experience problems understanding text. These difficulties tend to emerge around the age of eight when the challenge of language comprehension in texts rises steeply.

Some children who communicate well orally with their peers in everyday conversation still may be vulnerable to weak reading comprehension. This is because the language of texts is completely different to conversational

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language. Early experience in listening to texts at home before formal schooling provides children with a huge advantage.

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PART 2Reasons why some children fail to understand text

1 Weak background knowledge or the failure to use it when reading

Readers constantly access background knowledge as they read, but are mostly unaware of doing so. They make links between … text to self, text to world knowledge, and text to text. Accessing background knowledge is crucial to making inferences. It doesn’t matter whether our background knowledge is first hand or second hand (from books/films etc.). Moreover writers assume a level of background knowledge that will be accessed by readers.

Val d’Isere Val duz air

Good comprehenders keep their background knowledge ‘switched on’ to make sense and infer. A lack of background knowledge gives a reader significant challenges in understanding text. However evidence suggests some weak comprehenders do have relevant background knowledge but don’t use it as they fail to realise it is valuable.

The huge advantage frequent readers have over occasional readers is that they amass a huge amount of second hand knowledge through their reading. 2 Vocabulary knowledge

A reader needs to understand 90% plus of words in a text to be able to have a chance to understand it. Weak vocabulary sabotages understanding. Sometimes just one word can provide difficulties.

He looked at the neglected borzoi with despair. It would take time and patience to train it.

Sometimes readers who encounter unfamiliar vocabulary may take advantage of context cues to work out meaning. Often, however there are no context cues and a reader is left struggling to understand. Weak vocabulary is also a barrier to generating inferences in text. Moments later, Jenny had fixed the problem.If a reader knows that moments is a short time the inference can be made that the problem was a minor one. However suppose a reader believes a moment to be a long time, the inference will be very different.

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3 Predicting, asking questions, I wonder

Effective readers interact with a text and predict, ask questions or wonder …and then read on with more focus to ‘find out’. This is essential to understanding text as it is part of the “monitoring meaning” process. However weaker comprehenders often read passively and fail to interact with a text.

4 Comprehension monitoring

When driving we constantly check our vehicle and environment i.e. speed, distance, rear mirror, other traffic. Similarly, readers constantly check the meaning of what they read. They expect text to make sense and, when it doesn’t, a ‘trip switch’ activates (similar to a faulty kettle short-circuiting the trip switch in a house).

“Good readers isolate confusion.” (Tovani)

“Skilled readers notice comprehension breakdown as a signal for re-reading and repair.”

(Baker and Gardner)Weaker comprehenders, however, seem to read more passively and are less sensitive to meaning breakdowns. In studies where children are asked to detect an inconsistency in a text, weaker comprehenders are far less likely to spot deliberate errors. Spot the following inconsistency and activate your trip switch!:

It’s very dark underground but for some animals it is home. For example, moles are small dark creatures that can tunnel at high speed. They have sensitive noses and they see very well. A mole can dig a tunnel as long as a football pitch in one night. Moles are very shy and only wake up at night, but then they get moving! They are fantastic diggers but they don’t see very well. Have you ever seen lots of small mounds of soil on a field? Watch out there’s a mole about!

5 Breakdown strategies

If we want to be effective at DIY, we need a toolkit containing a variety of tools. Similarly in reading, to fix ‘meaning breakdowns’, we need a range of techniques 1 Re read phrase/sentence(s) again to clarify Garner et al 1984

2 Look back and identify key words to get meaning Garner3 Think aloud... verbalise your thoughts Farr and Connor 20044 Make a rich picture in your mind Oakhill and Patel 19915 Slow down, read back a bit and then on a bit…

use background knowledge and think like a detective Cain 20106 If it’s a tricky word, ask yourself…what do I know about it? It is like a word I

know? Any root clues? Is it a noun, verb, adjective…?

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Weak comprehenders seem to have limited repair strategies, and without the tools to fix the breakdown often just carry on reading. This also results in a much slower growth of vocabulary learning because effective readers learn hundreds of new words each year because they can unlock meanings of un familiar words using breakdown strategies

6 Inference

Inference is the bedrock of comprehension (Harvey and Goudvis)

In their everyday lives, most children constantly make inferences. They find this easy to do because the language is conversational, the subject often familiar and visual/aural cues are provided.

However, in text, language is far from conversational. The subject may be unfamiliar and writers deliberately leave out details and assume readers possess levels of background knowledge.

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7 Identifying importance and integrating meaning

Imagine you are doing a jigsaw puzzle without a picture on the box to help. You search to make sense, identifying jigsaw pieces that seem to fit with each other. Gradually the ‘picture’ comes to life. This is not unlike the process of reading. Weak comprehenders however find it difficult to notice importance and make connections.

Read the All Change text below. What are the three most important “jigsaw pieces” to put together that tell us Abby is having to move house, school, neighbourhood?

“Goodbye lif e”, thought Abby as she looked down f rom her bedroom window. Opposite at the bus stop everyone was there. All the usual crowd, messing about. An inner voice screamed, “This isn’t right! You should be with them, waiting f or the bus”. Abby felt a sharp pang as she saw Becky, her best f riend laughing and joking with Chloe.

I nside her room, Freddie looked down at Abby sympathetically, paws on top of a pile of suitcases and boxes. “Goodbye lif e.” Abby f elt like kneeling down in f ront of her Mum and pleading “Let’s not do this because my lif e will be over”.

Obviously Mum had no human feelings in her.

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Imagine the problems a reader has if he/she cannot identify the important parts. It’s easy to see how a difficulty in this area impacts right across the curriculum.

8 Visualising

Many children seem unaware of the power of thinking in pictures as we read. Many studies including Oakhill, Patel and Gunning show that visualising helps readers integrate important parts of a text and make it more memorable.

9 Lack of enjoyment/low reading miles

Reading attainment is highly correlated with enjoyment and children who enjoy reading tend to read a lot. Weak reading comprehension means that children do not gain proper satisfaction from their reading and drift to other competing leisure pursuits.

To be effective readers, we need to read quite a lot. This is similar to playing a musical instrument- a minimum amount of practice is necessary to ensure competence. So there are some readers who are weak at comprehension, simply because they do not read enough.

By Year 4 enormous differences in reading “words per year” emerge.

reluctant readers 50,000 wordsaverage readers 100,000 wordskeen readers 1,000,000 words

10 Failure to link adjacent sentences together

We have already seen, weak comprehenders often fail to recognise importance and connect these elements together to get a “global meaning”. Some readers also fail to integrate importance within single sentences or adjacent sentences to gain “local meaning”. In other words, weaker comprehenders often treat each phrase or sentence in isolation.

Ellie wanted to give her Mum a present. She went to a department store, but everything was too expensive.

A failure to link sentences 1 and 2 together will result in a failure to understand why Ellie is in a department store etc.

11 Weak oral language

Reading comprehension is based on listening (to text) comprehension. In other words, reading comprehension piggy backs on listening comprehension.

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Four year olds listening to a Roald Dahl story told by their teacher will use almost the same skills when they read it for themselves several years later.

Early language skills support later literacy development.(Whitehurst and Lonigan)

Oral language is crucial to reading comprehension. An understanding of grammar is one element of this. These two ‘nearly same’ sentences have very different meanings:

Hannah took the bus so she was late.Hannah took the bus because she was late.

Grammatical understanding in texts is even more important than in conversational language because sentences in text are more complicated.

We may say: “I’ve left my bag in the car and it has my glasses in.” But, in text this could be written as:

My bag, which I left in the car, has my glasses in.

Word order is also crucial.

Man Bites Dog!Dog Bites Man!

Same words, different order and meaning. For children learning English as a second language, this can cause difficulties, partly because their native language may also structure words in different ways.

Bengali: “Good, are you how?”

Word meanings may have different nuances in one language than another.

English: I am looking forward to meeting you.

French: I am impatient for to see you.

Oral language difficulties will impact significantly on effective reading comprehension. Studies of young children summarising a story they have just heard reveal an ocean of difference.

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It was about three Billy Goats Gruff and a Troll. It happened on a bridge. A

Troll was under the bridge.

There was a Troll. He biffed the Goat. He lived under a

bridge …

In fact, oral language difficulties at five years of age predict later reading comprehension difficulties at ten.

12 Cultural distance between readers and writers

Cultural differences add variety and richness to our lives.

For a reader though it sometimes presents challenges.

Inferences can be heavily dependent on a shared cultural background between text and reader. (Marvaez)

The background knowledge we need may be lacking.

Is it true you sing benna on Sundays?

A reader unfamiliar with West Indian culture may be puzzled by this sentence.

13 Weak working memory

An effective working memory is essential if a reader is to build meaning. First let’s distinguish between short term memory and working memory.

Short term memory: remember these digits 3, 2, 4Working memory: add 3 + 2 + 4

Short term memory enables us to hold information in our head. Working memory requires us to hold information in our heads but process it at the same time. In fact:

Working memory is a temporary storage and integration machine.(Daneman and Carpenter)

Let’s be clear, this is not just an issue about memory because studies show weak comprehenders can often remember lists of unconnected words just as well as good comprehenders (Yuill and Oakhill)

A weak working memory means readers have difficulty simultaneously storing and processing information.

In the following sentence, consider what key information needs to be both stored and processed for meaning to be built.

Inside the room, Freddie looked down at Abby sympathetically, paws on top of a pile of suitcases and boxes.

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14 A failure to decode automatically and fluently

Reading is a meaning making activity. Readers who have to expend energy on decoding or fluency find it difficult to free up enough capacity to focus on meaning.

Capacity used in reading

comprehensioncomprehension

decodingdecoding

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capacity capacity

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PART 3Gaining quick insights into the comprehension strategies children are using and perhaps neglecting

Our diagnostic conversations toolkit enables schools to sample stronger and weaker readers to gain insights into what kinds of readers your school has.

For example, if each member of staff worked with three readers-a stronger, average and weaker comprehender- 30 plus readers’ profiles could be collected and compared across the school. What kind of readers are they? This is particularly helpful to gain clarity about reading comprehension as it is often the hardest area of reading to assess.

Diagnostic conversations can provide insights into:

decoding and fluency strategies a reader uses in the moment of reading to build basic

meaning skills a reader has answering/discussing questions and going deeper

into the text reader perceptions and self-view

You may have noticed that we have separated reading comprehension into two parts.

strategies used in the moment to build basic meaning skills we use after the text when responding to questions to gain deeper

meaning

It is helpful to think about reading at two points in time.(Clarke Truelove Hulme and Snowling)

Our toolkit examines these two aspects of reading comprehension separately.

Most of the texts contain only 100 words. There are notes to help adults have semi-structured conversations which take around 15 minutes per pupil. A recording format is provided. We hope you find the toolkit useful. Thanks to Leicester City Council for allowing us to reproduce some of the texts and approaches (Inference Training - a training resource for primary and secondary schools 2015)

Please send any feedback to anthonywhatmuff@gmail.com

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PART 4Classroom strategies

1. Utilise the power of modelling – make strategies explicit to children

Use ‘way in’ texts to model strategies readers’ use in the moment of reading. We can focus on six strategies (if we combine two pairs of strategies). Adults use think alouds to demonstrate their strategies/thinking as they read. Pupils then try them out for themselves

Use background knowledge and connect to text. Predict, ask questions, I wonder. Visualise. Think like a detective – use inference. Notice meaning breakdown and use repair strategies. Watch out for VIP words and phrases and connect to build meaning.

A range of PowerPoint resources containing a text and think alouds are available for you to try out. When you select texts, include ones from different curriculum areas to help children generalise their strategies.

Modelling can take place:

In the moment of reading. In the moment of listening to text. Responding to questions after a text.

Making these strategies explicit to children also gives the potential for readers to acquire a clearer self-view (see Reader’s Dashboard handout Part 3 No.1), and the how of reading (metacognition). In Part 1, research indicated that readers often start to experience difficulties around the age of eight when text comprehension becomes more complex.However even from an early stage, we can teach in the moment listening to text strategies. Most Year 1 readers may be reading simple, literal books, but this doesn’t mean they can’t focus on higher order comprehension strategies when listening to text.We have the potential to teach the strategies and make pupils active, accomplished listeners to text by the end of KS1. This is likely to make them well equipped to deal with the challenges of reading comprehension when these start to rise steeply around the age of eight. Copies of the slides below shows the three phases of teaching and learning using think aloud strategies

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For older children who need to acquire the skills of answering questions in a test, we can also model responding to questions – IE going deeper into the text. Pupils can practise the skills in groups and share their methods of answering questions. A Year 5/6 pupil workbook with DVD resources showing classroom conversations is available from OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 01536 452610 (ISBN 978-0-19-842251-9)

2. Develop pupils’ speaking, listening and wider language skills

As we have already noted, the language of text is different to the language of everyday conversation. To improve reading comprehension we need to help children to talk like a text.

Consider becoming a storytelling school (storytellingschools.com). There is a useful manual full of classroom ideas, sample DVDs and, if requested, a day’s training to all staff. Outcomes from storytelling schools show significant impact on children’s confidence, oral language, reading and writing ability.

Graphics organisers are another way of providing opportunities for children to talk like a text

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Also under the umbrella of boosting language skills, we make a range of suggestions to improve group work/guided reading. Time for children to prepare before group work (or a class lesson) is likely to raise the level of pupil contributions and boost the volume of children’s talk (and reduce the teacher’s!)

Have a look at our pre-lesson pupil planner “get ready to have a conversation”. (Handout PT4 No 5)Children read the text before the session and complete some preliminary thinking and recording. The pre session reading and thinking (completed in silent reading?) gives a strong purpose for reading and thinking.

Some research in both the UK and US has observed group/guided reading sessions where the adult has controlled and dominated talk. Who is actually learning in these sessions? Authentic discussions where pupils can express preferences, opinions, and share strategies seems more likely to lead to effective learning. Adults resist the desire to over control a lesson and seize on teachable moments to underpin learning. Have a look at a sample lesson plan (handout PT4 No 6)

Scaffolds such as sentence starters and discussion starters can be very useful to lift conversations to a higher level. Start with just a few to embed these and slowly extend them (see next page).

If we can build speaking, listening, reading and writing around work on texts, this is likely to benefit oral language,reading comprehension and enjoyment.

When pupils are given time to prepare and language scaffolds, independent book groups lasting around ten minutes become possible. Again, pupils are

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given the chance to read the text and prepare for a conversation which makes the group conversation easier and more effective. Moreover, there is evidence that unless pupils are given more independent opportunities to share strategies without an adult, they may not generalise and use them.

The goal is to plan a series of lessons in which we gradually release responsibility for using the strategies to pupils. (Dewitz)

Pupils are capable of higher order discussions in groups if they are given time and a structure to prepare, sentence and discussion starters during the session and a knowledge of what makes a successful session (see example).

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Sentence starters and discussion helpersIn the moment strategies

Predict, ask questions, I wonder

I predicted… I wondered… A question that came into my mind was… At first I predicted …………………………… but I changed my mind

when… I was wrong with my prediction… I was right with my prediction…

Use background knowledge

The text made me think about… It reminded me about another text/film… I remembered… A text to self-connection was … A text to world knowledge connection was… A text to text connection was…

Spot meaning breakdown and use repair strategies

I was confused here… I tried a breakdown strategy here, it was… My breakdown strategy worked… My breakdown strategy didn’t work… Can anyone explain…….?

Detective time

The evidence in the text suggests… When I read………………………… I realised … I didn’t understand…………………………………. at first but then I

thought… I remembered my background knowledge… With this word…..I used these clues to work out what it meant…

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Notice important words and phrases to build meaning

I think the key words and phrases are…

I put these things together …………………………………….

so I know…

These things are all connected…

What words and phrases do we think are most important?

Visualise

I got a picture in my mind when I read… What pictures did you get in your mind?

After text - discussion helpers

Questions starters that need inference

How do we know that? What evidence suggests that? What impressions do we get from this word/phrase…..? How can we work out the meaning of this word? What is the author trying to say here?

Responses

I agree because…………….. I think you’re right because… I agree and I also think ….. That’s interesting! Yes, I agree because the evidence… That’s a good point.

Responses

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Are you saying that….? Why do you think that…? Can you explain a bit more? I’m not sure I understand you… I’m not sure I agree because…. I disagree because…….

Comments about a text

I liked the… (setting/character(s) /start/ problem/ending) because………………………..

My favourite ………………. One thing I noticed about the text was…… The most memorable part was…….. The purpose of the text was…….. The text made me feel…

(happy/sad/surprised/tense/optimistic/angry/like laughing) The text was organised in……. The text could have improved if…….. I didn’t like it because………

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3. Keep the correlation between enjoyment of reading and attainment centre stage

Our recommendations in the previous section about time to prepare, authentic discussions and transparent success criteria are likely to have an impact on enjoyment of reading activities.

What pupils read is one of the most important issues a school can address.(Lemov)

Best practice advice suggests we should collaborate across school to select a spine of texts children will listen to and read.

Perhaps six a year. Identify themes and genres. Consider what kinds of first hand experiences your pupils may miss out

on and select themes accordingly. Selecting a spine of texts means that all staff know the text pool children

will draw on. Leave a proportion of texts to individual pupil and adult choice.

One implication of such a system is that schools establish multiple copies of many texts. This has the advantage it makes reading much more social and provides opportunities for shared work and discussion. (Reduce the loneliness of reading that some pupil’s experience .More social reading is one way of boosting its appeal!)

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When choosing a spine of texts to read to or with children, consider using supplementary texts with a focus text. Our adult example of Lord of the Flies (below) by William Golding may be useful here. You may know this novel is about a group of boarding school boys in the 1940’s, marooned on a tropical island. However, if a reader has little background knowledge of tropical islands or life in a boarding school in the 1940’s, there are a range of inferences readers’ will not be able to make. So a short, supplementary text about these subjects will make it more likely for all readers to make inferences in the focus text. Supplementary texts support pupils with narrower life and reading experience and provide a more level a playing field for all readers.

Finally, consider our reading menu (below). Do you feel your school has the correct balance? (This is likely to vary across the age range.)

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In particular, consider what time daily should be spent on individual reading. Research shows that when pupils read a well matched book (95% plus decoding accuracy, good comprehension match and interest), readers teach themselves many things.

How about readers who do not read at home? Where are the reading miles to develop competency going to come from?

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Reading in a test

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6 What Next?

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