SAMPLE PAGES from the 50+ page ReadUp Teacher Manual
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Comprehension
Teacher’s Manual
Table of Contents
The ReadUp Approach to Comprehension Assessment and Instruction ............................................................. 4 Systematic and Explicit Instruction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Implications for English-Language Learners, Special-Education Students, and At-Risk Readers . . . . . . . . . 5
The Instructional Process ............................................... 5 Assessment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Small, Flexible Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Instruction and ALT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Independent Practice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
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Getting Started ............................................................ 7
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Meet the Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Planning for the Lesson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Using the Lesson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
The ReadUp Lesson ....................................................... 12 The Lesson Progression . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Literacy Center Activity Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
The ReadUp Comprehension Instruction Library .................. 15 Multiple Use of Texts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Whole-Group Read-Alouds ............................................. 16 The Importance of Read-Alouds . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Sample Read-Aloud Lessons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Program Components .................................................... 24 Lessons, Topics, and Materials, by Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 Texts in the ReadUp Comprehension Instruction Library . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27 Contents of the Reproducibles CD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Scripts for the Songs and Activities CDs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30
Common Core State Standards Alignment ......................... 42 On-Grade-Level Criteria ................................................ 44 References ................................................................. 46 Glossary .................................................................... 47
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Small, Flexible Groups After the assessment has been given to the students, the teacher should review the Class Record and identify which comprehension processes need to be addressed with systematic, explicit instruction. The teacher then groups the students according to the most immediate need. Groups of fewer than six students are ideal, although a group of eight is also manageable. When a group is small, the teacher can more accurately monitor each student’s success during the course of a lesson. If the group has more than eight students, the teacher should split the group into two smaller groups. When splitting a group is necessary, consider the Zone of Proximal Development of each student, and place students in homogenous groups, as much as possible. The cycle of assessment and grouping for instruction is a dynamic process. Because membership in a small, flexible group is dependent on the need for instruction on a particular process, the group disbands when that process has been mastered. These instructional groups are intentionally flexible in nature, allowing for movement among groups as the needs of individual students change and students’ needs are met. This fluid process of continually grouping and regrouping students based on their assessed instructional needs is called flexible grouping.
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The ReadUp Comprehension Lessons are designed to support small, flexible group instruction for identified comprehension processes and include materials for small, flexible groups of up to eight students.
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Instruction and Academic Learning Time (ALT)
All ReadUp lessons are written to support ALT, which is a tool for effective instruction. Fisher and associates (1979) define ALT as the time that students spend actively and successfully manipulating criterion-referenced content. For ALT to occur, students must: • understand the lesson objective, • participate in an activity in which they mentally and often physically manipulate information related to the objective, and • experience a success rate of 75–95% during the activity.
Throughout the lesson, the teacher must monitor student understanding and make adjustments in instruction if any component of ALT is not being achieved. If the students have trouble during any part of the lesson, the teacher should intervene and provide assistance. Student understanding will dictate the flow of the lesson. The lesson progression (format) is not a rigid template, and each section of the lesson allows for flexibility. The lessons provide multiple opportunities for students to understand and use each process in a variety of texts and center activities. Teachers are also strongly encouraged to create similar lessons using rich, authentic fiction and nonfiction text to give students additional practice applying the comprehension processes.
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Independent Practice A practice activity is included in each lesson to provide students with the opportunity to practice their newly learned comprehension process. This activity is meant to be completed by students individually or with other students, but without teacher support. Therefore, the activity must be introduced by the teacher and practiced during the lesson to ensure that ALT will occur when students are working without direct teacher support. Research by Pressley, El-Dinary, Gaskins, et al. (1992) concluded that “. . . as children practiced use of repertoires of comprehension strategies in small reading groups, they internalized the strategic processes, eventually using them on their own when reading.�
Getting Started Meet the Comprehension Skills Crew Before using your first lesson, get to know the (Comprehension Skills Crew) that appear throughout the lessons, books, and articles. Each character serves as a visual reminder of the text focus and the lesson and center-activity objectives. The teacher and students will encounter these seven delightful characters many times:
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the Comprehension-Building Beaver Baxter carries blueprints to represent the many processes that people use to understand and apply information from texts that they hear or read.
Pria
the Predicting Puma Pria frequently stops to predict and then reads on to confirm or revise her predictions. This represents the ongoing process that people use to manipulate what they hear or read.
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Quentin
the Questioning Quail Quentin’s signature question-mark topknot and inquisitive nature represent the active role that questioning plays in comprehension.
Clover
the Clarifying Cow Clover focuses on whether the information that she hears or reads is making sense to her. She models different ways to clear up any confusion in her comprehension.
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Rosie
the Retelling Rhino
Rosie takes the time to show through retelling that she remembers and understands what she hears or reads. She also checks back to see if what she has retold is accurate.
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Milo
the Main Idea Moose
Milo has a big job, which suits this big character just fine. He focuses on who and what the information in text and visuals is mostly about. By pausing often to consider main ideas, he is able to keep important information connected as he listens or reads.
Sid
the Summarizing Squirrel Sid has a big comprehension task for a small guy, but he’s up to the challenge. Summarizing Sid ties together the main ideas and key details to give a brief version of what he has heard or read. When he does this, he shows that he understands and can use information from the text.
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Glossary The ReadUp Comprehension Lessons are based on the comprehension processes that researchers have identified as the most important for students to master. Below are definitions of terms that are found in this manual, in the lessons, and in the activities: Academic Learning Time (ALT): time during which the student comes to understand the objective, actively manipulates the content (the critical attributes of the lesson), and is 75–95% successful applying the process Activation/Assessment/Augmentation of Relevant Background Knowledge (APK): a lesson section that gives the student an opportunity to bring to the current learning (to the comprehension process instruction) relevant and related information that he or she already has Assessment: the process of gathering data about students’ abilities by observation, testing, interviews, and so on; once analyzed, these data are used to form flexible student groups for instruction and to note progress in student learning Basic Signal Words: the basic signal words are who, what, where, when, and why; these words are used to identify information that helps build comprehension Clarifying: a comprehension process that uses questions or strategies to gain better understanding when a text is not clear or when comprehension breaks down Collapsing information: the process of categorizing like information under one label (such as collapsing “apples, oranges, pears” to “fruit”) Critical attributes: the defining qualities of a skill or process Explicit instruction: a teacher-directed lesson with emphasis on a single, focused objective and the smaller, specific steps needed to master that objective Familiar text: reading material that students have heard, seen, or read before Identify Student Success (ISS): a lesson section in which the teacher asks students to explain what they learned, how they knew they were correct, and why the comprehension process is important Main Idea: the most important information or concept in a text; the main idea may be stated explicitly in the text, or it may be implied Metacognition: the act of thinking about one’s own thought process and explaining the how and the why of that process Objective (OBJ): a lesson section that tells the students what they will learn, or the purpose of the lesson; “objective” also refers any statements about the purpose of a learning activity Pair share: a strategy that involves two students talking together, sharing ideas, and practicing a comprehension process that has been taught Predicting: the comprehension process of making an educated guess (prediction) about the next piece of information or event, based on patterning or prior knowledge, and then using the text to find evidence to support or revise the prediction Question-Answer Relationship (QAR): a reading process that helps students accurately answer comprehension questions by better understanding where to find the answers to different types of questions
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Questioning: a comprehension process initiated by students based on their need to clarify or verify information in the text Retelling: a comprehension process in which students either a) combine prior knowledge and story elements to orally restate, in a sequence, the main events of a fiction text or b) combine prior knowledge, text features, and the structure of the text to orally restate important details from a nonfiction text Signaling: an action that a student does to confirm his or her understanding (or lack of understanding), such as thumbs up, thumbs down, touch your nose, or raise your hand Sort: an activity that involves categorizing; students place pictures, word cards, or sentences in appropriate categories Story Elements: the characters, setting(s), sequence of events, and problem(s)/solution(s) or goal(s)/ resolution(s) found in a fiction text Student Active Participation (SAP): the lesson section in which students practice the critical attributes of the lesson, under teacher supervision, by sorting, identifying, and/or comparing things (among other activities) Summarizing: a comprehension process that involves using Basic Signal Words to establish focus, identifying main ideas and important information, deleting unimportant information, collapsing information, and formulating a summary statement (either oral or written) Systematic instruction: teaching that has a logical sequence of lessons and activities Text Features: a set of components within a nonfiction text that include the table of contents, headings, photographs, illustrations, bold print words, glossary, and index Think-Aloud: a process of pausing and orally describing the mental strategy being used to process information Teacher Input (TIP): a lesson section in which the teacher explicitly models and guides the comprehension process Visualizing: the comprehension process of making a mental picture or pictures based on prior knowledge and information in the text Walls That Teach: a posting of special vocabulary that is explicitly taught and must generally be visible and large enough for a whole class to read, though such a posting could be on a smaller scale for a small group, a literacy center activity, or an individual student Zone of Proximal Development: a point in students’ learning at which the students can be successful with a little help from the teacher; a point at which a child “uses but confuses” the content (Vygotsky, 1978); the Zone of Proximal Development is sometimes called the use-but-confuse level of learning
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