Comprehension: the ability to understand what you are reading “ADD THE QUOTE” (Piper, 2010, p.)

1. Comprehension: the ability to understand what you are reading “ADD THE QUOTE” (Piper, 2010, p.)

2. STRATEGY: a plan or technique used by students to get information from text “strategies should be explicitly taught” (Dymock, Nicholson, 2010)

3. “HIGH FIVE” Reading Comprehension Strategies

4. FIVE IS ENOUGH! • Activate Background Knowledge • Questioning • Analyzing Text Structure • Creating Mental Images • Summarizing • (Dymock & Nicholson, 2010) Too Much Too Little • Give too many options • Students will be unsure which methods to apply where • Does not necessarily apply to all learners

5. Activating Prior Knowledge • In order for students to make a connection of information from what they know to learning new knowledge, teachers can activate prior knowledge in order to help students make those connections. • This is also helpful in getting rid of any preconceived notions the reader has that may be incomplete or incorrect.

6. Activating Prior Knowledge Strategies • KWL Charts • Anticipation Guides • Prediction Guides • Background Knowledge Research • Think Alouds

7. Questioning • Dymock and Nicholson suggest that instead of teachers asking questions, that students should be instructed on how to question what they are reading.

8. Questioning Strategies • Use question stems to guide the reader to create questions. • Why was …….? • How did ……….feel about……….? • What caused ……….. to ………..? • What do you think will happen next? • How would you have felt if you were ………….?

9. Questioning Strategies • Use Bloom’s taxonomy to help students create higher level thinking questions.

10. Analyzing Text Structure • Reading text that is not narrative is often difficult for students because they are unable to recognize the different patterns of text. Dymock and Nicholson think that teaching students the different text structures will greatly increase their abilities to comprehend the reading of texts.

11. Creating Mental Images • Creating mental images allows readers to see what they are reading. With expository text, this is often more difficult with narrative text. Narrative text allows readers to use their senses to experience the reading. Expository text may be more difficult to picture, so using the graphic organizers from the text structure section may help students to visualize the text and better understand what the author is trying to portray.

12. Summarizing • Important for Two Things: • Finding Main Ideas: Students need to be able to pick out the main points in what they read. • Discussing the Text : Students should be able to talk about what they read with other students, by doing this they show that understanding.

13. Finding Main Idea Strategies • Use of graphic organizers • Highlighting main points • FQR Chart • Wonder Questions • Venn Diagrams

14. Discussion Strategies • Turn to Your Neighbor • Think-Pair-Share • Line Ups: Students move for answers and then discuss why. • Jigsaw

15. Use Them All! • Activate Background Knowledge • Questioning • Analyzing Text Structure • Creating Mental Images • Summarizing

16. REFERENCES • Block, C. C.., & Duffy, G. (2008). Research on teaching comprehension. In C. C. Block & S. R. Parris (Eds.). Comprehension instruction: Research-based best practices (pp. 19-37). New York: Guilford Press. • Dymock, S., & Nicholson, T. (2010). "High 5!" Strategies to Enhance Comprehension of Expository Text. Reading Teacher, 64(3), 166-178. Retrieved from EBSCOhost. • Grieve, Warren. (2008). Bloom’s Taxonomy Chart. Retrieved from http://www.in2edu.com/downloads/thinking/blooms_taxonomy_chart.pdf. • Orcutt, K. Teaching Text Structure and More[Powerpoint Slides]. Retrieved from literacyleader.com. • West Virginia Department of Education. (2011). Keys to Comprehension. Retrieved from http://wvde.state.wv.us/strategybank/KeystoComprehension.html