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.
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
No comments:
Post a Comment