The Comprehension Revolution: Helping Teachers Take a Closer Look at the Reader, Text, Activity, and Context

1. The Comprehension Revolution: Helping Teachers Take a Closer Look at the Reader, Text, Activity, and Context Patricia A. Edwards, Ph.D. Michigan State University President-Elect, International Reading Association September 22, 2009

2. English/ Second Language Reading is Complex Phonological processing abilities in English Oral language abilities in English Print Related abilities/ experiences in English Background Knowledge in English LITERACY IN NATIVE LANGUAGE

3. Factors that Influence Learning to Read for English Language Learners Learning context Reading skills in L1 & L2 Teacher’s skills & behaviors Oral proficiency in L1 & L2 Instructional practices

4. Evidence-based Literacy Instruction for ELLs Includes explicit instruction in oral language, phonological awareness, the alphabetic code, fluency, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension. Builds on students’ prior knowledge, interests, motivation, and home language. Helps students make connections. Includes frequent opportunities to practice reading with a variety of materials in meaningful contexts. Promotes engagement.

5. Effective Practices for Teaching EL learners • Teacher observations data (Baker 2003) • Models skills and strategies • Makes relationships between concepts overt • Emphasizes distinctive features of new concepts • Scaffold use of strategies, skills, and concepts • Changes focus of literacy activities regularly • Adjust speech

6. Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners • Uses visuals and manipulatives to teach content • Provides explicit instruction in English language use • Encourages elaborate student responses • Teaches vocabulary using gestures and facial expressions

7. Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners • Have high expectations for learning • Facilitate the development of essential language and literacy skills at a student’s level of oral proficiency in English • Develop literacy through instruction that builds on language, comprehension, print concepts, and the alphabetic principle • Use language during instruction that is comprehensible and meaningful to the students

8. Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners • Create an instructional program that meets the needs of your students: • design a plan for new students • readjust schedules, make decisions based on data, and make instruction comprehensible • provide opportunities for students to engage in extended dialogues • assess students’ progress frequently • incorporate community expertise into the curriculum

9. Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners • Integrate ESL strategies in content area instruction • Activate background knowledge and connect content to students’ lives • Use graphic organizers, charts, and other visuals to enhance comprehension

10. Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners • Provide opportunities for discussions of texts • Recognize and value the different discourse (speaking) patterns across cultures

11. Text Comprehension Comprehension is the reason for reading. If readers can read the words, but do not understand what they are reading, they are not really reading! www.nifl.gov

12. What skills, knowledge, and attitudes are required for good reading comprehension?

13. What students need to learn Before, during and after strategies How to identify main ideas and supporting details Identify text genres/purpose of text How to find information Critical thinking How we teach it Teach before, during and after strategies Build/activate background knowledge Teach predictions Use graphic organizers Teach metacognitive strategies Teach “fix-up” strategies Teach summarizing Set up cooperative groups Reading Comprehension

14. What is Comprehension? • Comprehension is the understanding of what you read • Comprehension is an active, intentional process in which the reader engages with the text to both extract and construct meaning from written language.

15. What is Good Comprehension Instruction? In effective comprehension instruction, teachers tell students why and when they should use strategies, what strategies to use, and how to apply them. • Direct Explanation: Teacher explains why the strategy helps comprehension and when to apply the strategy. • Modeling: Teacher demonstrates how to apply the strategy • Guided Practice: Teacher guides and assists students as they learn how and when to apply the strategy • Application: Teacher helps students apply the strategy until they can apply it independently. Source: Armbruster & Osborn, 2003

16. What is Reading Comprehension? “building bridges from the new to the known” Pearson & Johnson (1978)

17. What is Reading Comprehension? “the construction of the meaning of a written text through a reciprocal interchange of ideas between the reader and the message in a particular text” Harris & Hodges (1995)

18. What is Reading Comprehension? “thinking guided by print” Perfetti (1995)

19. What is Reading Comprehension? “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language. It consists of three elements: the reader, the text, and the activity or purpose for reading” Rand Reading Study Group (2002)

20. Comprehension Strategies • Specific procedures that guide students to become aware of how well they are understanding as they attempt to read

21. Comprehension is a Process • Comprehension is a dynamic process, a transaction between the reader, the text, and the context. Louise Rosenblatt

22. What we know about the factors that affect reading comprehension Proficient comprehension of text is influenced by: Accurate and fluent word reading skills Oral language skills (vocabulary, linguistic comprehension) Extent of conceptual and factual knowledge Knowledge and skill in use of cognitive strategies to improve comprehension or repair it when it breaks down. Reasoning and inferential skills Motivation to understand and interest in task and materials

23. Language Knowledge Fluency Metacognition • Life Experience • Content Knowledge • Activation of Prior • Knowledge • Knowledge about • Texts • Oral Language Skills • Knowledge of Language • Structures • Vocabulary • Cultural Influences Reading Comprehension • Prosody • Automaticity/Rate • Accuracy • Decoding • Phonemic Awareness • Motivation & • Engagement • Active Reading • Strategies • Monitoring Strategies • Fix-Up Strategies

24. Taught by methods that are… Identifying words accurately and fluently Constructing meaning Engaging, meaningful & motivating The Five Essential Components of Beginning Reading Instruction Phonemic Awareness Phonics Fluency Vocabulary Text Comprehension

25. K 1 2 3 Multisyllables Phonemic Awareness Listening Phonics Reading Letter Sounds & Combinations Reading Listening Fluency Vocabulary Comprehension One of the Big Five:Comprehension Adapted from Simmons, Kame’enui, Harn, & Coyne (2003). Institute for beginning reading. Day 3: Core instruction: What are the critical components that need to be In place to reach our goals? Eugene: University of Oregon.

26. LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION Skilled Reading- fluent coordination of word reading and comprehension processes BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE LANGUAGE STRUCTURES VERBAL REASONING LITERACY KNOWLEDGE SKILLED increasingly strategic WORD RECOGNITION PHON. AWARENESS DECODING (and SPELLING) SIGHT RECOGNITION increasingly automatic The Many Strands that are Woven into Skilled Reading (Scarborough, 2001)

27. Task 1 Task 2 Task 3 INTERACTING WITH TEXT Task 4 Task 5 Task 6 Task 7 EXTENDING UNDERSTANDING Task 8 TEXT TEXT 3 Moments in the Teaching of Reading PREPARING LEARNERS • Activate prior relevant knowledge • Focus attention to concepts to be developed • Introduce vocabulary in context • Deconstruct text, focus on understanding on a chunk • Reconnect chunk to whole text • Establish connections between ideas within text • Connect ideas learned to other ideas outside the text • Apply newly gained knowledge to novel situations or problem-solving • Create or recreate based on new understandings Task 9

28. The Construction-Integration Modelof Comprehension Mental Model: The idea units combined with the reader’s knowledge Textbase: The linking of idea units • Knowledge • Math • History • Literature • Science Reader Text (purpose) Vocabulary knowledge Knowledge of syntax Genre knowledge World knowledge/Topic knowledge Discipline knowledge - domain specific and domain general Comprehension is the result of the interaction between the textbase and mental model.

29. Building a mental model from a text • “Comprehension occurs as the reader builds a mental representation of a text message.” • ----Perfetti, C. A., Landi, N., & Oakhill, J. (2005).

30. Text messages are understood (and mental models are built) word by word Mental model Each word is fit into mental models (multiple structures) to the extent possible Word 1

31. Text messages are understood (and mental models are built) word by word Mental model Each word is fit into mental models (multiple structures) to the extent possible Word 2

32. Text messages are understood (and mental models are built) word by word Mental model Each word is fit into mental models (multiple structures) to the extent possible Word 3

33. Text messages are understood (and mental models are built) word by word Mental model Each word is fit into mental models (multiple structures) to the extent possible Word 4

34. What Does the Research Say? Reading Comprehension as a synthesisof complex skills cannot be understood without examining the critical role andimportance of vocabulary instruction. (National Reading Panel, 2000)

35. Text Comprehension • Text comprehension can be improved by instruction that helps readers use specific comprehension strategies. • Effective comprehension strategy instruction is explicit, or direct. (Put Reading First, pp. 49, 53)

36. Old and New Definitions of Reading

37. Sociocultural TEXT ACTIVITY READER Context Thinking about Reading Comprehension

38. Comprehension results from an interaction among the reader, the strategies the reader employs, the material being read, and the context in which reading takes place.

39. Important Findings from Cognitive Sciences Most of the knowledge base on this topic comes from studies of good and poor readers. However, some of it is derived from research on expert teachers and from training studies. • Meaning is not in the words on the page. The reader construct meaning by making inferences and interpretations. • Reading researchers believe that information is stored long-term memory in organized “knowledge structures.” The essence of learning is linking new information to prior knowledge about the topic, the text structure or genre, and strategic for learning.

40. Important Findings from Cognitive Sciences • How well a reader constructs meaning depends in part on metacognition, the reader’s ability to think about and control the learning process (i.e., to plan, monitor comprehension, and revise the use of strategies and comprehension); and attribution, beliefs about the relationship among performance, effort, and responsibility. • Reading and writing are integrally related. That is, reading and writing have many characteristics in common. Also, readers increase their comprehension by writing, and reading about the topic improves writing performance. • Collaborative learning is a powerful approach for teaching and learning. The goal of collaborative learning is to establish a community of learners in which students are able to generate questions and discuss ideas freely with the teacher and each other. Students often engage in teaching roles to help other students learn and to take responsibility for learning.

41. Characteristics of Poor/Successful Readers

42. Characteristics of Poor/Successful Readers

43. Milestones in Reading Research • Evidence that meaning in not in the words, but constructed by the reader. • Documentation that instruction in the vast majority of classrooms is text driven and that most teachers do not provide comprehension instruction. • Documentation that textbooks were very poorly written, making information in them difficult to learn; subsequent response of the textbook industry to include real literature, longer selections, more open-ended questions, less fragmented skills, and “more considerate” text. • Changes in reading research designs from narrowly conceived and well-controlled laboratory experiments with college students to (1) broadly conceived training studies using experimenters and real teachers in real classrooms and (2) studies involving teachers as researchers and colleagues in preservice and inservice contexts.

44. Milestones in Reading ResearchBecoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading (1984)

45. Important Trends in Reading Instruction • Linking new learnings to the prior knowledge and experiences of students. (In contexts where there are students from diverse backgrounds, this means valuing diversity and building on the strengths of students.) • Movement from traditional skills instruction to cognitive strategy instruction, whole language approaches, and teaching within the content areas. • More emphasis on integrating reading, writing, and critical thinking with content instruction, wherever possible.

46. Important Trends in Reading Instruction • More organization of reading instruction in phases with iterative cycles of strategies: Preparing for reading—activates prior knowledge by brainstorming or summarizing previous learnings; surveys headings and graphics; predicts topics and organizational patterns; sets goals/purpose for reading; chooses appropriate strategies. • Reading to learn—selects important information, monitors comprehension, modifies predictions, compares new ideas with prior knowledge, withholds judgment, questions self about the meaning, connects and organizes ideas, and summarizes text segments. • Reflecting on the information—reviews/summarizes the main ideas from the text as a whole, considers/verifies how these ideas are related; changes prior knowledge according to new learnings; assesses achievement or purpose for learning; identifies gaps in learning; generates questions and next steps.

47. Brief History of Comprehension Instruction • Last Turn of the Century • Simple view of reading was dominant • Comp=Decoding times Listening Comprehension • Teach decoding via the alphabetic approach • Kids could then understand to the degree that their knowledge and oral language skill permitted • The best way to improve comprehension is, therefore, to increase knowledge

48. The first paradigm shift • While the seeds of demise for the alphabetic approach began in the 1840s, they did not bear fruit until about 1910. • Two major movements • Testing (an outgrowth of the scientific movement in education) • Silent reading (the transparent evidence from oral reading was longer available)

49. Developments from 1915-1970 • The expansion of comprehension assessment • Open ended • Multiple choice • The development of skills to match the assessment and the workbook (1930-1970) • The final straw (skills management systems—codified the skills)

50. The Comprehension Revolution: 1970-1990 Impact of Chall’s book on early reading