Teaching Comprehension and Vocabulary Development

in the early grades

Leecy Wise

http://www.reconnectioncompany.com

Phonemic Awareness

Phonics

Flu

ency

Com

prehensionSuccessful

ReadersVocabulary

National Reading Panel Report

Comprehension Monitoring: Where students learn how to be aware of

their understanding of the materials.Cooperative Learning:

Where students learn reading strategies together.

Use of graphic and semantic organizers:Where readers make graphic

representations of the material to assist comprehension.

(National Reading Panel Summary 2000, 15)

National Reading Panel Report

(National Reading Panel Summary 2000, 15)

Question answering:Where readers answer questions posed by the

teacher and receive immediate feedback.Question generation:

Where readers ask themselves about various aspects of the text.Story structure:

Where students are taught to use the structure of the story as a means of helping them recall story

content.

Comprehension ReviewNRP

No one method 7 Recommended Methods

Comprehension MonitoringTrack their thinking. Notice when they lose focus. Stop and go back. Reread to enhance understanding. Identify what's confusing. Consciously select the best strategy.

Cooperative Learning

Students work together to learn comprehension strategies. This leads to an increase in the learning of the strategies, promotes intellectual discussion, and increases reading comprehension including on standardized test performance.

Graphic OrganizersStudents write or draw meanings

and relationships of underlying ideas. Main effect appears to be in the improvement of the readers’ memory for the content that has been read. Improvement is also found in social studies and science content areas.

http://content.scholastic.com/browse/article.jsp?id=2983

http://www.k111.k12.il.us/LAFAYETTE/FOURBLOCKS/graphic_organizers.htm

Analyze Story Structure

Students are taught to use the structure of the story as a means of helping them recall story content in order to answer questions about what they have read

Examine characters, setting, author view, the past and future, compare, present and speak

(See Website handout: storystructure.doc)

Question/Answer with Immediate Feedback

Readers answer questions posed by the teacher and receive immediate feedback

Question Generation

Readers ask themselves questions about various aspects of the story;

Summarization

Readers are taught to integrate ideas and generalize from the text information.

7 Methods

Comprehension Monitoring Cooperative LearningGraphic OrganizersQuestioningAnsweringStory StructureSummarizing(Develop and present a Mnemonic device)

Vocabulary

Vocabulary is critically important in oral reading instruction. There are twotypes of vocabulary—oral and print.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonics

Flu

ency

Com

prehensionSuccessful

ReadersVocabulary

Vocabulary Development: Computer Resources

The use of computers in vocabulary instruction was found to be more effective than some traditional methods in a few studies. It is clearly emerging as a potentially valuable aid to classroom teachers in the area of vocabulary instruction.

Vocabulary Development: Computers

vast content-area resources many independent multi-level activities games, puzzles handouts and lesson plans scavenger hunts and webquestsExcel, Word and other applications

Vocabulary also can be learned incidentally in the context of storybook reading or in listening to others. However, learning words before reading a text is helpful.

Vocabulary Development: Context

Discuss before the passage Discuss in groups Extend usage Repeat usage Review usage Substitute words

Vocabulary Development: Context

•First, vocabulary should be taught both directly and indirectly.•Repetition and multiple exposures to vocabulary items are important. •Learning in rich contexts, incidental learning, and use of computer technology all enhance the acquisition of vocabulary.

Vocabulary Instruction: Summary

Lesson Plans

What is included?

"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn." Benjamin Franklin

Next time:

Comprehension: So now you can decode, but do you understand?