•  A little background about reading comprehension

•  Some findings and their implications for classroom practice:

1.  Teaching multiple reading comprehension strategies simultaneously seems to be especially effective.

2.  Reading comprehension instruction can, and for great teachers and interventions does, begin early.

3.  Discussion can help develop comprehension.

4.  Knowledge-focused approaches can help develop comprehension.

5.  Working on reading comprehension within the content areas can enhance rather than detract from content area learning.

6.  Reading comprehension proceeds differently for different kinds of text and disciplines.

7.  Reading comprehension growth seems to be especially strong in classrooms employing more authentic literacy events.

8.  Better comprehenders read more in and outside of school.

•  “. . . the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language” (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002)

•  Has many components and many different factors that contribute to it.

•  Involves the reader, the text, and the task, all within a context.

Reader

Activity Text

RAND Reading Study Group, 2002

Conte

xt Findings from: Riddle Buly, M., & Valencia, S. W. (2002). Below the bar: Profiles of students who fail state reading assessments. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 24, 213-239.

•  108 fourth graders •  Drawn from a diverse, semiurban district of 18,000

students •  Scored below proficient on the Washington

Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) •  Were not already identified as needing special

instruction in reading

Found six profiles: •  Automatic word callers (stronger in word ID and fluency

than meaning) (18%) •  Struggling word callers (stronger in word ID and fluency

than meaning, but struggling with word rec) (15%) •  Word stumblers (word ID problems, slow readers,

meaning relative strength) (18%) •  Slow and steady comprehenders (good word ID and

meaning, slow readers) (24%) •  Slow word callers (good word ID, slow readers, poor

meaning) (17%) •  Disabled readers (low word ID, low fluency, low

meaning) (9%)

•  Students score below proficient in reading comprehension on the WASL for many different reasons.

•  Contrast with the position of the Senate Education Committee Chair in an editorial about why so many students scored below proficient on comprehension on the WASL: Johnny Can’t Read Because Johnny Needs Phonics

•  Strategies can also be taught in clusters, quickly used as sets rather than individually.

•  Reutzel, Smith, and Fawson (2005) study suggests this may be more effective •  13 days per strategy vs. 10 – 15 minutes per

strategy •  16 weeks •  (strategies were: making connections and

predictions; visualizing; self-monitoring; questioning; summarizing; and, for the multiple strategy instruction condition, setting goals and attending to text structure)

•  Students complete learning logs before and after reading •  Before reading: preview

•  What I already know about the topic. •  What I predict I will learn.

•  During reading •  Clunks

•  After reading wrap-up •  Questions about the important ideas in the passage. •  What I learned from the text.

  A recent meta-analysis* finds that several discussion approaches •  increased student talk, •  decreased teacher talk, and •  improved comprehension.

* Murphy, P. K., Wilkinson, I. A. G., Soter, A. O., Hennessey, M. N. & Alexander, J. F. (in press). Examining the effects of classroom discussion on students' high-level comprehension of text: A meta-analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology.

Queries to Guide Questioning-the-Author Discussions

Examples of queries (Beck, McKeown, Sandora, Kucan, & Worthy, 1996, p. 389; reprinted in Duke,  Bennett-Armistead, & Moses, 2003). For additional information, see Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G., Hamilton, R. L., & Kucan, L. (1997). Questioning the author: An approach to enhancing student engagement with text. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. See also Beck, I. L., & McKeown, M. G. (2006). Improving comprehension with Questioning the Author: A fresh and expanded view of a powerful approach. New York: Scholastic.

Goal Queries Initiate the discussion What is the author trying to say?

What is the author’s message? What is the author talking about?

Help students focus on the author’s message

That is what the author says, but what does it mean?

Help students link information

How does that connect with what the author already told us? How does that fit in with what the author already told us? What information has the author added here that connects to or fits in with___?

Goal Queries Identify difficulties with the way the author has presented information or ideas

Does that make sense? Is that said in a clear way? Did the author explain that clearly? Why or why not? What’s missing? What do we need to figure out or find out?

Encourage students to refer to the text either because they’ve misinterpreted a text statement or to help them recognize that they’ve made an inference

Did the author tell us that? Did the author give us the answer to that?

•  There is a very strong relationship between prior knowledge and reading comprehension.

•  In some places, reading instruction is diminishing the amount of attention devoted to knowledge building.

•  In the long run, this may undermine reading comprehension development.

•  Knowledge-focused approaches to reading comprehension instruction should be of particular interest.

Briefly, CORI (http://www.cori.umd.edu/): •  Centers on a conceptual theme in life science •  Engages students in real-world interactions and reading

of texts (informational, narrative, and poetry) •  Includes oral reading fluency practice, comprehension

mini-lessons, guided reading, writing, and independent reading

•  Students develop portfolios and write theme-related books drawing from them

•  Involves motivational support, including relevance, choice, collaboration, self-efficacy support, mastery goals See Motivating Reading Comprehension: Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (Guthrie, Wigfield, & Perecevich, Eds., 2004)

One component of CORI -- Idea Circles •  Groups of 3 - 6 students meet for in-depth discussion of

a text or texts •  Teacher modeling early in the year, increasingly peer-

led •  Focus on a concept; read a variety of texts related to

that concept •  Have a open-ended, self-determined goals clear to all

group members •  Can be organized in a jigsaw (Aronson, 1978) format

See Guthrie & McCann, 1996; see also Duke & Bennett-Armistead, 2003.

Seeds of Science/Roots of Reading Project: •  There are many similarities and

common goals in comprehension and in science learning: •  Desire to find out •  Developing explanations from evidence •  Using strategies •  And so on.

(Cervetti, Pearson, Barber, Hiebert, & Bravo, 2007)

•  “Little books” of a variety of types, including a number of information books, were added to GEMs inquiry-based science kits.

•  GEMS plus books outperformed GEMs alone in science learning and reading comprehension.

(Cervetti, Pearson, Barber, Hiebert, & Bravo, 2007)

•  Reading comprehension is to some degree genre-specific (Duke, 2005). •  For example, predicting proceeds differently in

informational versus narrative text. •  For example, informational text is often read

nonlinearly, selectively, and at a pace that varies from text to text; this differs from typical reading of fictional narrative text, for example.

•  Within-student achievement often varies from genre to genre.

•  Conventions, demands, and processes also vary by discipline.

•  Discuss theme, value of understanding theme •  Introduce story •  Read story with questions designed to promote

understanding •  Discuss story using theme scheme questions:

•  Who is the main character? •  What is the main character’s problem? •  What did the main character do about the problem? •  And then what happened? •  Was that good or bad? •  Why was it good or bad? (Williams, 2005)

•  The main character learned that he or she should. . . •  We should. . .

•  Apply theme to another story. Discuss same questions plus •  When is it important to . . . •  In what situation is it easy/difficult to. . .

•  Review questions and think of other examples •  Follow up activity (e.g., drawing, role playing)

(Williams, 2005)

•  Informational text, even for young children, often contains vocabulary likely to be unfamiliar to children.

•  Key vocabulary may be repeated multiple times.

•  The text often provides clues to word meaning (definitions, appositives, diagrams, related words and concepts, glossaries, etc.).

•  Instruction, therefore, might proceed differently. (Hiebert, 2006; Purcell-Gates, Duke, & Martineau, 2007)

For example •  Have students create a glossary

•  E.g., in Let’s Go Rock Collecting •  Have students make headings

•  E.g., in Babies: All You Need to Know •  Have students create relevant posters or handouts

•  E.g., with The Post Office Book, create an envelope poster

For example •  Develop a semantic word map

•  E.g, for saguaro cactus in Desert Giant •  Develop a concept of definition g. o.

•  E.g., for spices in The Spice Alphabet Book •  Develop a concept wheel

•  E.g., for election in Vote!

cows, pigs, chickens, sheep,

ostriches!, fish. . .

corn, wheat, soy beans, rice, fruit, vegetables. . .

silo

barn

plow

Tractor

Milking machines

(Rupley, Logan, & Nichols, 1999; Duke & Bennett-Armistead, 2003)

•  Categories: What is it? •  Properties: What is it like? •  Comparisons: Same/Different •  Illustrations: What are some Examples?

Concept of Definition:

(Schwartz & Raphael, 1985)

Hibernation Sleep

Rest

Winter

Dens

Low heart rate

Bats

Bears

Turtles

Garter snakes

Toads (Rupley, Logan, & Nichols, 1999; Duke & Bennett-Armistead, 2003)

•  Our work with the Concepts of Comprehension Assessment (COCA) (available at no cost at www.msularc.org) suggests that young children often don’t notice when the text includes or defines an unfamiliar word •  Encourage them to notice unfamiliar words •  Praise them for asking about words -- for not

knowing •  Beck et al.’s Word Wizard •  Incentive programs

You might then or later: •  Ask students to say the word •  Invite students to give examples •  Invite students to give nonexamples •  Make a note to use the word again

(Purcell-Gates, Duke, Hall, & Tower, 2006/2007)

(Purcell-Gates, Duke, Hall, & Tower, 2006/2007) (Purcell-Gates, Duke, Hall, & Tower, 2006/2007)

(Purcell-Gates, Duke, & Martineau, 2007)

•  There is little question that better comprehenders read more.

•  There are questions about to what degree this is causal and if so, in which direction.

•  There are questions about how to get students to read more in ways that improves their comprehension. •  More reading experience without instruction is

not likely to work (Kamil, 2007). •  Text type, quality, and difficulty likely matters.