Reading Comprehension

1. Reading Comprehension Parents and teachers need to explicitly teach reading comprehension skills while at the same time encouraging young readers to keep practicing and honing their skills.

2. Explicit Varied Teaching • Reading comprehension must be explicitly taught • They need a variety of texts • Teachers work • Whole class • Small group • One to One • Parents Model at home • Real Life: Newspapers, Internet, books for pleasure • Reading with their children • Reading to their children

3. Comprehension Strategies • Questioning • Before reading – making predictions and activate prior knowledge. • During reading – ask questions to check for understanding or misunderstandings (Who, What, Where, When, How, Why) • Ask questions to guide students to make inferences. • Ask questions to guide students in analyzing text • Have students give proof by citing evidence in text

4. Vocabulary Instruction • Formal instruction by teachers • Informal instruction by parents • Instruction on words before they read or as they read • Helping them use context clues (words or pictures in text to determine the meaning) • Teaching basic roots, prefixes and suffixes • Exposure to words and their meanings

5. Monitoring • Young readers must learn to monitor their comprehension. • They must learn to “check in” with themselves for understanding • Adults help children to develop strategies • Activate prior knowledge • Read and reread • Ask themselves questions while reading • Stop and jot • Use text structure for meaning

6. Summarizing • Young readers must develop the ability to summarize what they have read. • They need to be able to state in order key events, ideas, details, and explain the big idea of what they are reading. • http://Vimeo.com/54007714

7. Focus and Attention • Young readers must learn to focus their attention. • They must become fluent readers before they can attend to comprehension. • Too much time spent on decoding distracts from their ability to pay attention to comprehension. • Students will need to stop periodically and summarize what they have read.

8. Motivation • Encouragement for all their reading • Demonstrate an enthusiasm for reading • Show excitement for your own reading and theirs • Help choosing books that are at a child’s interest • Choosing books that are “doable” for students • Books should be at their level or just above their independent level if you are helping them

9. Strategies to Help Comprehension • YouTube video - • Making sense of Informational Text • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua0D9uE25ns

10. English Language ArtsRL3 • Kindergarten • With prompting and support, identify characters, settings, and major events in a story. • First Grade • Describe characters, settings, and major events in a story, using key details. • Second Grade • Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges.

11. English Language ArtsRL3 • Third Grade • Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits, motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions contribute to the sequence of events • Fourth Grade • Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character’s thoughts, words, or actions).

12. English Language ArtsRL3 • Fifth Grade • Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., how characters interact). • Sixth Grade • Describe how a particular story’s or drama’s plot unfolds in a series of episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot moves toward a resolution.

13. English Language ArtsRI3 • Kindergarten • With prompting and support, describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text. • First Grade • Describe the connection between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text. • Second Grade • Describe the connection between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text.

14. English Language ArtsRI3 • Third Grade • Describe the relationship between a series of historical events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in technical procedures in a text, using language that pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect. • Fourth Grade • Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what happened and why, based on specific information in the text.

15. English Language ArtsRI3 • Fifth Grade • Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text. • Sixth Grade • Analyze in detail how a key individual, event, or idea is introduced, illustrated, and elaborated in a text (e.g., through examples or anecdotes).