Reading Comprehension

at MCDS

Thursday, August 21 2008Mark Childs and Beth Hall

Strategic Reading

Strategic Reading

Strategic Reading

Reading with a purpose

Monitoring comprehension

Reading with a Purpose

Is reading without a purpose enjoyable, meaningful?

(is anything?)

Active reading increases engagement, understanding, retention

Monitoring Comprehension

“Do I understand this?”

All readers struggle: proficient readers use strategies to achieve understanding

Surface vs. structure problem?

Monitoring Comprehension

• Readers need to be:

Flexible

Adaptive

Independent

Schema: Mental Frame

Activating Background Knowledge

Active schema before, during, after

Engage with reading

Relate to long-term memory

Activating Background Knowledge

Text to Self, Text, World

Authors, genres, text structure

Activating Background Knowledge

Questioning

Inner Voice

Monitoring Comprehension?

Content?

Questioning

Clarifying

Speculative

Rhetorical

Authorial

Visualizing

Emotional

Senses

Propensity to create images = increased proficiency

Understand and engage

Inferring

Something the reader knows, but is not in the text

Reader : text : schema

Reflect on ideas, not people or things/events

Summarizing

Main idea

Reader’s purpose

Summarizing

Content or function?

Word > sentence > text

Logical Structure

Cause/effect

Chronological

Problem/solution

Comparison

Synthesizing

Creating coherent meaning from text

Revise according to evidence

Text > multiple texts

What it Looks Like

Monitoring

Schema

Schema

Questioning

Visualization

Visualization

Inferring

Schema

Summarizing

Synthesizing

Reading with a Purpose

MCDS Students

Preview texts

Read with a purpose

Monitor and fix understanding

Summarize main ideas

Connect new ideas with prior knowledge

Teaching Process

Two Clips (Tape 1, Part 2 & 3)

Teaching Process

Teach one strategy

Accumulate strategies

Practice using strategies

Teacher Modeling

Explicit use of terms

Think aloud

Familiar books, new strategy

Quick

Make Thought Visible

Teaching Process

One Clip (Tape 2, Part 1)

Guided Practice

Independent reading

Conferences (1-3 Minute)

One strategy at a time

Collaborative Practice

Turn & share

Need-based groups (5-10 minutes)

“make thought visible”

Anchor charts

Keep track of students’ thoughts

Independent Practice

Post-it notes

Graphic organizers

K-W-L chart

Double column notes

Application in Authentic Reading

Use the strategies

Metacognition

“what was this passage about?”

“how did you gain meaning from this passage?”

Process or Content?

If a student is not engaged with the subject or does not understand how to learn from the text, will the student learn the content?

Teach the Reader, not the Reading

Reading Comprehension at

MCDSHow will these strategies fit into your classroom, subject area?

How will these strategies become part of your daily practice?

• Daily practice: 175 days x 8 periods x 14 years = lots of practice*

*19,600 opportunities

Teaching Monitoring

Umbrella strategy

“What is reading?” chart

Think-aloud of a proficient reader

Conclusion

Explicit teaching of strategic reading

Process to engage, understand with reading

Model, incorporate into practice