Reading Comprehension

By: Macy Fagler

What is Comprehension?

• The ability to read text, process it, and understand its meaning.

Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B., Jr. (2016).

Comprehension Strategies vs. Instructional Strategies?

• Comprehension strategies are strategies that students use in their heads to help assist them in thinking about what they are reading.

• Instructional strategies are ways in which teachers create the conditions and contexts that helps support a student’s reading comprehension.

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension. (2015).

Comprehension Strategies Used By Learners

Graphic and Semantic Organizers

• Help students read and understand texts. • Help students focus on story structure as they read.• Provide students with tools they can use to examine

and show relationships in a text. • Help students write well organized summaries of a

text.

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension. (2015).

Examples of Graphic and Semantic Organizers

• Story Map– Used to chart the story

structure of a text.

• Cause and Effect – Used to illustrate the cause and

effect of events that occur in a text.

• Venn Diagrams– Used to compare and contrast

two things.

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension. (2015).

Answering Questions • Give students a purpose for

reading. • Focus students’ attention on

what they are supposed to learn.

• Help students to think actively as they read.

• Encourage students to monitor their comprehension.

• Help students to review content and relate what they learned to what they already know. Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension.

(2015).

Examples of Answering Questions Strategies

• “Think and Share”– Based on the basic recall of facts that can be found directly in the text.

• “Author and You”– Require students to use their prior knowledge with what they have learned from the

text. – Answers are found in more than one place in the text, so students have to think and

search through the passage.

• “On Your Own”– Answers are based on what students already know and their own personal

experiences.

• “Right There”– Found right in the text by locating one word or sentence.

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension. (2015).

Monitoring Comprehension • Students are aware of

what they do understand.

• Students can identify what they do not understand or know.

• Allow students to use appropriate strategies to resolve problems in comprehension.

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension. (2015).

Instructional Strategies Used By Teachers

Guided Practice • The teacher guides and assists

students as they read.• Allows teachers the opportunity to

listen to students read at their instructional level of learning.

• Practice is done in small groups.• Teacher can prompt students to

integrate the reading processes. • Students are engaged in

conversation throughout the text. • Goal is to help students use

strategies and apply them independently.

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension. (2015).

Modeling• High-level of student-teacher

interaction. • Teacher describes the skill or

strategy explicitly. • Teacher provides students

with a clear example of a skill or strategy.

• The teacher breaks the skill down into learnable parts.

• The teacher keeps students engaged in learning by showing enthusiasm, keeping a steady pace, asking good questions, and checking for student understanding.

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension. (2015).

How Do Cognitive and Affective Aspects Inform Instruction?• Help to identify the developmental stages of receptive and

expressive language learning• Help to provide scaffolding ideas for teachers to help students move

to the next level• Help to determine next steps for instruction• Help to a developmental approach to facilitate literacy development• Informal and formal assessments help determine areas of strengths

and weaknesses• Help educators to understand the learner as a unique individual• Help to distinguish ideas, issues, and problems that matter to the

specific student

Laureate Education, Inc.

Schema Building Activity • I chose to examine the schema building activity with Patricia Pollaco. “This lesson uses

her stories, Chicken Sunday and Rechenka's Eggs to teach students new words while deepening their comprehension, encouraging text-to-self and text-to-text connections, and helping them study characters” (ICLA/NTE, 2015).

• Comprehension strategies used in this lesson: – Modeling – Guided Practice – Activation of students’ prior knowledge– Related student experience to content– Graphic Organizers

• “The WebQuest activity is designed to incorporate technology into reading activities and helps students deepen their comprehension of the stories and apply their knowledge of the vocabulary to create their own stories about the author” (ICLA/NTE, 2015).

International Reading Association (IRA) and National Council of Teachers of English.

Comprehension Strategies My Students Use• Partner Reading • Summarizing • Asking/Answering

Questions • Graphic Organizers

– Venn Diagrams– Story Maps

Instructional Strategies I Use In My Classroom

• Read-Aloud/Think-Aloud• Small Group Guided

Reading Groups • Think-Pair-Share• Modeling • Text-Dependent

Questions• High-level questioning

Resources • International Reading Association (IRA) and National Council of

Teachers of English. (2014a).ReadWriteThink. Retrieved from http://www.readwritethink.org/search/?grade=13&resource_type=6&learning_objective=8

• Reutzel, D. R., & Cooter, R. B., Jr. (2016). Strategies for reading assessment and instruction in an era of common core standards: Helping every child succeed (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson.

• Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/seven-strategies-teach-students-text-comprehension