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Region VI Reading Conference October 11, 2006 Reading Comprehension

Region VI Reading Conference October 11, 2006 Reading Comprehension. Dr. Scott Paris University of Michigan sparis@umich.edu. Research Has Shown. 1. Readers construct models of text and situations simultaneously as they read. 2. Prior knowledge facilitates comprehension.

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Region VI Reading Conference October 11, 2006 Reading Comprehension

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  1. Region VI Reading ConferenceOctober 11, 2006Reading Comprehension Dr. Scott Paris University of Michigan sparis@umich.edu

  2. Research Has Shown 1. Readers construct models of text and situations simultaneously as they read. 2. Prior knowledge facilitates comprehension. 3. Comprehension connects meaning from text to self, world, and other texts.

  3. Research Has Shown 4. Comprehension is enhanced when decoding demands are minimized. 5. Understanding vocabulary enhances comprehension. 6. Using features of genre and text helps organize conceptual understanding.

  4. Research Has Shown 7. Evaluating text with multiple criteria enriches comprehension. 8. Inferences deepen comprehension. 9. Motivation increases comprehension. 10. Strategic reading enhances comprehension.

  5. How We Teach and Assess Comprehension is Influenced by • Curriculum materials • Tests and assessment systems • Personal teaching experiences • Research, theories, and popular approaches • Consider the various ways we teach comprehension today

  6. Skills - Learn, Practice, Automate • Begin with phonics • Build sight vocabulary • Read decodable words • Teach vocabulary in text • Practice oral reading • Re-read for automatic decoding • Ask questions about text • Comprehension is byproduct of decoding.

  7. Fluency - Free Cognitive Resources • Accuracy • Speed • Prosody • Re-read for automaticity • Attention is available for comprehending • Comprehension is permitted by fluency.

  8. Schemata - Activate Prior Knowledge • Identify relevant words and ideas • Discuss personal experiences • Relate text to self, texts, & world • Comprehension is constructed by relating new and old knowledge.

  9. Language Experience - Oral Bridge to Text • Familiar events • Expressive vocabulary • Dictated or oral stories • Read self-generated text • Comprehension is mediated by oral language.

  10. Vocabulary Plus - Meaning Is in the Words • Need a basic sight vocabulary • Understand high frequency words • Learn morphological rules • Acquire 6-10 new words daily • Read/use words in context • Comprehension is word knowledge plus….

  11. Constructive Processing - Model Building • Construct model of text • Construct model of situation • Make inferences • Text to self • Text to world • Text to text • Integrate models • Comprehension is knowledge activation.

  12. Developmental - Learn to Read, then Read to Learn • Learn phonics and decoding • Build vocabulary • Teach comprehension • Comprehension requires a threshold of skills and readiness.

  13. Emergent Literacy - Holistic & Functional • Speech to print • Scribbling to writing • Environmental print • Invented to conventional forms • Shared storybooks & dialogic reading • Comprehension is part of social communication.

  14. Strategic Reading - Skill + Will • Declarative knowledge • Procedural knowledge • Conditional knowledge • Mastery goals • Self-efficacy • Comprehension is goal-directed activity.

  15. Psychometric View of Comprehension • Comprehension is what is measured on reading tests • Usually group-administered passages with multiple-choice questions or short answers • Comprehension is relative to other people and criteria.

  16. Suggestion #1: Use Good Literature and Diverse Genre to Teach Comprehension • Teach listening skills with complex stories • Balance decodable texts with interesting stories

  17. The Foundation for Reading Comprehension Is Built on • Rich literature • Interesting stories • Diverse genre • Reading for genuine purposes

  18. Suggestion #2: Start Early • Teach & assess comprehension skills early • Every week in K-2 • With regular curriculum • Picture books • Vocabulary • Retellings • Writing

  19. Early Writing Provides Insights • About spelling • About phonemic awareness • About sequence of events • About composing thoughts • And much more

  20. Teach Print-Based Skills to Mastery • Need to teach Alphabet, Letter-Sound Correspondence, Concepts About Print, and Phonemic Awareness to mastery • BUT • Do not be seduced into repeated testing of constrained skills because they are easy to measure and report • Constrained skills? See Paris RRQ (2005)

  21. Constrained Skills • Are mastered completely by readers but • At different rates so • Early learners have a head start on meaning-making while slow learners spend time in K & 1 mastering basic skills • That is why alphabet knowledge (and other CS) in K-1 predict early reading achievement scores but is not a good predictor of reading comprehension abilities

  22. Fluency is Nice But • Fast decoding does not guarantee comprehension • Disfluency hinders comprehension • Reading rate reflects automatic decoding and increases as children advance from 20wpm-100wpm • But some fast readers are word callers and some slow readers are gap fillers

  23. Suggestion #3: Assess Reading Comprehension Skills and Strategies in Grades 3-8 • During Guided Reading, Small Group Instruction, and Whole Class discussions • Question-answering + Explanations • Book Clubs, oral discussions • Writing in response to text • Individual reading and Think Alouds, IRIs + Explanations

  24. Retelling • Can be used while listening, viewing, and reading • Works with children of all ages and abilities • Can focus on sentences or entire text • Immediate diagnostic information

  25. But Retelling Needs To • Be developmentally appropriate, maybe works best in K-2 reading groups • Be evaluated for completeness, importance, and sequence of the retold information • Lead to more complex summarizing

  26. Raise the Bar • Create classroom rubrics for retelling • Encourage peer feedback about retellings • Encourage self-assessment • Teach summarizing rules for different genres • Example, expository summary: • State the topic or theme • Identify key information • Sequence important events • Delete irrelevant information and details • Avoid redundancy

  27. Answering Questions • Can be used with any text while listening, viewing, or reading • Quick and immediate diagnostic information • Easy to compare students’ understanding • Foundation for formal tests of comprehension

  28. Raise the Bar Ask questions about: • Key vocabulary • Inter-textual comparisons and connections • Conceptual information • Structural features of text & genres • Critical evaluation of text content & style

  29. Strategic Reading • Need to identify the good and bad strategies that children use while reading

  30. Raise the Bar Ask students to explain their thinking: • Describe the strategies they used • Identify exact text information they used and why it was helpful • Identify the obstacles to answering questions • Generate their own questions and explain why they are appropriate

  31. Suggestion #4: Teach Test-Taking Skills • Helps align instruction with assessment • For authentic texts and • For texts in tests • Is this teaching to the test? Yes, but tests are special kinds of reading tasks that require special skills

  32. Some Strategies to Teach for Test-Taking • Use background knowledge carefully • Sometimes it helps to read (not answer) the questions first • Search text for clues about questions based on key words • Circle unknown words and see if they are explained in the text, questions, or options

  33. More Strategies to Teach for Test-Taking • Reason about the information in the questions and options because they give hints about the important information • Rule out options that are contradictory • At least one option is clearly incorrect • Narrow the options to 2 and compare them • Re-read to check answers

  34. Suggestion #5:Motivate Reading For Understanding • High interest and familiarity with text • Mastery goals (understanding) for reading • Attributions to effort and strategies • Feelings of control and self-efficacy • Comprehension accompanies engaged and motivated reading

  35. Engaged Reading • Open-ended tasks • Inquiry-guided reading • Active participation • Collaborative problem-solving

  36. Examples of Motivated Activities • Researching • Libraries & museums • People & the internet • Problem-based learning • Driving questions • Culminating demonstrations of knowledge • Collaborative projects • Group reports & artifacts • Creative expression, e.g., plays, songs, videos, web pages • CORI -Concept Oriented Reading Instruction

  37. Open-Ended Activities Promote Intrinsic Motivation Turner & Paris (1995) Reading Teacher • Construct personal meaning • Choice • Challenge • Control • Collaboration • Consequences enhance self-efficacy

  38. Suggestion #6:TeachStrategic Reading Explicitly • Direct explanation • Guided strategic reading • Reciprocal teaching & peer coaching • Collaborative learning • Combinations of above that include participation in metacognitive conversations

  39. Liang & DoleReading Teacher, May 2006 5 Comprehension Instructional Frameworks • Scafffolded Reading Experience (SRE) • Questioning the Author (QtA) • Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) • Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) • Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI)

  40. Our Approach • Explaining strategies with analogies • Guided strategic reading • Release of responsibility • Practice with feedback

  41. Teaching First Graders About Narrative Structure & Strategies • Story structure • Inferential reasoning • Themes and morals • Explicit instruction and peer activities • Practice with listening, reading, and writing • Use sensible language for strategies • Make thinking about reading fun

  42. Teaching Reading Strategies with Analogies • Tangible, comprehensible actions • Personal agency & effort are stressed • Provides a shared vocabulary • Makes thinking public • Fun!

  43. Daily Strategy Instruction • Direct explanations and strategy modeling in whole group activities & guided reading (brief mini-lessons) • Remind students to use specific strategies and identify/praise appropriate use (teach transfer) • Ask how, when, and why they used various strategies

  44. Suggestion #7: Use Technology to Aid Comprehension • Leap Frog • Reading Rockets • Imagination Station • Elements of Reading: Comprehension by Harcourt Achieve

  45. Key Principles • Practice & learn anywhere anytime • Adaptive levels of difficulty • Increasing challenges & choices • Embedded hints & strategies • Teaches vocabulary in context • Creates metacognitive conversations • Embedded assessments with immediate feedback & record keeping

  46. Conclusions • Instruct & assess comprehension from K on • Use interesting and challenging texts • Use listening and viewing formats to complement decodable texts • Ask students to explain their thinking • Teach & assess strategic reading • Use technology to supplement instruction and assessment

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