Comprehension Strategies Week 2

This week we will continue the discussion about the importance of explicitly teaching students how to achieve mastery in the seven areas of comprehension. Teachers need to give students the opportunity to be active participants in the process and use the strategies we teach them as they read.

This is the second blog post of a series on strategies to help students comprehend within all the areas of comprehension. This post will cover; “questioning” and “drawing inferences” (See previous blog posts to review the seven areas of comprehension and the first two strategies.)

Area of Comprehension: Questioning - Proficient readers use questioning to help them clarify ideas and deepen understanding of what they are reading.

Strategy: Students create text-dependent questions 

            Here is a way to make students in charge of creating their own questions about their reading. 
           1. Use a short text that may be challenging for the students.
           2. Read the text out loud as the students follow along or have them read it on their own.
           3. Have them mark spots where they feel confused, have a question, or wonder about something.
           4. Have them reread the text pausing at each spot they marked to write a question or comment about the confusion they felt or what they were wondered.
           5. Collect the students' questions and post them.
           6. Have the students (in pairs and as whole class) discuss the most interesting or important questions and make notes about their thoughts while referring back to the text.
This structure has the students reread a text several times, generating their own questions, and collaborating on possible answers.     

Area of Comprehension: Drawing inferences - Proficient readers elaborate upon what they read and draw conclusions by going beyond what is written on the page.

Strategy: Signposts and Anchor Questions 

            For students to become independent readers, they need to have questions in their repertoire, apply them appropriately, and let the questions lead them to other questions. The six Notice and Note Signposts (Contrasts and Contradictions, Aha Moment, Tough Questions, Words of the Wiser, Again and Again, and Memory Moment) help students notice something in the text and then stop to note what it might mean. Each signpost requires students to ask themselves an anchor question that goes with each signpost, so it is important to teach both the signpost and the anchor questions to students. As students are regularly using the signposts and anchor questions they will begin to make inferences, make connections, offer predictions, and think deeper about their reading.

Strategies from: Reading Nonfiction: Notice&Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies  and Notice and Note: Strategies for Close Reading by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst

Comprehension Strategies

It is important for teachers to explicitly teach students how to achieve mastery in the seven areas of comprehension. To do this we need students to be active participants in the process. Too often we introduce students to a text by telling them something about it. In this model student participation is passive. For students to gain access to critical information in the text, we must teach them strategies.

The next few blog posts will be a series on strategies to help students comprehend within all the areas of comprehension. This post will cover; “create mental images” and “use background knowledge.” (See last week’s blog post to review the seven areas of comprehension.)

Area of Comprehension: Create mental images- Proficient readers don’t just visualize, but also hear, see, smell and feel what is described in the text.

Strategy: Sketch to Stretch

            Have you ever heard a student say “I just don’t see what the text means,” or “I wish there was a picture.” These comments are clues that creating mental images is a problem in the student’s comprehension of the text. In these cases Sketch to Stretch is a strategy that will help students visualize during and after reading. There are 3 steps for students to use in this strategy:

1. Underline the specific parts of the text causing the confusion.
2. Reread those parts and, while rereading, try to draw in the margin what the author was describing.
3. Label the drawing with terms the author used in the text.

This strategy gives students the confidence to figure out their confusions on their own.

Area of Comprehension: Use background knowledge- Proficient readers make connections to a text before, during, and after they read.

Strategy: Possible Sentences

            Possible sentences is a before reading strategy. The teacher chooses between eight and fourteen words for the text, that they believe students will know. Students then write five “possible sentences” that might appear in the text, using three to five of the given words in each sentence. This strategy reverses the norm of the teacher providing the background knowledge and forces the student to actively engage with vocabulary they will see in the text along with activating their prior knowledge in order to make predictions about the text. After reading students will correct the sentences they wrote, forcing them to go back into the text.

Strategies from: Reading Nonfiction: Notice&Note Stances, Signposts, and Strategies by Kylene Beers and Robert E. Probst

What is Comprehension?

What is comprehension and why is it so important?

“Comprehension is at the heart of what it really means to read. Reading is thinking and understanding and getting at the meaning behind the text."

–Jennifer Serravallo

To read is to uncover meaning within a text, to understand what the author is saying, and to have your own reactions and responses. It is all about thinking.

Comprehension is often used as an umbrella term and includes several skills. In their book Mosaic of Thought, authors Ellin Oliver Keene and Susan Zimmermann cite proficient reader research and explain seven comprehension areas. It is important to be aware of these areas to better support readers’ deepening understandings of text. Readers will shift from one strategy to another depending on what they are reading and what they need to understand the reading.

• Create mental images: Proficient readers don’t just visualize, but also hear, see, smell and feel what is described in the text.
• Use background knowledge: Proficient readers make connections to a text/topic before, during, and after they read.
• Ask questions: Proficient readers read with curiosity. They question the text and their reactions.
• Make inferences: Proficient readers form judgments, make predictions, and determine the theme or message of a story.
• Determine the most important ideas or themes: Proficient readers understand the most significant events in fiction, and the main ideas in nonfiction.
• Synthesize information (Retell): Proficient readers can figure out how parts of a text fit together, and understand cause/effect.
• Use "fix-up" strategies (monitor for meaning): Proficient readers monitor their own understanding, fix confusion as it arises, and understand new vocabulary.

Teachers can use these seven areas of comprehension to see where students are strongest, and where they need the most support. Instead of looking at skills as yes or no, consider how deep a students’ work is within each skill, and work within the skill to deepen.

How can you assess comprehension? Try to sample student understanding in a variety of ways. Often, running records are the first piece of data about students’ comprehension, and can be tools to inform earliest teaching. A running record can offer some insight into comprehension. When conferring around comprehension, you can start with questions instead of asking a child to read aloud. If you don't know the book, check the back cover blurb and skim the page the child is reading. Ask students to retell and to answer some literal and inferential questions. Have students keep track of their thinking on sticky notes. What they write can connect to what you taught in conferences and small groups. Serravallo says, “Regardless of how you choose to collect samples of your students’ thoughts about the characters in their books, you’ll need a rubric or continuum against which to judge their responses."

Serravallo, Jennifer. "Jennifer Serravallo: Focusing on Comprehension - Heinemann." Heinemann. Heinemann, 12 Feb. 2015. Web. 09 Feb. 2016.

Fluency

Fluency is the ability to read text accurately. It is the bridge between word recognition and comprehension. Fluent readers group words together to gain meaning, use expression, and sound like they are speaking. Fluency means that readers no longer have to focus on decoding the words, instead they focus their attention on what the text means. Many students with a comprehension goal, may need to work on their fluency before they are able to comprehend.

One way for teachers to look objectively at a reader's fluency is to use a fluency record. As you are listening to students read aloud, make marks that reflect fluency and expression. A slash mark can be used for a pause or an I for intonation. While the student reads, listen for whether the student is reading words automatically, for the reader to group their words into meaningful chunks, and for intonation or expression that matches what the student is reading.

Take a look at the your students. Do you have any students who may need fluency work?
If you are interested in taking a closer look at fluency with your students, Reading A-Z has fluency passages available. The Florida Center for Reading Research also has great resources available for teachers.