Chapter 14 Narrative Reading

1. Chapter 14Narrative Reading Nicole Huntsman

2. What? • Narratives are used to tell stories and can be factual or author invented. • Story structure is how the story is organized. This organization helps students pull important details from the text and make generalizations. • Story elements include: • Setting: the when and where • Characters: the who or what (protagonists and antagonists arise here) • Plot: the problem or conflict, sequence of events to overcome conflict, and the resolution • Theme: the BIG IDEA the author is trying to convey

3. Recognizing Story Structure • Recognizing story structure aids students in their ability to ask and answer questions, monitor comprehension, predict and preview, make text connections, construct mental images, and retell or summarize. • Strategies before, during, and after reading: • Story maps can help in recognize story structure by creating a visual aid. These can be used effectively both before and during reading. • Asking questions encourages active reading. • Answering questions helps jumpstart student thinking to push for deeper analysis. Bloom’s Taxonomy serves as an aid in question formulation.

4. Think-alouds help students say what they are thinking and verbalize their comprehension. • Strategies before, during, and after reading cont. : • Monitoring Comprehension tracks progress of understanding. • Connecting to World Knowledge Helps students to understand text by making connections to their lives. • Predicting helps focus students attention while they are reading text. • Constructing Mental Images increases students’ chance to follow text and maintain understanding of events. • Summarizing helps assess student comprehension as well as guides towards deeper understanding of the text.

5. Developmental Levels of Summarizing • Emergent • Focus on event listing and sequencing • Introduce basic story elements • Early Fluent • Help students apply basic elements in both written and oral forms • Introduce main event identification • Model and guide retelling events • Fluent • Introduce plot summary • Practice refining sequencing and other elements in retelling

6. Multiple-Strategy Instruction Program: TSI • TSI = Transactional Strategies Instruction • TSI covers a wide range of theories, all involving “transactions.” Transactions include: Those between reader and text, Those between readers, and Those between reader and instructor.

7. TSI Strategies • Reader Response • Personal interactions with the story • Discussion Oriented Instruction • Teacher directed questioning • Student directed questioning • Open ended questions • Writer’s Response • Personal, Narrative, and Critical

8. Why? • Understanding story structure is important because it helps students to: • Remember the story. • Understand “sameness” across a variety of texts. • Understand the author’s message in a broader context.

9. When? • Comprehension instruction should begin at earliest levels of text interaction and continue throughout education. • Comprehension instruction must be presented with reliable assessment HOWEVER… • Most tradition assessments are inadequate in that they: • Confuse comprehension with vocabulary, background knowledge, and other reading skills. • Fail to represent the complexities of comprehension. • Do not explain why or where a student may be struggling.

10. How to supplement formal assessment • Use informal assessments like: • Retellings • Student think-alouds • Process-focused practices These will help better identify areas of strengths and weaknesses.

11. How? • Multiple strategies are available to aid in Narrative Reading Instruction. • CROWD – Teacher prompted questioning • Completion, Recall, Open-Ended, Wh- (who, what, when, where), Distancing • PEER – Student retelling of story • Prompt, Evaluate, Expand, Repeat

12. Scaffolding – Slowly turning over reading to students after repeated readings • For detailed lesson plans on teaching students to recognize story structure as well as utilize it to enhance comprehension, see pages 651-680 of the text. • These lesson plans discuss the following tools: • Story Maps • Theme Identification Questioning (used after story map completion) • Comprehension Strategies and Questions in multiple forms • Prediction Activities • Think-Alouds

13. Lesson Tools cont. • “Fix-Up” Strategies (encouraging students to problem solve while reading) • Choral Readings of story • Book Club • Written responses that are personal, creative, and critical • Tripod Response Sheets (support Book Club writing tool)

14. Conclusion • Teaching students to recognize story elements in narrative texts encourages good reading practices from the first introduction into reading and all the way through education. • While assessment is necessary, traditional assessments are often ineffective and need to be accompanied by more engaging informal assessments • Comprehension strategies are best taught in a variety of ways.