Chapter 14 Narrative Reading

1. Chapter 14Narrative Reading By Anna Durfee

2. Comprehension • 3 key elements of comprehension • The reader • The text • The activity All of these are put together in context. “Comprehension instruction requires showing students how these elements affect their understanding when reading.”

3. 3 Elements of Comprehension:The Reader • Each reader brings a set of competencies that affect comprehension. • Reader competencies include: • Speed and accuracy of decoding • Reading fluency • Vocabulary • Word knowledge • Comprehension strategies

4. 3 Elements of Comprehension:The Text • Two broad categories of text used in classrooms: • Narrative • Informational Narrative texts include fiction, narrative nonfiction, and some poetry. All narrative texts express ideas and tell a story, either fictional or not. Motivate students by finding appropriate texts for them to read.

5. 3 Elements of Comprehension:The Activity • Components: • Purposes for reading • Identify the reading task (i.e learning for a test, understanding rules to a game) • Processes for reading • Apply a range of processes to achieve the purpose of reading (i.e decoding, higher-level thinking skills) • Consequences of reading • Reach an outcome (i.e increased knowledge, improve comprehension, etc)

6. 3 Elements of Comprehension inContext • The context in which the reading occurs (socially and culturally) shapes and is shaped by the 3 elements of comprehension: the reader, the text, and the activity.

7. Good Readers • Before reading: • Set goals for the text • Skim the text for general ideas or themes • Predict • During reading: • Skim, concentrate, reread, make notes. • Monitor comprehension • Note problems with unknown words or confusing text • Use repair strategies • Make inferences • Evaluate and ask questions

8. Good Readers • After reading: • Sometimes reread selectively • Summarize • Think about ways to use the information gained • Conscious plans to make sense of the text and get the most out of what is read. • Students use these strategies to become active readers in control of their own comprehension • See table on pg. 614 Comprehension Strategies

9. Narrative Reading:Story Structure Knowledge • Story structure: • Setting: when and where a story takes place • Characters: people, animals, or creatures in the story • Plot: what happens in the story, is centered around a conflict • Theme: the big idea of the story “When reading a narrative text, good readers use their knowledge of story elements to ask and answer questions, monitor story comprehension, predict and preview, connect to world knowledge, construct mental images, and summarize or retell”

10. Story Structure Knowledge:Asking and Answering Questions • Example questions: • Setting: where and when does the story take place? • Characters: who is the main character? • Plot: what is the problem the character faces? How does the story turn out? • Theme: what lesson does the main character learn? • *Bloom’s Taxonomy gives a lot of possible text-based questions a teacher could ask. See pg. 638 • Answering questions: • Students should not only answer their own questions about a story, but should also be guided through teacher questions following Bloom’s Taxonomy

11. Story Structure Knowledge:Monitoring Comprehension • Monitoring Comprehension: • Questions: • Do I have a sense of when and where the story takes place? • Have I identified the main character? • Do I understand the problem? • Am I following the plot? • Did I figure out how the problem was resolved? • Do I understand the lesson of the story? • Think-alouds: students say what they are thinking as they read the story

12. Story Structure Knowledge:Connecting to World Knowledge “ Integrating story information with previous life experiences enables students to understand, feel, value, and retain the depth of an author’s meaning.”

13. Story Structure Knowledge:Predicting and Constructing Mental Images • Predicting: • For developing readers, stories with predictable plots or repetitive phrases are best • Good readers make informed predictions before and during reading • Teachers can guide students by applying what students know about story structure • Constructing Mental Images: • Students learn to picture the author’s descriptions in their minds • Sometimes readers must adapt their mental images as they encounter new information

14. Story Structure Knowledge:Summarizing • Developmental levels of summarizing/retelling: • Emergent level: focus on event listing and sequencing, introduce basic story elements • Early fluent level: helps student apply basic story elements, introduce identifying main events, model and guide retelling • Fluent level: introduce plot summary, practice to refine sequencing and story elements retelling.

15. Multiple-Strategy Instruction Program: TSI • Emphasizes: • Collaborative discussion among learners • Metacognition • Motivation • Reader response • Embodies full range of transactions: • Between reader and text • Between readers • Between reader and teacher

16. Reader Response • Discussion-oriented instruction • Discussion supports students in the process of developing meaning • Both teacher-directed and student-directed discussions are encouraged • Writing in response to literature • Encouraging written responses increase comprehension • 3 categories of written responses: • Personal • Creative • Critical

17. Narrative Reading:When to Teach • Strategies for narrative reading should be taught at the first introduction to text and continue through high school • Traditional assessments should be combined with a teacher’s ongoing informal assessment (i.e retellings, think-alouds, etc) When to Assess and Intervene

18. Narrative Reading:How? • Dialogic Reading: Picture Book Read-Aloud Method • C: Completion • R: Recall • O: Open-ended • W: Who, what, when, where, or why • D: Distancing See pg. 649

19. Peer Sequence • P – Prompt • E – Evaluate • E – Expand • R - Repeat See pg. 650 “The PEER sequence encourages students to say more about their understanding of the story”

20. Book Club: Writing in Response to Literature • Students need instruction and support to develop their skills in using writing as a tool for reflecting on reading. • Response options: • Personal • Creative • Critical Lesson model pg. 677

21. Conclusion • Chapter 14 covers the ways in which comprehension can be increased while reading narrative texts; one of the two main categories students encounter in school • Through explicit and extensive instruction in story structure knowledge and reading strategies, complete comprehension can be achieved from the moment students enter the world of text. • Several models and heavily researched strategies are available to help monitor and maintain student comprehension when reading narrative texts.