Building Comprehension Strategies - 2nd Edition by Eleanor Curtain Publishing

• • • • • • •

making connections to prior knowledge prediction and re-prediction visualisation asking and answering questions inference retell and paraphrasing summarisation.

Building comprehension strategies provides: • an explanation of each strategy, giving examples of learning goals and success criteria • examples of ‘talk-aloud’ and ‘think-aloud’ teaching and learning approaches • examples of deliberate instruction based on commonly used reading texts • self and peer assessment tasks in relation to strategy use • advice on how teachers can integrate the strategies in one or a series of lessons.

Alison Davis

Dr Alison Davis is well known and highly respected as a leading literacy researcher, writer, speaker and staff trainer. She is particularly well known for her research on reading comprehension and leading initiatives focused on accelerating and sustaining improved levels of reading comprehension achievement. She has extensive experience in working in Asia, Australia, the Middle East, New Zealand and the United States.

for the primary years

Blackline masters and graphic organisers can be downloaded and used for independent, pair and small-group work during instruction and as part of planned practice and maintenance throughout the year.

Building comprehension strategies

Skilled readers are active readers, using many comprehension strategies to make meaning before, during and after reading. Building comprehension strategies focuses on strategies often used to develop the comprehension ability of primary school students:

Building comprehension strategies for the primary years

Alison Davis

Building comprehension strategies for the primary years Alison Davis

First published in 2011 Reprinted 2012, 2015, 2024 Eleanor Curtain Publishing Level 1, Suite 3 102 Toorak Road South Yarra, VIC 3141 Australia www.ecpublishing.com.au Text © Alison Davis 2011-2024 This publication is protected by copyright law, and under international copyright conventions, applicable in the jurisdictions in which it is published. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of Eleanor Curtain Publishing, or as expressly permitted by law, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organisation. This publication is sold subject to the condition that it must not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the prior written consent of Eleanor Curtain Publishing in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. All rights reserved National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry Davis, Alison Jean, 1961Building comprehension strategies : for the primary years / Alison Davis Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN: 978 1 0385 3764 5 (digital) Reading comprehension--Study and teaching (Primary) 372.47 Edited by Anne McKenna Designed by Tom Kurema Illustrations by Bettina Guthridge Printed and bound in China through Colorcraft Ltd, Hong Kong. Thanks to Callum, Luca, Tom, Wei-li, Ella, Jack, Lillian, Mary, Liam, Anne-Marie, Choekyi, Clare, Mackenzie and Tom

Contents

Introduction 1 Chapter 1

Effective reading comprehension practices

Introduction 3 Reading comprehension: processing strategies

Reading comprehension: comprehension strategies

Metacognitive strategy instruction

Metacognition 7

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

The talk-aloud approach

The think-aloud approach

Formative assessment

Explicit strategy instruction through group and peer teaching approaches

Deliberately teaching text structure

Chapter summary

Reading comprehension teaching approaches

Use of assessment information to prepare for instruction

Reading comprehension teaching approaches

Chapter summary

Making connections to prior knowledge

Activating prior knowledge before, during and after reading

Learning to connect to prior knowledge: possible learning goals

Providing deliberate instruction

Learning tasks

Key questions to connect to prior knowledge

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks

Self and peer assessment of the strategy

Graphic organisers

Chapter summary

Building comprehension strategies

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Prediction and re-prediction

Prediction and re-prediction: possible learning goals

Providing deliberate instruction

Learning tasks

Key questions for prediction and re-prediction

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks

Self and peer assessment of the strategy

Graphic organisers

Chapter summary

Visualisation 61 Visualisation: possible learning goals

Providing deliberate instruction

Learning tasks

Key questions for visualisation

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks

Self and peer assessment of the strategy

Graphic organisers

Chapter summary

Asking and answering questions

Asking and answering questions: possible learning goals

Providing deliberate instruction

Learning tasks

Key questions about asking and answering questions

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks

Self and peer assessment of the strategy

Graphic organisers

Chapter summary

Inference 89 Learning to infer: possible learning goals

Providing deliberate instruction

Learning tasks

Key questions about inference

101

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks

102

Self and peer assessment of the strategy

103

Graphic organisers

104

Chapter summary

106

Contents

Chapter 8

Retell and paraphrasing

107

Students use a range of information to retell

107

Retell develops an understanding of the type of writing

107

Retell develops an understanding of the vocabulary used by the author

108

Retell develops an understanding of the sequence of ideas 108 Retell develops and supports oral language

109

Learning to retell: possible learning goals

109

Providing deliberate instruction: retell

111

Learning tasks

112

Key questions about retell

116

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks

117

Self and peer assessment of the strategy

117

Paraphrasing 118

Chapter 9

Providing deliberate instruction: paraphrasing

118

Graphic organisers

120

Chapter summary

121

Summarisation 123 Learning to summarise: possible learning goals

124

Providing deliberate instruction

126

Learning tasks

131

Key questions for summarisation

133

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks

133

Self and peer assessment of the strategy

134

Graphic organisers

135

Chapter summary

137

Chapter 10 Multiple-strategy instruction

139

Approach A: Combining three strategies

140

Approach B: Combining two strategies

145

Combining a range of strategies for comprehension instruction

151

Self assessment

152

Chapter summary

152

[A]

References and recommended reading

153

[A]

Index 157

Introduction Skilled readers are active readers. They draw on and combine their knowledge of a range of processes, skills and strategies in order to comprehend text written for a variety of purposes and audiences and using a range of text structures. They learn to know and explain: · · · ·

the strategies they use how they can use these strategies when to use these strategies how using strategies will help them develop as active and self-regulated readers.

Skilled readers know and control cognitive and metacognitive strategies to: ·

· · · ·

decode unknown words, drawing on their understanding of phonemic awareness, phonics, orthographical and morphological knowledge and strategies develop automaticity of the high-frequency words in the English language develop and use a wide vocabulary, using morphological and context strategies to help them work out unknown words read with fluency and accuracy develop, use and control a range of processes and strategies to understand and comprehend text at sentence, paragraph and whole-text level.

This text, Building comprehension strategies for the primary years, provides explicit support for effective classroom teaching and learning of the following comprehension strategies: · · · · · · ·

making connections to prior knowledge prediction and re-prediction visualisation asking and answering questions inference retell and paraphrasing summarisation.

Each strategy is explained in its own chapter, which provides a detailed definition of the strategy, suggested learning goals and success criteria for teaching and learning, examples of approaches to teach the strategy, tasks for teaching and maintaining strategy use and reflective questions for learners. The blackline masters and graphic organisers for practice and assessment are provided. The download symbol indicates material that can be downloaded.

Chapter 1 Effective reading comprehension practices

Introduction In recent years, research about effective reading comprehension instruction has helped educators to understand that learning to read is a complex process, requiring knowledge, strategies, skills and awareness to be developed together and over time. Learning to comprehend text is a continual and recurring process that is built up as students engage with a range of texts, simultaneously and actively accessing and constructing meaning. Students read many types of text, including fiction and non-fiction, continuous and non-continuous, printed and electronic, text presented through words and text presented through images. As students comprehend these texts they learn to draw on their personal, social, cultural and academic knowledge and experiences in order to read and interact with the ideas in the text and the ideas and reactions of other readers. They take the information they read and integrate it with their own thoughts, knowledge and experiences to help them make meaning from the text. They also develop their ability to respond to the ideas presented in the text and to think critically about what they are reading. This involves developing knowledge, skill and an understanding of processes and strategies that enable developing readers to read with accuracy and understanding.

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Building comprehension strategies

Reading comprehension: processing strategies Beginning and developing readers are learning the processes of knowing how to read. As they develop control over the processes, they learn to use and integrate a range of information. This information includes their knowledge and experience of the text topic and content, their knowledge and experience of print conventions, letters, sounds and words, and their knowledge and ability to use semantic, syntactic, visual and graphophonic information. They also learn about the ways in which oral and written language interrelate and how oral language supports learning. Semantic information: the meaning gained from the words or images. ‘Does what I have read make sense?’ Syntactic information: the grammatical structure—the parts of speech and the order of words in a sentence. ‘Does what I have read sound right?’ Visual and graphophonic information: the features of the letters and words and conventions of print. ‘Does what I have read look right?’

Developing and early readers learn to read for meaning by using reading comprehension processing strategies. They learn to attend to the print and visual information on each page, to search purposefully for particular information and to anticipate/predict to form expectations about what the text might be about. They cross-check and monitor their reading to either confirm that what they are reading makes sense or to self-correct when it does not. These processes can be described as follows. ·

Attending and searching: focusing attention on particular letters and letter clusters and drawing on knowledge of letter–sound relationships; identifying words they already know; looking for information in illustrations and diagrams; using analogies, e.g. their knowledge of familiar words to work out new words. Anticipating/predicting: drawing on letter–sound knowledge; decoding strategies; awareness of patterns in text; using detail in illustrations and diagrams; using prior knowledge. Cross-checking and confirming: drawing on meaning from text; looking at patterns in text; using illustrations and word knowledge to check and confirm; using re-reading strategy to check and confirm. Self-correcting: thinking about what they are reading and the meaning of what they have read and self-correcting when needed.

Effective reading comprehension practices

Reading comprehension: comprehension strategies Skilled comprehension requires efficient application of all these processes, along with the development of strategies to understand sentences, paragraphs and whole texts. Strategies are conscious behaviours that readers use before, during and after reading to gain meaning from text. They are considered specific learned procedures that can be used by readers to foster active, competent, self-regulated and intentional reading (Pressley 2006; Trabasso & Bouchard 2002). Skilled readers often apply strategies unconsciously as they read. However, when they encounter difficulty or confusion they consciously draw on their knowledge, selecting from a range of strategies in an integrated way to assist and build their comprehension. Over a number of years, developing and early readers actively learn to use comprehension strategies as tools to help and strengthen their understanding, knowledge and comprehension of text. When students understand what skilled reading involves, they learn to monitor their own reading comprehension and development. Skilled student readers know more about how they read than weak student readers—they are more metacognitively active and aware. They also know when and how to apply reading strategies to a particular piece of text or to a task. We now know, from extensive research, that proficient readers use a variety of strategies—as many as thirty—to gain meaning from fiction and non-fiction material (e.g. Block & Pressley 2002; Keene & Zimmerman 1997). Early and developing readers benefit from explicit instruction in how to make these strategies conscious. Comprehension strategies can be likened to: · ·

‘tools’ to assist understanding conscious plans and activities to help students develop and control their understanding of text.

What does research tell us about the skills, strategies and knowledge of skilled readers? Skilled readers are strategic and active readers. They: ·

learn to master concepts about print, alphabetic principle, sounds, letters and high-frequency words, and practise and use a range of decoding and word recognition strategies develop and use context and morphological strategies to work out the meaning of an unknown word; they also recognise when a word has multiple meanings and are able to work out the correct meaning of the word from the context

Building comprehension strategies · · · ·

develop and use semantic and syntactic cues to help them to understand text by drawing on their knowledge of grammatical structures of language develop automaticity of high-frequency words read with oral and ‘in the head’ fluency and accuracy become proficient in using and combining comprehension strategies to help them understand sentences, paragraphs and whole texts; these strategies include prediction and re-prediction, making connections through linking to prior knowledge, visualisation, asking and answering questions, inference, identifying most important information, understanding the structure of the text, retelling, summarising and evaluating make conscious decisions about when and how to use and integrate strategies for comprehension.

Furthermore, skilled readers use the skills, strategies and knowledge they have acquired to: · · · ·

read and respond to a range of texts—fiction, non-fiction, mixed text (i.e. two or more different text types within the one text), visual text think critically about what they have read—‘What did I learn? What did the author mean?’ continually link to their prior knowledge—‘What did I already know? What do I know now?’ self-monitor their learning, progress and achievement in reading—‘How well did I read? Did I understand? Did I self-correct when I made errors?’

Teachers who understand what skilled readers know and control and what skilled reading involves are able to provide explicit instruction that develops students’ active comprehension habits. They teach students to know and understand that skilled reading requires proficiency with a combination of skills and strategies that enable meaning to be gained from print. Building comprehension strategies for the primary years provides rich instruction on the use and integration of reading comprehension strategies. This book is based on the following principles. ·

· · · ·

All reading comprehension instruction is underpinned by identifying the learning needs of students and deliberately planning instruction to meet these needs. Both teachers and students need to understand and be able to articulate the skills, strategies and behaviours that skilled readers know and control. Metacognition underpins all effective learning and as such is a critical element in teaching and instruction. The student is an active participant in their own learning. Successful learning requires teaching that is explicit, deliberately planned and inclusive of the diverse needs of all learners.

Effective reading comprehension practices ·

Building comprehension strategies for the primary years describes and explains reading comprehension instruction that is centred on the needs of individual learners and has a strong focus on developing students’ awareness and automaticity of learning. This instruction is described as metacognitive strategy instruction.

Metacognitive strategy instruction Metacognitive strategy instruction is an approach to teaching and learning that focuses on providing explicit instruction and feedback about how and when to use strategies to support learning. Initially described by Davis (2007), the approach has developed to include: · · · · ·

metacognition, prior knowledge and making connections the regular integration of formative assessment with teaching and learning explicit strategy instruction through group and peer-assisted teaching approaches deliberate opportunities for students to talk and learn about learning a strong recognition of the importance of motivation and engagement of learners.

When combined, these factors provide rich instruction for early and developing readers who are not only engaging in the complex task of learning how to read and how to comprehend text, but also learning how to learn. The following section of this chapter explores the key ideas behind metacognition and the teaching of specific comprehension strategies.

Metacognition Metacognition is cognition about cognition—commonly referred to as thinking about thinking. Metacognition is having an awareness of and an understanding about your own cognition. In other words, metacognition enables students to become aware of how they think, and the strategies they use to help them think.1 Cognitive skills are often described as mental or learning skills; they are the skills necessary for students to use in order to learn. They help a reader to attend to, remember, process and analyse information as they learn, not only about what they are reading but how they are reading and how they are comprehending what they read.

The term metacognition initially developed from the early work of Flavell (1979) and Brown (1978) along with the work of Vygotsky (1962) from whose work the term self-regulation was coined. 1

Building comprehension strategies In the context of reading comprehension, metacognition involves students in knowing about learning: · · · · · · ·

knowing what skilled readers know and control knowing how to learn to read knowing when they are learning, when they are comprehending text and when they are not knowing what to do when they are not comprehending as they read—which strategies to use when they encounter difficulty knowing how and when to use strategies, in which combination and for which purpose, and knowing which strategies to select knowing how to monitor the actions they have taken and the effect of these on comprehension knowing how to reflect on their own learning about reading and what they can do to develop and improve their reading comprehension.

I know about learning to read. I know how to learn to read.

I know when I am learning. I know when I don’t comprehend what I read.

I know what to do when I am not comprehending what I read.

I know how and when to use strategies and which ones to use.

I know and can demonstrate how to monitor my understanding.

I know how to reflect on my own learning—what I have learned and what I need to work on next.

Metacognitive readers understand, control and manipulate their own cognitive processes in order to learn. They have an awareness and understanding of how they think and learn and they control a range of strategies that they know they can use to help their understanding of text. Collectively, these mental activities have been termed metacognitive comprehension strategies (e.g. Davis 2007; Paris & Jacobs 1984; Pressley 2002, 2006).

Strategies Strategies are often described as learning tools or behaviours that make learning more effective and efficient. They are selected and used by a reader to achieve a specific cognitive goal, for example: · 8

to understand the meaning of text

Effective reading comprehension practices · · ·

to work out the meaning of a word to work out how to decode an unknown word to learn to read with fluency and accuracy.

Effective readers use a range of strategies to make meaning from text. To learn most effectively, students should not only understand what strategies are available and the purposes these strategies will serve, but also become capable of selecting, employing, monitoring and evaluating their independent use of these strategies. A number of researchers have identified and described cognitive and metacognitive strategies used by skilled readers to understand text (e.g. Davis 2007; Duffy 2003; Hattie et al 1996; Keene & Zimmerman 1997; Pressley 2001, 2006; Pressley & Gaskins 2006; Schraw 2001). These strategies can be used before, during and after reading and include the ability of a reader to: · · · · ·

· · · · · ·

overview a text link to their prior knowledge develop a plan for reading a text seek information relevant to their goal vary the speed of their reading in relation to their purpose and understanding skim and scan for information predict what will happen read on and confirm or reject their predictions re-predict in light of new information re-read sections of text draw on their knowledge of the structure of the text to assist understanding

· · · · · · · · ·

ask questions of what they are reading to either monitor their understanding or clarify something they are not sure about search for additional information make inferences about what they read reach conclusions generate a visual image as they read paraphrase as they read identify the main points summarise analyse evaluate.

Deliberate and explicit instruction of comprehension strategies Good readers use a range of strategies. A reader’s knowledge, control and purposeful use of comprehension strategies affects their understanding and memory of what has been read. Deliberate and explicit instruction is important to enable students to understand: ·

individual strategies: – what the strategy is and how to use it – when to use the strategy – how use of the strategy will help them learn

Building comprehension strategies ·

how to integrate a range of strategies to assist comprehension: – good readers use more than one strategy to comprehend text. Depending on the type of the text, the structure of the text and the type of difficulties encountered, good readers select a combination of strategies they know will help them comprehend how to use strategies to monitor comprehension.

Strategies help readers better understand what they read. They are often carried out automatically, but skilled readers can verbalise and identify them when they are needed. Readers learn to use them in a flexible manner to aid their comprehension of text when needed. Teachers can use the talk-aloud and think-aloud approaches (see below) to provide instruction so students learn to verbalise how they use comprehension strategies and how they monitor their use of these strategies. Both approaches can be used for teaching and assessing metacognitive strategy use and both can be used during and after reading.

The talk-aloud approach This approach is used by early and developing readers as the first stage of describing the thinking that occurs when they read. It requires the students to talk aloud about what they are reading as they are reading. Talk may be about the main ideas, the main characters or an event in the text. Similarly students can be encouraged to talk about what they have read after reading is completed. In both cases the talk-aloud draws the reader’s attention to what they have read and to detail surrounding it. Prompts teachers use to help develop the talk-aloud approach include: · · · · ·

‘Talk about what you are reading.’ ‘Tell me more about what you are reading.’ ‘Can you tell me anything else about what you are reading?’ ‘Talk about what you know about the main character.’ ‘Tell me more about the setting in this story.’

The aim of these prompts is to teach students to talk as a way of learning through reading.

The think-aloud approach In this approach, students are asked to think aloud as they read. In order to do this, students need to talk about and describe the cognitive and metacognitive processes they go through as they make sense of text. As they develop their use and control of this approach, the first level of think-aloud is to learn to say out loud what they are thinking, to verbalise their thinking for themselves, their teacher and the others in their group.

Effective reading comprehension practices Prompts teachers use to help develop the think-aloud approach include: · · ·

‘Tell me more about what you are thinking as you read this.’ ‘Keep talking about what you are thinking as you read, keep thinking out loud.’ ‘Say out loud the thoughts that come in to your mind as you are reading.’

As students develop confidence in learning to think aloud as a way of comprehending text and monitoring their understanding, they learn to stop periodically, reflect on how they are dealing with the text and what they are understanding, and talk about what reading strategies they are using and why. Students also learn to explain their thoughts and ideas. Prompts teachers use to help develop the think-aloud approach where students explain their thoughts include: · · · · ·

‘Tell me why you thought this was important.’ ‘Tell me how you knew to use this strategy.’ ‘Tell me how you solved this problem.’ ‘Say out loud why you thought this information was important.’ ‘Explain why you chose that information to work this out.’

Each of these prompts helps students to reflect on their learning and learn to notice their own thoughts and understanding of what they are reading. The think-aloud approach is often described as ‘saying everything you think and everything that occurs to you while performing a task’.

Metacognitively, reflective readers think about their thinking, learning and knowledge as they develop. They reflect on their developing ability by asking questions such as: · · · · · · · ·

‘What did I learn today?’ ‘How do I know I learned it?’ ‘Why was this important for me to learn?’ ‘What else might I need to learn?’ ‘How will I monitor my own learning?’ ‘How can I explain my learning to someone else?’ ‘How can I demonstrate my learning to someone else?’ ‘What will I do differently tomorrow—how and why?’

Building comprehension strategies

Formative assessment Formative assessment is an integral component of effective teaching. It underlies the process through which teaching and learning is planned, implemented and adapted to meet students’ learning needs. Through regular use of formative assessment, students learn about what they are learning, what else they need to learn and why this is important for them. They learn to know the goal of each lesson and what they need to know and do to be successful. They also learn to know if they are learning, i.e. if they are achieving the learning goals of the lesson and, if not, what is causing the difficulty. Formative assessment has a number of components. These include: · · · ·

establishing and sharing with students the learning goal(s) for the lesson establishing and sharing with students the success criteria for the lesson providing students with direct feedback on their progress towards the lesson learning goal(s) deliberately including students in the process of reflecting on and reviewing their learning through – self assessment and peer assessment – conferences with peers and teacher – giving and receiving feedback – setting and monitoring learning goals and the next steps for instruction.

When teachers integrate formative assessment into their instruction they enable their teaching to be more transparent for their students. This leads to student learners who are able to take responsibility for monitoring and evaluating their own learning.

I can see that you have … (peer assessment)

Formative assessment influences student learning.

Your goal was … and you have … (feedback)

I know I am learning to … (learning goal)

The next steps for my learning are … (next steps)

I have achieved … (self assessment)

To achieve this I will now … (setting learning goals)

Effective reading comprehension practices Sharing of learning intentions and success criteria is central to formative assessment practices and the concept of metacognitive and self-regulated learning. The following examples illustrate how learning goals and success criteria can be explicitly shared with students.

We are learning to check words for suffixes to help us recognise unknown words. We will be successful when we can: Look to see if we can see a suffix in the word

happened

•

Remove the suffix if it is there

happen

•

Say the word without the suffix

happen

•

Add the suffix to the word and say it again

happened

•

Re-read the sentence and check that what we are reading makes sense

We are learning to predict and re-predict as we read. We will be successful when we can: •

Make a prediction when we read

•

Read on to check if our prediction is correct

•

Re-predict based on new information gathered as we read Integrating formative assessment practices also means finding out about students’ interests, habits and attitudes towards reading and using this knowledge to think about their individual learning needs and interests. The following questions can be discussed with students to better understand their learning: · · · · · · · · · · ·

‘Do you enjoy reading? Why or why not?’ ‘What do you enjoy most about reading?’ ‘What do you like reading about most of all?’ ‘What type of texts do you read most?’ ‘Do you read at home?’ ‘Where do you read the most?’ ‘Who reads to you?’ ‘Do you enjoy listening to stories?’ ‘Who do you enjoy reading to?’ ‘Sometimes reading can be difficult. What makes reading difficult for you?’ ‘How do you work out words you don’t know?’

Building comprehension strategies Building up a profile of individual students, their interests and their needs, along with their reading habits at home and school, helps the teacher to provide instruction relevant to students’ academic and personal learning needs.

Explicit strategy instruction through group and peer teaching approaches Group teaching approaches Small-group instruction where students are grouped according to similar learning needs is an effective way of providing reading comprehension instruction. Small groups enable teachers to focus their assessments, planning, selection of texts, questions, feedback and follow-up tasks on the specific needs of their students. Group instruction also provides an opportunity for all students to participate in discussion and conversation around the text, to ask and answer questions, to demonstrate and explain from the text and to seek and receive individual help as required. Common approaches for small-group reading comprehension instruction for early and developing readers include shared reading, language experience, guided reading, paired reading, reading to students and reading by students (see pages 23–35). Each approach provides opportunities for deliberate instruction based on the text, along with opportunities to integrate skill lessons or practice sessions on specific comprehension strategies.

Peer teaching and learning approaches Peer teaching and learning approaches, where students work with one or two peers to engage in learning, are used by teachers in different ways. Collaborative learning is a key consideration in metacognitive comprehension instruction and it is important to provide opportunities for talking aloud, thinking aloud, demonstration of strategies and rich discussion and explanations about learning. Peer teaching and learning provide opportunities for close interaction between learners as they work together to solve a problem, demonstrate a task to each other, teach something new to a peer, explain their learning to each other, ask and answer questions of each other or give each other feedback on an aspect of learning. Furthermore, peer teaching and learning can group together students working at a similar cognitive or task-specific level or can enable opportunities for a more able student to support another.

Effective reading comprehension practices

Deliberate opportunities for students to talk about learning and learn about learning Early and developing readers benefit from multiple opportunities to talk with their teacher, with peers in a small group and with partners as they engage with the text. Talk can be focused on the content of the text, the illustrations, the actions of the characters, a single idea or action, a range of new ideas presented, or a student’s interpretation of what they have read. Talk can also be in response to teacher or student questions about an idea, a challenge within the text or a point of interest. When teachers are part of the group, they can both contribute to and observe the talk their students are engaged in. Contributing to the talk enables teachers to ask questions, to engage in discussion aimed at clarifying a main idea or action and to develop rich text-based discussions. Talk is an effective way to gauge a student’s knowledge, to assess how well an idea or concept has been understood through reading and to determine the type of questions or prompts that will be necessary to extend student understanding and learning. Talk that is centred on learning includes talk that: · · · ·

supports goal-focused instruction describes and monitors comprehension expresses own ideas and learns from the ideas and experiences of others enables students to reflect on thinking and learning.

This talk is often generated by questions and prompts asked either by the teacher or by the students themselves (see following for examples).

Building comprehension strategies Questioning that leads to goal-focused talk ·

· ·

‘Our goal today was to retell the actions of the main character in the order they occurred. How well did we achieve our goal? What did we have to do to do this? Why was this difficult? What did we learn today about achieving this goal?’ ‘Who can ask a question of our group to help us think about how well we achieved our goal today?’ ‘Timi, can you ask Jeff a question about what he learned from reading today?’

Questioning that leads to talk to describe and monitor comprehension · · ·

‘When you read this sentence what did you think about?’ ‘When you read these words what did you feel?’ ‘We made a mistake reading this sentence. How did we know that we made a mistake? What did we do when we realised we were not right? What else would have told us this? What did we learn from this?’

Questioning that leads to talk to express own ideas · · · · ·

‘What do you think about this?’ ‘Ask your partner to tell you what they thought when they read this sentence.’ ‘Can you tell us more about what you know about this character?’ ‘Can you tell us more about what you learned about [topic] from reading this today?’ ‘What else did you think about?’

Questioning that leads to talk focused on reflection · · · · · ·

‘What did you learn from reading this?’ ‘What was difficult to understand? Why?’ ‘What did you learn about reading that will help with your reading tomorrow?’ ‘How can you become a more accurate reader?’ ‘How did you use the [visualisation] strategy to help you understand the problem in this text?’ ‘How did you use the [asking and answering questions] strategy to think about the actions of the character?’

Deliberately teaching text structure Texts are structured in different ways depending on their purpose and audience and the way texts are structured plays an important role in student comprehension. By teaching students to understand and draw on what they know about the organisational structure of texts, they learn how to comprehend text, how to learn important information and remember what they have read and how to 16

Effective reading comprehension practices monitor their own reading. They learn to focus on the order of the sentences, the paragraphs, the use of visuals and the way the text is put together as a whole. The more students know about the structure of a text, the more confidently they will be able to read it. For example, teaching students the organisational structure of a narrative text will help them to know that the text: · ·

· ·

includes one or several main characters and other minor characters involves a problem and a solution that make up the plot (note: in more complex narratives there will be more than one problem and solution) takes place in one or more settings can be organised into beginning, middle and end.

Knowing the structural features of a narrative helps students to focus their attention on the more important details of the text as they are reading, e.g. knowing who the main character is; knowing what the plot entails. As students read narrative texts, they learn to search for and notice this information and draw on their knowledge of structure to comprehend what is happening. Knowing about the organisation of the text helps readers to make predictions, draw inferences, identify main ideas and reach conclusions during reading. Similarly, reading information texts builds understanding and ability to recall main ideas, reach conclusions and summarise what is learned. For example, students reading an explanation require knowledge of the organisational features of explanation text. They learn to expect a topic or phenomenon around which the explanation is developed, and they search to discover what, why or how something occurs or is so. Students can also be taught to recognise and expect subject-specific language within an explanation, along with connective vocabulary that is used to link ideas and concepts within sentences and between paragraphs. This vocabulary includes words such as ‘in addition’, ‘as a result’, ‘therefore’, ‘for example’, ‘because of ’ and ‘finally’. Teachers can model and explain the structural features of a particular text before, during and after reading. Before reading, teachers describe the structure, providing an example to discuss with students. During reading, teachers focus students’ attention on the structure of the text as they read and on how the author has organised ideas within the structure. Teachers plan and use questions and prompts to direct students’ attention to the structural features of the text as they read. After reading, teachers can direct students back to the text to identify particular structures and how these structures helped students’ understanding of the text.

Building comprehension strategies Common text structures include narratives, poems, plays, instructional texts, reports, explanations, descriptions and persuasive texts. Teaching students the structure of these texts enables them to know how to follow the author’s ideas. Charts and graphic organisers can be developed by the teacher and/or students to teach the structural features of texts and how to use these features to support understanding of a text. These tasks can be used during reading instruction and as independent or paired activities after instruction and are suitable for a wide range of texts, including cross-curriculum materials. Two examples are provided below. Building Comprehension Strategies

Effective reading comprehension strategies: BLM 1 Name:

Text structure: narrative writing Main character(s)

Details

Setting

Details

Problems(s)

Solution(s)

Effective reading comprehension practices: BLM 1 can be used by students to examine the text structure of narrative writing.

Sequence of events 1

Building Comprehension Strategies

Effective reading comprehension strategies: BLM 2 Name:

Text structure: explanation writing

Effective reading comprehension practices: BLM 2 can be used by students to examine the text structure of explanation writing.

Introduction: statement or question to be explained

Key reasons

Summary

Examples of subject-specific vocabulary

Examples of linking words

Chapter summary Much of what is learned at school is learned through reading. Therefore, developing the understanding and practices of a skilled reader becomes very important. Building comprehension strategies for the primary years is about developing and improving comprehension skills so that students develop automaticity of the skills and strategies employed by skilled comprehenders of text. Integral to this is the role of metacognition and the effective delivery of metacognitively rich comprehension instruction.

Key points for consideration · · · · ·

What do you understand metacognition to be and how do you develop this through your own classroom instruction? What is the role of formative assessment in reading comprehension instruction? How can you effectively manage this in your own classrooms? How can you foster regular talk-aloud and think-aloud practices in your students? How effective are the opportunities you create for talking and learning about learning? What are the challenges and possibilities that metacognitively rich strategy instruction will provide for your own teaching?

Chapter 2 Reading comprehension teaching approaches

Teachers who are strategic about their reading comprehension instruction plan and provide instruction based on their students’ needs. They provide a balance of relevant teaching approaches, making professional decisions about how to develop and establish an instructional program, how to manage it and how to monitor the effectiveness of both the program and their own instruction. This chapter discusses and provides examples of how assessment data can be gathered and describes six different approaches for teaching reading comprehension.

Use of assessment information to prepare for instruction Teachers use information from various sources to inform the instructional goals for teaching and learning. They select texts to match the learning needs and prior knowledge of the students, ensuring that the texts are appropriately challenging and enable the instructional goals to become the focus of teaching.

Sources of assessment information Assessment information may be gathered from the following sources. ·

A record of student reading which, when analysed, provides information on reading behaviours a student is able to control independently and areas for further instruction (linked to text level).1

For more information, refer Clay 2000 and Davis 2007.

Building comprehension strategies ·

Teacher observation and recording of progress and achievement towards previous lesson goals. In the example below, the formative assessment data against past lesson goals informs the teacher that the group of students is only just beginning to understand how to identify the most important idea(s) in a paragraph and that there have been very few observed occasions where students can explain the main ideas to their peers. This assessment below shows that more explicit teaching of the summarisation strategy is necessary for these students to understand and learn to use the strategy. See Chapter 9: Summarisation, page 123.

We are learning to summarise.

How are we going?

We can:

Katie

Josh

Aran

Kyle

•

identify the most important idea in a paragraph

333

•

list these ideas

333

•

explain these ideas to our peers.

Student–teacher feedback from previous texts and tasks. Conversation in which the student gives feedback on what they are finding difficult helps the teacher to know what the student is thinking and understanding and how the teacher can help the student to improve. From the conversation below, the teacher, Paula, can see that the student, Tom, does not have a clear idea of what inference is, and adapts instruction to include explicit discussion, thinkaloud and demonstration to determine examples of inference in subsequent texts. Tom: I don’t know what I need to know and do to be able to ask inferential questions. Paula: What do you usually do to work out whether information is inferred while you read? Tom: I usually just guess.

Information from specifically designed assessments. Teachers develop and use specific assessments in response to observations they make during assessment. For example, a teacher may observe a group of students making many errors that affect their comprehension when reading three or four continuous sentences. They query their students’ understanding and use of reading on and re-reading, their use of context clues and their understanding of tense and grammar.

Reading comprehension teaching approaches ·

They decide to develop a cloze assessment task to help make informed decisions about the strategies students know and control as they read. Analysing cloze assessments, such as the example below, will enable the teacher to decide strategies to teach and monitor with this group. Dad and Abbey were riding on their motorbike. They were looking for some lost cows ___ their farm. They were a long ____ from their house. Their dog Sam ____ running behind them.

Information from a student–teacher discussion about the student’s perceptions and understandings of themselves as a reader. Assessments such as the one below, where students list and discuss strategies they can use when they lose meaning, help the teacher understand which strategies the student can master, which ones require additional practice, maintenance and support and which ones are yet to be understood or applied. What do skilled readers do when they read something but don’t actually understand it? • • • •

Information from observations of student reading behaviour during independent reading. In the observation below, the teacher focused on the behaviours students demonstrated when they made an error as they were reading. This, together with comments to support the targeted observations, provided anecdotal information to inform future instruction and monitoring of reading behaviours. Strategies observed

Tim

Kate

Euan

• re-read • read on • searched • attempted first sound • attempted end sound • attempted all sounds – chunk – syllable • other

Building comprehension strategies

Building Comprehension Strategies

Information from analysis of previously set reading/response tasks. In this example, the students were set a task related to their learning of the visualisation strategy. They completed the task outlined in Visualisation: Graphic organiser 2, sketching the images they saw as they read the text and writing (in bullet-point form) what they heard as they read. On analysing the completed task, the teacher could see that the students were able to complete the task successfully and were able to grasp the concept of the visualisation strategy in the context of the text they were reading.

Information about the prior knowledge of the students about the topic/ content of reading. Students complete a prior knowledge task to identify what they know about the content and structure of the material they will be reading. This helps the teacher to determine instructional focus(es) for the lesson. See Making connections to prior knowledge: Graphic organisers 2 and 3.

Visualisation: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

Draw the images you see. Write what you hear.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Making connections to prior knowledge: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

Topic: Equipment

Actions

What I expect to read

Building Comprehension Strategies

Making connections to prior knowledge: Graphic organiser 3 Name:

Teachers analyse the data they have gathered to make informed decisions about reading comprehension instruction. They investigate and question what the data tells them about the learning needs of their students to make decisions about appropriate text level, text content and which reading comprehension processes and strategies should be taught. Teachers use this to decide the instructional focus of each lesson, the range of opportunities to provide as maintenance of taught skills and strategies, and the best teaching approach. As teachers analyse data, they ask probing questions to determine the needs of their students. Examples of these questions are illustrated below.

What was difficult? Why? What tasks were they able to complete?

What tasks did they find difficult?

What skills/knowledge/ strategies did they need to understand in order to be able to complete this task successfully?

How many errors were made? What kinds of errors were they? What are the probable causes of these errors?

How can I find out more about the learning needs of these students?

What do I know about the most effective way of teaching this? Do I need to investigate my teaching further?

What does this information tell me about the learning needs of my students?

What does this information tell me I need to focus my instruction on next?

Reading comprehension teaching approaches

Reading comprehension teaching approaches The assessment data teachers gather can be used across a range and balance of teaching approaches. Common approaches for small-group reading comprehension instruction for early and developing readers include: · · ·

shared reading language experience guided reading

· · ·

paired reading reading to students reading by students.

Shared reading Shared reading is an instructional approach to teaching reading where the responsibility for reading the text is shared between the teacher and the students. Usually, the teacher takes initial responsibility for reading the text aloud while the students follow with their eyes, listening actively, watching and reading to themselves or joining in when they are able. A shared reading typically develops over several readings of the same text. In the first reading the teacher divides the text into sections to read aloud to their students. As they do so, the teacher deliberately links to the learning goals for the lesson, providing explicit instruction through discussion, questioning, explaining and modelling. After each section has been read, the teacher initiates discussion about the ideas/characters/information, questioning and extending student understanding. At this time the teacher deliberately extends student understanding of the main ideas in the text, the author’s purpose for writing the text, the vocabulary used, the structure of the text and the students’ use of one or more reading comprehension strategies.2 Steps in a shared reading lesson Initial planning

Link to prior knowledge

Introducing the text

Reading the text

Lesson conclusion

• identify student learning needs • set learning goals • select the reading text • plan for instruction • consider needs/experiences of students • plan prior knowledge task • complete prior knowledge task • share and clarify learning goals • teacher reads aloud, students listen and follow • check understanding – discussion – questioning – demonstration – explanation • discuss and review what was learned • set learning goals for follow-up tasks next lesson

For further information on shared reading, refer Davis 2007.

Building comprehension strategies Preparation for teaching

The teacher begins by identifying the learning needs of the students and establishing goals for instruction (see examples of learning goals in Chapters 3 to 9). They consider the reading abilities, interests and needs of the students when selecting an appropriate text for instruction. Teachers read the text thoroughly and note teaching points where explicit instruction will be provided. They plan how they will link to the prior knowledge and experiences of students in preparation for reading (see Chapter 3: Making connections to prior knowledge, page 37). From The Big Box, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Proper nouns Picture clues

Tess and Jill went to look for the red box.

Read to discover—what was in the red box?

The map said: Go down the steps and look for a blue box.

There was a map in the red box. 4

Introduction to the lesson

The teacher tells the students about the text they will be reading—the title, the structure and an overview of the content. They prompt their students to check their understanding of what they have been told, for example: · · ·

‘Turn to your partner and tell them what the text we are reading is called.’ ‘Tell me what you know about what this text will be about.’ ‘Tell me one thing you expect to find out as we read today.’

Teachers share the lesson learning goals in writing with the students. They discuss and clarify these to check student understanding. An example of learning goals for asking and answering questions (see Chapter 6, page 75) is shown below.

We are learning to ask questions about what we read. We will be successful when we can: Tom Teri Lilly Ann Kym • read a paragraph and ask a question about a character 33 3 3 33 3 •

a sk a question that starts with – Why did … ? – How did … ?

Reading comprehension teaching approaches Reading and discussing the text

The teacher reads the text aloud one section at a time. They explicitly tell the students the purpose for reading each section. The teacher stops at the end of each section to check student understanding of what was read, for example: the teacher or students may pose a question about what was read; the teacher or students may demonstrate a particular strategy; or the teacher may initiate a conversation about the content/topic/plot. Teachers observe to ensure that the students are following what they are reading and to see if they are listening actively. Students are encouraged to read to themselves as the teacher reads aloud or to join in with the teacher reading. When the text is a known text, students may also take control of some of the reading, either individually or with a partner. Concluding the lesson

The lesson concludes with a discussion about what was read and learned. Students talk about what they learned and how they learned it—returning to the text for additional information, evidence to support their ideas and opinions and to clarify anything they are not sure of. Together the teacher and students review the lesson goals and agree on goals and actions for their next lesson. Independent activities to support and extend learning

Students engage in independent, pair or group activities in response to their reading. Tasks may relate to what was learned and practised in the lesson, or provide maintenance of taught skills and strategies. On most occasions there will be opportunity for further and extended reading. Shared reading to model fluent reading behaviours Through shared reading teachers can model and discuss the features of fluent reading. They can demonstrate how to read with expression, how to vary the tone of their voice, how to vary the speed of their reading and how to use punctuation to help others understand and follow the author’s ideas. They can explicitly show their students what to do when they don’t know a word or when they lose meaning and their reading is no longer fluent. Shared reading to introduce new comprehension strategies Shared reading also enables teachers to introduce and demonstrate new strategies, showing how they can be used to help develop understanding of text. Once students are familiar with a new strategy, guided and paired reading will provide greater independent practice and enable them to apply the learning across a wider range of texts.

Building comprehension strategies Using shared reading across a range of reading levels While teachers will always select texts based on the learning needs of their students, shared reading is a suitable approach to introducing and using texts at a range of reading levels. This will likely include texts that would otherwise be too difficult for students to read during a guided reading lesson or through independent or partner reading. This is useful for cross-curricula reading where students are reading to meet the demands of the curriculum and may need to read more widely on a topic than is available through text at their instructional level. In small-group situations, shared reading provides an opportunity to: · · · · · · · ·

scaffold student learning extend students’ understanding of themselves as learners and readers demonstrate the use of one or more comprehension strategies to assist understanding introduce a new text structure or material that would be otherwise too difficult for the group demonstrate the talk-aloud/think-aloud approach to make thinking and learning explicit for students observe to identify students the teacher may need to work more closely with observe students against a specific learning goal or task engage students in discussion and conversation based on the text— questioning, clarifying and thinking critically about the content of their reading.

Language experience Language experience is a comprehension teaching approach that draws on the existing oral language of students and their prior knowledge and experiences as a means of developing strong links between reading, writing, listening and speaking. It promotes reading and writing by building on students’ language and personal experience. Typically the lesson (or series of lessons) starts with an experience that is ‘shared’ by all members in the group. The experience might come from a novel the teacher is reading to the students, a picture the students are discussing or an event the students have attended. The experience may link directly to a cross-curricula study, e.g. in science, history or social studies. Some of the many experiences from which language experience teaching can develop include: · · ·

a novel being read to the class a poem on a theme or topic being studied a photograph from a non-fiction text or big book

Reading comprehension teaching approaches · · · · · · · ·

a picture from a cross-curricula study a slide-show presentation an interesting sentence a photograph taken with the school camera a visit by someone to the school a trip out of the school a sketch drawn by the students or teacher a conversation or role-play.

Language experience engages students in an experience and then draws on this experience and the discussion and responses generated by the students. The experience provides common ground for all students to engage in oral language, listening and speaking to describe and talk about what they did, what they saw, what they thought, what they heard and what they felt, along with their reactions to the experience and subsequent ideas/thoughts and experiences they have. Talk by students makes the experience meaningful and provides an authentic context for future learning. As the students talk, the teacher records their ideas and experiences (preferably in the students’ own words), writing them down to create a text that students can read back and check. The text can be edited for grammatical correctness and the teacher can question students to add further detail. This creates an opportunity for both implicit and explicit teaching and learning and to connect listening, speaking, writing and reading. Language experience — the experience of talking, writing and reading — talk, write, read

The recorded text can also be used as a reading text for comprehension instruction. Students can add illustrations and detail, linking the text that has been developed to art, drama and music. Steps in a language experience lesson Initial planning

Initiate experience

Lesson conclusion

• identify student learning needs • set learning goals • plan language experience • share and clarify learning goals • participate in experience • discuss/write/role-play/read in response to language experience • discuss and review what was learned • set goals for follow-up tasks and future learning

Building comprehension strategies Language experience from a photograph linking to health study In this example, language experience provided an opportunity for reading to link to an area of cross-curricula study. The students in Dan’s class were learning about bicycle safety. They viewed several photographs of children wearing safety gear as they were cycling. From Pedal Power, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Bikes, bikes, bikes Sometimes people use their bikes for enjoyment. They might ride to a park on the weekend. They might ride as a good way to get some exercise. Some people even go on holiday on their bikes.

Tandem bikes A tandem bike allows two people to ride the same bike. Each rider has pedals, handlebars and a seat. The front rider steers the bike. Tandem bikes can be used for racing by blind people. They have a rider who can see in the front seat to guide them.

BMX bikes These bikes have small wheels and only one gear. They are built to do tricks or to race on dirt tracks with lots of humps.

Trailer bikes Trailer bikes can be used to pull trailers. Many people have trailers for young children to travel on. When the children are old enough they can help with the pedalling.

The students shared their ideas on how to keep safe and Dan recorded these as text. He asked the group to summarise what they had said and recorded a summary statement at the end (see below), taking the opportunity to revisit with students the comprehension strategy of summarisation (see Chapter 9: Summarisation, page 123).

It is important to wear a helmet to keep your head safe. Helmets cover your whole head. Helmets can be different colours. It is important that they fit properly so they don’t fall off if you crash. You wear them so that when you fall off your bike you do not hurt your head. Language experience from a reading comprehension lesson In this example, the language experience developed from a comprehension lesson in which students were asked to describe the characteristics and actions of the main character. The teacher, Marilyn, then asked students to tell them about the character and recorded their ideas. As the students shared their ideas, Marilyn offered prompts for students to create a clear visual image of the character. The students’ ideas were written as text, read, checked and added to by the group. The next day the text created by the students was used as a text for learning about asking and answering literal and inferential questions. Students made quizzes for their peers that included literal and inferential questions based on the ideas recorded through their language experience text.

Reading comprehension teaching approaches At the conclusion, Marilyn recorded student responses about what they learned from this language experience as below:

Guided reading Guided reading is used with small groups of students who have similar learning needs, using text at their instructional level. This means that the text contains some challenges for students, but with teacher guidance and the structure of the teaching approach students will be able to read and comprehend the text. Carefully considered assessment information forms the basis of learning goals and formative assessment that is integrated into the guided reading lesson. In guided reading, the teacher guides the students through the text. The teacher and the student each have their own copy of the text. In selecting the text the teacher considers: · · · · · ·

the instructional level of the students the prior knowledge and experiences of the students the interests of students the breadth and range of various text structures students have read links to the content area from cross-curricula studies links to past texts on similar themes or by the same author.

Steps in a guided reading lesson Initial planning

Link to prior knowledge

Introducing the text

Reading the text

Lesson conclusion

• identify student learning needs • set learning goals • select the reading text • plan for instruction • divide the text into sections • identify a reading purpose for each section • consider needs/experience of students • plan prior knowledge task • complete prior knowledge task • share and clarify learning goals • teacher sets purpose for each section • students read section independently • after each section, discuss/clarify/demonstrate/ question to check understanding • discuss and review what was learned • set learning goals for follow-up tasks next lesson

Building comprehension strategies Preparation for teaching

Teachers begin by reviewing data showing the strengths and learning needs of the students in the reading group and determining the lesson learning goals (see examples of learning goals in Chapters 3 to 9). They select an appropriate text, read it thoroughly and note teaching points where explicit instruction will be provided during the lesson. After doing this, teachers divide the text into sections for reading, identifying a reading comprehension purpose for students to read for in each section. Before introducing the text to the students the teacher thinks about the challenges within the text and makes decisions on how best to prepare students for reading. This includes activities to deliberately find out about and link to student prior knowledge before reading (see Chapter 3: Making connections to prior knowledge, page 37). From From Me to You, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Words are just one way to communicate. People also use body language, facial expressions and tone of voice. Technology also affects how people communicate. Many thousands of years ago, people didn’t have pens and paper or telephones or computers with which to communicate. Today we do. Have these inventions changed how people talk to each other? This book explores how people communicate and the role technology plays in communications.

Read this section to discover how people communicate.

Think about... Think about the different ways you use tones of voice to communicate. How would you talk if you were embarrassed, proud, talking to someone you wanted to impress, or talking to a stranger?

From Our Bodies, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Types of teeth

molars

Incisors cut and chop food.

canines

Canines tear food. Premolars crush and grind food. Molars work with your tongue to help swallow food.

premolars

Why do humans have two sets of teeth? Scientists think that humans have two sets of teeth in their life because a baby’s jaw is too small to hold a full set of adult teeth. Children have a set of smaller teeth which fall out and are replaced with the second set of teeth as the jaw gets bigger.

incisors

Read to discover how to take care of your teeth.

Teeth care hints • Brush and floss your teeth. • Drink water. • Avoid sugary foods and drinks. • Visit a dentist.

Did you know? • When a dog chews on a bone, it is cleaning its teeth. This helps to keep a dog’s teeth strong and healthy. • Sharks grow new teeth all the time. If they lose a tooth, a new one grows straight away. A shark can lose and regrow about 2000 teeth in a year! 19

Introduction to the lesson

Teachers provide a prior knowledge activity for the students to complete before reading. Students share their prior knowledge with others. Teachers check the accuracy and relevance of what they know already in relation to the text content, considering: · ·

‘ What prior knowledge do these students have? Is it correct? Are important pieces missing?’ ‘ How do I need to plan and adapt my teaching in light of the prior knowledge and experiences my students are bringing to this lesson?’

Reading comprehension teaching approaches Where needed, teachers provide additional information through explanation, demonstration or language experience to build prior knowledge in preparation for reading. Teachers share the lesson learning goals in writing with the students, clarify these and check their understanding. An example of learning goals for retelling (see Chapter 8, page 107) is shown below.

We are learning to retell what we have read. We will be successful when we can: •

use pictures to help us retell

•

use key words to help us retell

•

tell others what we have read using words from the text to help us. Reading and discussing the text

Reading the text involves the following pattern: The teacher sets a main purpose for reading each section of text. Students read this independently.

The teacher observes and monitors students’ developing understanding, providing corrective assistance as required.

The teacher observes and monitors as students read, helping as required.

The teacher checks understanding of what was read by asking questions, initiating and inviting discussion, asking for clarification, demonstrating talk-aloud/think-aloud and encouraging students to explain and demonstrate their understanding to others.

The cycle of reading, discussing, questioning and demonstrating learning continues until the text reading is completed. Sometimes a text may be completed in one reading lesson, at other times the teacher and students may return to the same text two or three times.

Building comprehension strategies Lesson conclusion

The lesson concludes with a discussion about what was read and learned. Students talk about what they learned and how they learned it—returning to the text for additional information, evidence to support their ideas and opinions and to clarify anything they are not sure of. Lesson goals are reviewed and goals and actions for the next lesson are determined. Independent activities to support and extend learning

Students engage in independent, pair or group activities in response to their reading. Tasks may relate to what was learned and practised in the lesson, or may provide maintenance of taught skills and strategies. There will usually be opportunity for further and extended reading. Providing explicit strategy instruction through guided reading Guided reading enables teachers to introduce, model and demonstrate new comprehension strategies. This can be done at the beginning of a guided reading lesson or at the end of each section of text students read, making strong links to the development of metacognitively active readers (see Chapter 1: Effective reading comprehension practices, page 3). Guided reading also provides opportunities for students to question others, give and receive feedback from their peers and monitor their own understanding (see also examples in subsequent chapters). For example:

One thing I noticed you doing today during guided reading was … •

Today I noticed you learned to …

•

Thanks for helping me learn to … Paired reading Paired reading is most often used to provide additional practice and support for students as they read and develop comprehension skills, knowledge and strategies. Pairs of students with similar ability read the text together, asking and answering each other questions, monitoring each other’s understanding of the text and in relation to the key learning goals being taught and practised. They also complete shared tasks in response to what they have read. Paired reading is most suitable for the second reading of a text that the teacher and students have used during shared reading, language experience or guided reading. Repeated reading has long been considered important for developing comprehension (e.g. Dowhower 1999; Kuhn & Stahl 2000; Samuels 1997; Topping 2006). It provides students with an opportunity to improve word recognition, literal and inferential comprehension, understanding of new vocabulary, fluency of reading and overall comprehension of what was read.

Reading comprehension teaching approaches Steps in a paired reading lesson Initial planning

Introducing the lesson

• students have previously read this text during group instruction • review of content of text • revisit/clarify aspects of concern to group • assign pairs for reading • clarify goal for reading and related task

Reading the text

• students read text together • students discuss and complete task

Lesson conclusion

• group meets to discuss and share pair task • review learning

Preparation for teaching

Teachers begin by reviewing the content of the text with the group of students preparing for paired reading and noting the aspects of text that caused difficulty or needed most support during the initial reading. This information can be used to establish the focus for the partner reading activity. Introduction to the lesson

The purpose of the paired reading is explained to the students, for example: ·

Building Comprehension Strategies

Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

What happened at the beginning?

What happened in the middle?

What happened at the end?

‘Today you are pair reading to ask and answer questions starting with “what” and “why”. After each section of text, ask your partner a “what” or a “why” question. Check that their answer is correct. Talk about how you know the answer is correct.’ ‘Today you are pair reading to ask and answer literal questions as you read. After each section of text, ask your partner a literal question. Check that their answer is correct and record the number of correct literal questions as you read.’ ‘Today you are reading in pairs to complete a graphic organiser of the main things that happened at the beginning, middle and end of the recount we read yesterday (see Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 1). After each section of text, discuss with your partner what the main thing that happened was, and record it on your graphic organiser. Make a note of any responses you disagree with so that we can check this at the end of the lesson.’ ‘Today I want you to start by writing down what you learned from reading your text yesterday and recording some questions you still have.’ (Students record these in their notebooks leaving room to add detail as they read.) ‘Your second task is to re-read the text with your partner, pausing to review and answer the questions you each have.’

What I learned

What questions I have

Building comprehension strategies Reading and discussing the text

Pairs of students read the text together. They discuss what they are reading and record their ideas and responses as they complete the task (see suggestions above). Teachers observe the students as they complete this task, monitoring and supporting the reading as required. They move between the pairs, talking informally about the text, ideas and students’ thoughts and opinions, or conducting more formal conferences about the reading knowledge and needs of students in order to gather further formative data to inform subsequent lessons. Lesson conclusion

Pairs meet together as a group to share the tasks they completed and reflect on their learning. During this time teachers listen, observe and make notes of subsequent areas for development in future reading comprehension lessons.

Reading to students Reading to students involves the teacher reading aloud while students listen actively. The teacher provides a model of fluent reading for the students to listen to and observe. Reading to students creates a wonderful opportunity for students to access texts on a wide range of topics and written in a wide range of styles. The texts are usually beyond the students’ independent reading level, providing access to diverse texts that students would not otherwise encounter. The students are able to relax and enjoy the reading experience, taking time to link the content in the text to their own prior knowledge and experience while interacting with the ideas and actions in the text and exploring the author’s ideas. It is important for teachers to read daily to students of all ages, but particularly those in the primary years. When teachers read aloud to their students they open a whole new world of ideas, events, actions and possibilities. They provide access to a range of text structures including texts that explain, inform, instruct, retell, narrate, argue and describe. Through regular reading teachers can increase their students’ knowledge of different text types and of content relevant to crosscurricula studies, and influence their own independent selection of text types and authors. In addition, reading to students provides an opportunity for reinforcement of comprehension strategies, for group problem-solving and for linking reading to the arts.

Reading comprehension teaching approaches

Teachers can read a range of texts to their students including myths, fables, legends, letters, emails, news articles, poems, plays, skits, scripts, descriptions, recounts, retells, explanations, picture books, wordless books, novels, journal entries, autobiographies, biographies and websites. Reading to students can generate opportunities for students to respond to texts in many ways, including discussion, role-play, drama, painting, drawing, debating and model-making.

Reading by students Reading by students is commonly known as independent reading. Daily independent reading enables students to practise the skills, behaviours and strategies taught during instructional lessons and observed through watching teachers and peers engage in reading. Students benefit from independent reading of previously read texts, revisiting favourite stories and poems, and from selfselecting texts from a range of text types and topics. Some of the texts available for independent reading will relate to curriculum studies, others may include picture books, magazines, newspapers, joke books, information journals, online texts and junior novels.

Building comprehension strategies

Chapter summary This chapter has described how teachers use a range of assessment data to determine the focus for their instructional goals and to select the most appropriate teaching approach to meet student needs. It has described the teaching approaches of shared reading, language experience, guided reading, paired reading, reading to students and reading by students. The next chapters describe and explain specific comprehension strategies used by skilled readers, which are taught and maintained by using a range and mix of these teaching approaches.

Chapter 3 Making connections to prior knowledge

A reader’s prior knowledge is critical in helping them to make sense of new material before, during and after reading. The comprehension strategy through which this is taught and practised is called linking to prior knowledge, also known as making connections. Prior knowledge is made up of the personal experiences students have had. These include: · · ·

cultural experiences relevant to their own and others’ cultural background, including experiences with their own and other languages social experiences informed by people they have met, places they have visited and things they have seen and heard academic experiences, including their knowledge of general and subjectspecific vocabulary, their knowledge of the structure of the text they will be reading (e.g. narrative, report, procedural), their knowledge of the task they are engaged in and their knowledge of what skilled readers know and do personal self-efficacy, including their understanding of themselves in relation to what skilled readers know and do and how successfully they view themselves as readers, along with their own motivation and engagement towards reading.

Teachers need to be aware of both the ‘in-school’ and ‘out-of-school’ experiences of students and the effect that these have on reading comprehension. For many students, their out-of-school experiences are very different from the content and contexts of instructional reading texts.

Activating prior knowledge before, during and after reading Skilled readers activate their prior knowledge about what they are reading before they read. This enhances their ability to understand new ideas, to remember details about what they have read and to use other comprehension strategies effectively to develop, maintain and extend comprehension. Therefore, it is essential to deliberately link to the prior knowledge of students before reading. Finding out what a student knows before reading not only helps the student to connect the information in the text to what they already know, it also provides

Building comprehension strategies important information to guide instruction. Knowing about student prior knowledge before reading helps the teacher to consider: · · ·

What do my students already know about the content and structure of the text? Is what they know correct or will I need to provide corrective information? From what I know about the prior knowledge of my students: – What is the best way to introduce the ideas and possible challenges in this text? – What is the best instructional teaching approach? – What will I need to monitor as the reading progresses?

As students learn to draw on their prior knowledge during reading, they begin to make sense of new material by connecting what they already know to the new information in the text. A student’s prior knowledge will help them make sense of the text as they encounter new vocabulary, sentences, paragraphs and text features such as maps, diagrams, captions, photographs and illustrations. Students also begin to recognise when what they are reading does not make sense or link to what they previously knew and understood. Their prior knowledge helps students to learn how to monitor their own reading and recognise when they need support. During reading, a student’s prior knowledge helps them to integrate and use other reading comprehension strategies, including making predictions (see page 51), visualisation (see page 61), asking and answering questions (see page 75) and making inferences (see page 89). After reading, students draw on their prior knowledge to make sense of the new information they have gained and to extend and apply their knowledge and understanding. This will help with independent comprehension tasks such as group discussion, oral and/or written presentations of new information gained from reading, independent or group tasks and self assessment of their own learning.

Linking to students’ prior knowledge improves reading comprehension because it helps them connect what they already know with what they are reading.

I read another text about this. It was …

I already knew … and now I know about …

What do I already know about the content?

I saw something like this when I visited …

Making connections to prior knowledge

Learning to connect to prior knowledge: possible learning goals In sharing learning goals with their students, teachers provide explicit instruction on what it means when readers learn to make connections to their prior knowledge as they read. Teachers demonstrate and explain how readers make connections, how connecting to prior knowledge helps students develop as skilled readers and how students can monitor their own reading through connecting to their prior knowledge. For example:

Key learning goal: We are learning to connect what we already know to what we have read. Making connections to prior knowledge is a strategy in which we deliberately think about what we know about the topic and ideas presented in the text: •

before we read—to think about what we know already in preparation for reading

•

during reading—to make connections between the new information and experiences in the text and what we already know

•

after reading—to think about what we have learned.

Connecting to our prior knowledge helps us to become skilled readers because we learn: •

to think about and clarify what we already know

•

to connect new information with what we know to help us comprehend what we read. Specific learning goals for connecting to prior knowledge vary depending on the learning needs of students, how confident the students are with understanding and using the strategy, the nature of the text and the complexity and demands of the reading tasks. While teachers consider a number of factors when selecting learning goals (and often involve students in this process), some examples of specific goals are provided below. Connecting to prior knowledge—we will be successful when we can: · · · · · · ·

think about what we know before we begin reading list what we know about a theme or topic before reading talk with our partner and/or group about what we know before reading ask ourselves, ‘How does this link to what I know already?’ as we read ask ourselves, ‘Does this make sense based on what I know?’ ask ourselves, ‘What information is new to me?’ make connections between what we know and what we read to help 39

Building comprehension strategies

· · · · ·

Making connections

us understand new information make connections between the people in the text and people we know make connections between the places in the text and places we know make connections between this text and other texts we have read talk with our partner and/or group about what new information we learned from reading add to the list new information we learned as we read.

The Skipping Team

From The Skipping Team, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Written by Mary-Anne Creasy

This reminds me of … What do I already know about skipping? What is a team? When have I been part of a team?

Photography by Michael Curtain

Providing deliberate instruction Through deliberately planned instruction, teachers can explain to students what connecting to prior knowledge is. They can demonstrate how they think about what they know already and how they connect this to the information they are gaining as they read parts of the text. Teachers can use the think-aloud approach (see page 10) to do this, explaining how the making connections strategy was used to help comprehension. The teacher can involve students in the think-aloud process by asking them to say what the teacher is doing and why they think the teacher is doing this. As teachers demonstrate to their students they ask: · · ·

‘ What did I do when I deliberately thought about what I already know?’ ‘What did I do when I linked what I already know to a new idea?’ ‘How can linking to prior knowledge help me as a reader?’

Students are encouraged to use the language associated with the strategy wherever possible. Below are several examples of deliberate instruction being provided in different contexts.

Making connections to prior knowledge

Example 1: the students are reading about a birthday ·

The teacher, Maria, demonstrates her own thinking about what she already knows. Maria: ‘Before I read this text I am going to think about what I already know about birthdays. I am going to think about what I have done on my birthday, how I felt and who celebrated with me. ‘I know birthdays can be lots of fun. I remember my friends and family surprised me on my birthday. I knew they had arrived because they sang “Happy birthday” in really loud voices. They brought a big chocolate cake with lots of candles. I felt really excited and we had lots of fun.’

Maria asks students what they thought about and did when she linked to her own birthday experience. Maria: ‘What did I do when I made connections to my own birthday experience?’ Maria lists and initiates discussion of students’ responses, prompting as needed.

Chapter 2

Starting life

Example 2: the students are reading about elephants

How are animals born? All living things start life either as an egg or by being born live. Most mammals and some fish and reptiles are born live. The young grow inside the mother’s body.

Young mammals grow inside their mother’s womb. When the young are born, the mother makes milk to feed them. Turtle hatching

Baby elephants are born live.

The teacher, James, demonstrates his own thinking about what he already knows. James: ‘Before I read this text I am going to think about what I already know about elephants. I am going to think about what I have seen, what I have been told, what I have read and what I have done. ‘I know what an elephant looks like. I’ve seen one at the zoo and also on TV documentaries. They are large animals and I remember seeing and being told that they live in the wild (that is like being out in the bush). I remember that they live mostly in herds (large groups together) and that they have a long trunk (a bit like our nose but much longer!).’

From Animal Lifetimes, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

James asks students what they saw and heard him doing when linking to his knowledge of elephants. James: ‘What did I do when I made connections to what I know?’ He lists and initiates discussion of students’ responses, prompting as needed. James: ‘Now tell me what you know about elephants.’

Building comprehension strategies

Example 3: the context is a picture of the main character The coach said, “Skip at home each day and you will get fit. That will help you to skip.”

The teacher, Michelle, is demonstrating how she makes connections between a character in a text and someone she knows. Michelle: ‘Listen and watch what I am doing as I make connections between the character in the text and someone I know.

From The Skipping Team, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

‘First I am going to look carefully at the picture. I see a young girl, about six or seven years old. She reminds me of my cousin. ‘Next I am going to think about how they are similar. They both have long hair. This character is looking quite serious—sometimes my cousin looks like this, especially when she is not happy. ‘Now I will think about what the character is doing. She is holding a skipping rope. An adult is telling her something. It looks like this character might be learning to skip. My cousin likes to skip too but I think skipping is hard! Michelle asks students what they saw and heard her do when making connections between the character and someone she knows. Michelle: ‘What did I do when I made connections between this character and someone I know?’ Michelle lists and initiates discussion of students’ responses, prompting as needed.

Learning tasks This section contains learning tasks to teach and maintain the comprehension strategy of connecting to prior knowledge. Teachers can select and adapt those activities most appropriate to the needs and reading abilities of their students, and use these activities to meet challenges that arise as students read.

Pre- and post-reading group discussions These discussions take place at the beginning and end of reading. It may be the beginning and end of a page, or the beginning and end of an entire text. In preparation for this discussion, read the text to determine specific aspects to discuss, e.g. in a narrative it might be the setting, the characters and/or the problem; in non-fiction it might be equipment, actions, setting and/or events. Encourage students to relate to their own thoughts and experiences. During reading, emphasise the usefulness of making connections to what students know in order to understand new information. In a post-reading discussion, students and teachers can discuss: ‘What do I know now that I did not know before reading?’

Making connections to prior knowledge ·

Example 1: ‘The main character is lost in the dark. How would you feel if this were you? What would you do? Why would you do this?’ Example 2: ‘This is a diagram about what causes wind. What is wind? What do you know about wind? What do you know about why we have wind?’

From The Weather Today, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Chapter 2

Wind and rain Where does wind come from?

Where breezes come from

Wind is moving air. Air moves up when it is warmed by the sun. The warmed air pushes cooler air out of the way and makes it move too. The air in the atmosphere is warming and cooling all the time so there is a lot of windy weather. 2

Air is warmed and rises.

air Sun warms land more quickly than sea.

land

As air is warmed it expands. Expanded air takes up more space and is lighter than cool air. Because it is lighter, the warm air rises.

sea

Cooler air moves inland to fill the space left by the warmer air. This air movement is wind. cool air

4 The rising warm air cools and replaces the cold air that moved inland.

Air cools and falls.

Students share their knowledge and experiences to build those of other students Questioning students and using prior knowledge tasks (see downlodable graphic organisers) will enable teachers to identify students with particular knowledge and experience that they can share with others. This form of peer teaching takes place prior to reading the text. It enables students to actively share information they know about a topic, an event or an idea in order to build the prior knowledge of all group members in preparation for reading. · · ·

Example 1: the students are going to read about a cultural event that two students in the group have participated in. Example 2: the students are going to read about a country that one student has visited and another student has received postcards and letters from. Example 3: the students are going to read about a hobby that one student and their family are involved in.

Talk about main ideas from the text before reading The teacher pre-reads the text and makes a list of the main ideas. They tell students that these are important ideas from the text they will be reading and initiate discussion about them. As part of the discussion, the teacher: · · · ·

allows students to ask their own questions has students summarise the ideas they are talking about encourages students to give reasons to support their ideas encourages students to predict what the text will be about (see Chapter 4: Prediction and re-prediction, page 51).

Building comprehension strategies

Link to prior knowledge via a cloze activity before reading This task is done before students read the text. It helps them to learn how to integrate prior knowledge with what they read. The teacher selects a section of text to develop into a cloze. The title of the text is included and the first sentence is kept intact. The teacher makes the cloze by doing one of the following: · · ·

removing every seventh word (to make a general cloze) removing some examples of subject-specific technical vocabulary (to make a vocabulary content cloze) removing some of the adjectives or adverbs in the text (to make a cloze to link to content and grammar).

The teacher presents the cloze and explains that students will need to complete it by using their prior knowledge and the material they read: ‘This is a cloze exercise taken from the text we will be reading. By thinking about what we know and the words and information the author gives us, let’s see if we can complete the cloze together.’ These questions are posed: · ·

‘Does the answer make sense in the sentence?’ ‘How did we come to this answer? Was it our prior knowledge, was it clues in the text or was it a combination of both of these things?’

Note: Initially, the teacher begins with a text that students know something about. With early readers this is best done as a sentence cloze. One or two sentences from the text can be selected to present as a cloze.

Connect to prior knowledge through an illustration from the text before reading From The Skipping Team, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Then I did the trick!

The teacher selects and displays one or more illustrations with high meaning-totext content. The teacher explains that this is a picture from the text they are going to read. Students think about and then discuss: · · ·

what they see in the picture what they already know about what they see in the picture what they might learn more about during reading, based on information they have gained from the picture.

Making connections to prior knowledge This may be recorded as follows:

The information in the illustration tells us …

We already know …

We might also learn …

Connect to prior knowledge through an illustration from the text during reading The teacher selects one or two illustrations from the text that contain important information. During reading, the teacher stops at these illustrations and asks students to think and talk about what they already know and what additional information these illustrations provide. The points in the example above can be used to prompt or extend discussion.

Connect to prior knowledge through an illustration from the text after reading After reading, the teacher goes through the illustrations and discusses the information they added to student knowledge of the topic, event or idea they were reading about. These questions are posed: · ·

‘ What did we know before we read this, that is, what was our prior knowledge?’ ‘What do we know now?’

Connect to prior knowledge of vocabulary during reading This activity helps students to learn new vocabulary and to learn about how vocabulary knowledge and prior knowledge inform and develop each other. The teacher selects new or challenging words from the text. As students approach these words, the teacher writes them on cards and discusses with students what they know about the word meanings and what other words they relate to (e.g. synonyms, root words and word families). After reading, the teacher talks to the students about how knowing new vocabulary has connected to their prior knowledge and has added to understanding of the text.

What do I know now that I did not know before?

How has what I know about this changed as a result of reading this text?

Building comprehension strategies

Key questions to connect to prior knowledge The following key questions will reinforce the importance of students knowing when and how to connect to prior knowledge. The questions can be asked by teachers, or by students of other students. · · · · · · · · ·

‘What are you thinking about as you read this text?’ ‘Does this make sense?’ ‘Does this link to something you already know?’ ‘What is this like?’ ‘Who does this remind you of?’ ‘What does this remind you of?’ ‘When would you use something like this?’ ‘When would you do something like this?’ ‘When would you be somewhere like this and what would you do?’ What would I do if this were me? What does this remind me of?

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks When organising group instruction, teachers consider opportunities for students to practise the skills involved in connecting to prior knowledge through a range of different texts. Many of the tasks described above, along with the graphic organisers provided for this chapter (see downloadable resources), are useful for maintenance and small-group practice. The following activities also provide wpractice in connecting to prior knowledge. ·

This is a partner or small-group activity. A list of possible text titles is written on cards. Students take a card from the top of the pile and are given two minutes to record everything they know about the concept, idea or problem provided in the title. Then students each share their prior knowledge in relation to the title. Students are encouraged to say where their prior knowledge came from. The teacher asks, ‘How does thinking about prior knowledge help you to make meaning of ideas?’ Possible titles include: – – – –

Cleaning the car Going for a run The big mistake Long, long ago

– – –

Working on the farm Holiday at the beach What causes rain?

Making connections to prior knowledge

Building Comprehension Strategies

Making connections to prior knowledge: Graphic organiser 4 Name:

Topic:

Before What I already know

During Connections I am making

After At the beginning I thought …

The teacher develops charts on which students record their prior knowledge before, during and after reading (see Making connections to prior knowledge: Graphic organiser 4). This activity encourages students to think about and draw on the knowledge they have before reading, the connections they make during reading and the knowledge they have after reading. Students can complete this activity in pairs before sharing and discussing with their whole group. The teacher prompts by asking the questions:

Now I know …

– –

‘How did what you knew before you read help you during reading?’ ‘How did what you knew before you read help you make sense of the whole text after reading?’

Self and peer assessment of the strategy Self and peer assessment teach students to learn about and understand their own learning, to monitor their own achievement and to set goals for future lessons. Students require deliberate teaching and modelling of how to use these assessments before they can use them independently or with a partner. Building Comprehension Strategies

Peer assessment

Making connections to prior knowledge: BLM 1 Name:

Buddy’s name:

Peer assessment One thing I noticed you doing when you: • connected to prior knowledge was

• explained your prior knowledge to others was

See Making connections to prior knowledge: BLM 1. Buddy partners give feedback by identifying one thing they noticed their buddy do when they were: · ·

connecting to their prior knowledge explaining their prior knowledge to others in the group.

Building comprehension strategies

Building Comprehension Strategies

Individual self assessment

Making connections to prior knowledge: BLM 2 Name:

Individual self assessment I am learning about the comprehension strategy ‘connecting to prior knowledge’. What I did

How I did it

See Making connections to prior knowledge: BLM 2. Students consider what they did, how they did it and what they learned as they practised the strategy of connecting to prior knowledge.

What I learned

Building Comprehension Strategies

Group self assessment

Making connections to prior knowledge: BLM 3 Name:

Group self assessment We are learning about the comprehension strategy ‘connecting to prior knowledge’. What we did

How we did it

See Making connections to prior knowledge: BLM 3. Students work in groups to discuss and complete the self-assessment as above but with a group focus on what they did when they connected to their prior knowledge, how they did it and what they learned.

What we learned

Graphic organisers The graphic organisers for this chapter provide independent, partner or group activities that support teaching and learning of the connecting to prior knowledge strategy. These can be used in small-group instruction, as practice activities and to ensure maintenance of taught strategies.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 1

Making connections to prior knowledge: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

In the picture I can see …

I already know …

A question I have before reading is …

This graphic organiser, to be used before reading, requires students to view a picture from the text. Students are shown the picture and asked to record (either orally or in writing) what they can see. They then think about what they already know about the information in the picture and record this under the statement ‘I already know …’. Finally, students are asked to think about the information in the picture and what they already know to consider a question they would like answered when reading the text.

Making connections to prior knowledge

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 2

Making connections to prior knowledge: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

Topic: Equipment

Actions

What I expect to read

This graphic organiser requires the student to sort what they know about a topic into various categories: the equipment and actions in relation to the topic and Comprehension what they would expect to read about. This can beBuilding an oral or writtenStrategies activity and can be used with fiction and non-fiction texts. An example of this graphic connections to prior organiser organiser Making completed by a group of knowledge: students isGraphic included below.2 Name:

Topic: Equipment

Building Comprehension Strategies

Actions

What I expect to read

Graphic organiser 3

Making connections to prior knowledge: Graphic organiser 3 Name:

This graphic organiser requires the student to list and/or sketch everything they know about a topic, idea or problem. The topic/idea/problem is written next to the string of the balloon. Students write or draw what they know in the balloon. This graphic organiser can be used as the basis for partner and group discussion before and after reading.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 4

Making connections to prior knowledge: Graphic organiser 4 Name:

Topic:

Before What I already know

During Connections I am making

After At the beginning I thought … Now I know …

This graphic organiser can be used before, during and after reading. In the ‘Before’ section, students can record what they know about the topic/idea/problem before they read. During reading, they stop several times to add connections they are making. At the end of reading, they record connections they have made as a result of reading the whole text. Prompts for this section can include: ‘At the beginning I thought …’ and ‘Now I know …’

Building comprehension strategies

Chapter summary This chapter has provided support for explicit teaching, learning and student involvement related to the comprehension strategy of making connections to prior knowledge. It has included an overview of the strategy, how to teach it and the learning gains for students using this strategy. Teaching and learning activities for class, group, partner and individual group instruction have been suggested. These can be used to provide instruction during reading comprehension lessons and also as maintenance and practice activities. The next chapter develops the comprehension strategy of prediction and re-prediction.

Chapter 4 Prediction and re-prediction

Skilled readers learn to anticipate and expect the actions, events and ideas that are coming up in the text. In doing so they use a comprehension strategy called prediction—the act of anticipating meaning. They make a calculated guess based on the information in the text, their own prior knowledge and the information they infer in order to predict what they will read about. Skilled readers learn to predict before and during reading. They alter their predictions, confirming or rejecting them as they read further, and make new predictions based on additional information gathered from reading. Beginning readers draw on the simple structure of text, the illustrations and the familiarity of text content to help them predict. As these readers develop, they draw on wider sources of information to help form predictions. These sources include vocabulary, more complicated text structures, a variety of sentence structures and punctuation, along with particular structures and features associated with fiction and non-fiction texts. In the example below the author has used the pronoun ‘I’ and the repetition of ‘very’ to help the reader predict. I could tell this was going to be very, very difficult.

In the next example the author has used punctuation (an exclamation mark) to help the reader predict. This was so exciting!

In the following example the author has used punctuation (an ellipsis) to help the reader predict. He was not happy …

Building comprehension strategies Making predictions keeps students interested and engaged in their reading. Questions and activities that ask students to predict encourage them to stay actively engaged in reading because they are required to think about and consider forthcoming events. Furthermore, questioning and predicting while reading helps readers to make connections to their prior knowledge, and also helps to clarify questions they have as they read.

Prediction and re-prediction: possible learning goals By sharing learning goals with their students, teachers provide explicit instruction on how readers learn to make predictions as they read. Teachers deliberately explain and instruct students on how to confirm or reject their predictions and when and how to re-predict. They demonstrate how the prediction and re-prediction strategy helps a student to develop as a skilled reader and how students can monitor their own reading through reflecting on their predictions. For example:

Prediction and re-prediction is a strategy in which we deliberately think about what we know and the ideas presented in the text in order to guess what might happen next. We use this strategy: •

before we read—to predict what the text will be about, who will be in it and what we might learn from reading it

•

during reading—to anticipate what might happen next, to monitor our reading, to check, alter, reject or confirm earlier predictions

•

after reading—to reflect on our predictions to see if they were correct and to see how our predictions helped us engage with and understand the text we were reading.

Learning to predict, check, confirm or reject our predictions helps us to become skilled readers because we learn to:

•

think carefully about what we are reading and whether it makes sense

•

think carefully about what we are reading to see if what we thought would happen does happen

•

test our predictions as we read

•

revise our predictions as we read.

Prediction and re-prediction Specific learning goals for predicting and re-predicting will vary depending on the learning needs of students, how confident the students are with understanding and using the strategy, the nature of the text and the complexity and demands of the reading tasks. While teachers consider a number of factors when selecting learning goals (and often involve students in this process), some examples of specific goals are provided below. Prediction and re-prediction—we will be successful when we can: · · · · · · · ·

make a prediction make a prediction and give a reason for it read to check our predictions confirm or reject our predictions form new predictions based on additional or changed information give reasons for our revised predictions reflect on and revise our predictions as needed use prediction and re-prediction to help us understand and remember what we read.

Providing deliberate instruction Through deliberately planned instruction before and during reading, students can learn to use the prediction strategy to help them understand what they are reading. Students learn to predict based on a range of language features. They may form and test a prediction based on one or more words, a phrase or a caption from the text. Similarly they may form a prediction based on the content of a sentence or from the ideas presented in one or more paragraphs. In doing this, students learn to check their prediction, either confirming, rejecting or altering it in response to further interactions with the text, e.g. reading further, discussing, questioning in response to what has been read. Teachers can demonstrate this process using the talk-aloud and think-aloud approaches (see page 10). They can also establish learning opportunities for students to talk aloud and think aloud as they demonstrate and practise the strategy of prediction with fiction and non-fiction texts. Prediction is usually taught before students have read a specific section of text. As a before-reading task, the students form one or more predictions based on information that is relevant to the text content and purpose. During reading, students may be asked to consider what they have read so far, and to quickly look ahead at key words, headings and illustrations to glean some of the ideas coming up in the text and form predictions. As they read further, they check their predictions, confirm, reject and re-predict. Some students find prediction a difficult strategy to develop. On some occasions they may simply guess without a specific reason. In such cases, it is important to demonstrate, through explicit instruction, the processes of read, pause, reflect, predict and check, encouraging students to talk aloud and think aloud as they do so.

Building comprehension strategies As teachers model the prediction and re-prediction strategy, they instruct, explain, question and demonstrate so that students learn to reflect on their own knowledge of the strategy and respond to such questions as: · · · · · · ·

‘What did I do when I made a prediction?’ ‘What information from the text did I use to help me make my prediction?’ ‘What prior knowledge did I use to help me predict?’ ‘What did I do when I checked my prediction?’ ‘What did I think about and do when I made a new prediction?’ ‘How can learning to predict help me as a reader?’ ‘How can learning to check predictions help me as a reader?’

What did I do when I made a prediction? What prior knowledge did I use to help me predict? How can learning to check predictions help me as a reader?

Learning tasks The following section contains learning tasks to teach and maintain the comprehension strategy of prediction and re-prediction. Teachers can select and adapt those activities most appropriate to the needs and reading abilities of their students, and use these activities to meet challenges that arise as students read.

Text walk-through before reading From Caring for Animals, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Contents

Caring for Animals Written by Marilyn Woolley

Chapter 1:

Chapter 2:

Looking after animals 4 Caring for aquarium animals 6

Behind the scenes at the zoo 8 Feeding time at City Zoo 10 Map of City Zoo 11

AlphaExplore

Prediction and re-prediction

Building Comprehension Strategies

Prediction and re-prediction: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

My prediction

Why I made my prediction

I predict …

because …

The teacher prepares the students to form predictions based on the title and contents pages. Together they discuss the title Caring for Animals, asking and discussing responses to questions such as: ‘What does “caring” mean? What do we expect to read about when the title says “caring for”? What animals do you predict the text will be about? Why? What sort of animal do we see in the illustration on the title page? What does this lead us to predict?’ The teacher and/or students record predictions (see Prediction and re-prediction: Graphic organiser 1). The students then explore the information on the contents page, including chapter headings, subheadings and photographs. They form further predictions as they anticipate what they will be reading and learning in this text.

Next the teacher deliberately models their own thought processes using the think-aloud approach (see page 10) to demonstrate and make explicit what they thought about and the connections they made in order to form their prediction. For example:

When I was predicting what this text would be about I first read the whole title. I asked myself what the word ‘caring’ meant. I knew that ‘caring’ meant to look after something. Then I thought about what animals the author was referring to. I was not sure if it was animals that were pets, or farm animals, or animals that live in the zoo. But when I looked closely at the illustration I saw it was not a pet! Therefore I predicted that this text would be about looking after animals that live in a zoo. Walk-through, read and check Building Comprehension Strategies

Prediction and re-prediction: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

My prediction

Why I made my prediction

Was I correct?

Why?

I predict …

because …

Yes/No

because …

Students ‘walk through’ the text attending to features such as headings, subheadings, captions, pictures, speech bubbles and diagrams. They make predictions about what they expect to read about. They then read the text with teacher support (see ‘Shared reading’, pages 23–26, and ‘Guided reading’, pages 29–32). As they read, or at the end of reading, they discuss with each other what they predicted and what they found (see Prediction and re-prediction: Graphic organiser 2).

Demonstrate how to form predictions The teacher begins by explaining what a prediction is. They then ask the students to explain to a partner what they understand a prediction to be, observing their responses to check understanding. Next, demonstrate how predictions can be formed, through talk-aloud/thinkaloud, demonstration, explanation, telling and questioning.

Building comprehension strategies Once students gain greater understanding, teachers provide activities in which students demonstrate to their peers what their prediction is and how they formed this: · · ·

demonstrating how readers can link information from two sentences to form a prediction demonstrating how readers can link information from a heading and an illustration to form a prediction demonstrating how readers can draw on information from several paragraphs to form a prediction.

True or false statements Teachers pre-read the text and use the information in the text to make a list of three to six statements, some true and some false. They record the statements on paper. Before reading the text, students read each statement and decide whether they expect it to be true or false. Students share their responses and record the reasons for their decisions. They then read to find out if their predictions were correct or not.

Predicting from one page to the next This task helps students in the early years learn to use information from one page to predict what they will read on the next page. Skilled readers will use these skills to predict from one paragraph to the next. At the end of each page/paragraph students respond to the following questions that are either asked by the teacher or are written on a chart as prompts: · ·

‘What will the author use the next page to tell us about?’ ‘What will the author use the next paragraph to tell us about?’

For readers in the middle primary years, this task also links prediction to the students’ growing understanding of text structure and author’s purpose. Asking students to give reasons for their predictions and responses will provide insight into their ability and confidence with the prediction strategy: · ·

‘What will the author use the next page to tell us about? Why do you predict this?’ ‘What will the author use the next paragraphs to tell us about? What evidence do you have for these predictions?’

Stop, predict, discuss, share Teachers pre-read the text and identify a number of pre-determined points for a prediction to be made. They tell students: ‘When I read this text I found some places where I thought the author wanted me to predict what would happen next. I marked these places in the text we are going to read. Today, as we read, our task is to stop at these points, reflect

Prediction and re-prediction on what we know already, discuss what is happening and share what our prediction is and why we predict this.’ The teacher and students do this task together, with the teacher providing scaffolded support as needed. They then read on to check their predictions and re-predict as necessary.

What does the author want me to predict when I read this? What do I predict will happen because of this?

Key questions for prediction and re-prediction The following key questions will reinforce the prediction and re-prediction strategy. The questions can be asked by teachers, or by students of other students. · · · · · · · ·

‘What is your prediction?’ ‘Why did you make this prediction?’ ‘What ideas from the sentence helped you to make this prediction?’ ‘What ideas from the paragraph helped you to make this prediction?’ ‘ What ideas from the text you have read so far helped you to make this prediction?’ ‘How did the illustrations help you to predict?’ ‘ What clues did you get from the illustrations to help form or check your predictions?’ ‘How did you use your prior knowledge to help you to predict?’

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks When organising group instruction, teachers consider opportunities for students to practise the skills involved in prediction through a range of different texts. Many of the tasks described above, along with the graphic organisers for this chapter (see downloadable resources), are useful for maintenance and small-group practice. In addition, students can go back over their predictions at the end of reading and discuss why they made the predictions, why some predictions were correct and some were not, and how prediction and re-prediction helped develop their comprehension.

Building comprehension strategies Students in the middle primary years may also be challenged to consider how they can use their knowledge of the prediction strategy to monitor their own reading and ‘fix up’ errors in comprehension as they occur.

Self and peer assessment of the strategy Self and peer assessment teach students to learn about and understand their own learning, to monitor their own achievement and to set goals for future lessons. Students require deliberate teaching and modelling of how to use these assessments before they can use them independently or with a partner. Building Comprehension Strategies

Peer assessment

Prediction and re-prediction: BLM 1 Name:

Buddy’s name:

Peer assessment When you explained what you were doing as you made your prediction I heard you: Yes

State your prediction

See Prediction and re-prediction: BLM 1. Buddy partners give feedback by identifying what their buddy did as they made their prediction.

Give reasons for your prediction

Show evidence from the text

Explain how this linked to your prior knowledge

One thing you could try next time is:

Building Comprehension Strategies

Self assessment 1

Prediction and re-prediction: BLM 2 Name:

See Prediction and re-prediction: BLM 2. Students consider what they do when they practise the strategy of prediction, and what they do when they check their predictions.

Self assessment 1

What do I do when I predict?

What do I do when I check my predictions?

Building Comprehension Strategies

Self assessment 2

Prediction and re-prediction: BLM 3 Name:

Self assessment 2

Not yet

Just starting

Make a prediction about a text before I read it

Give a reason for this prediction

Check my predictions when I read

Confirm my predictions: • Yes, I’m right! • No, I’m not! • Maybe…

Change my prediction based on new information

Give a reason for changing my prediction

Use prediction to help me understand what I read

Getting there

Got it!

See Prediction and re-prediction: BLM 3. Students use this to self-assess their developing ability with the prediction and re-prediction strategy. They record a date in each box, thus monitoring their own progress over time.

Prediction and re-prediction

Graphic organisers The graphic organisers for this chapter provide independent, partner or group activities that support teaching and learning of the prediction strategy. These can be used in small-group instruction, as practice activities and to ensure maintenance of taught strategies. Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 1

Prediction and re-prediction: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

My prediction

Why I made my prediction

I predict …

because …

This graphic organiser requires students to record each prediction they make (either before reading and/or during reading). They record the prediction in the column ‘My prediction’ and they record the reason for their prediction in the column ‘Why I made my prediction’. This task can be used for group discussion, or discussion between the teacher and student, to assess the accuracy or feasibility of a student’s predictions.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 2

Prediction and re-prediction: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

My prediction

Why I made my prediction

Was I correct?

Why?

I predict …

because …

Yes/No

because …

This graphic organiser requires students to record each prediction and the reason for it. After reading, they record whether their prediction was correct and give a reason for this. This task can be extended by having students provide two or three reasons for both their prediction and the outcome. This requires students to draw on a range of evidence from text along with their own prior knowledge.

Building comprehension strategies

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 3

Prediction and re-prediction: Graphic organiser 3 Name:

I predict

This graphic organiser requires students to make a prediction and then identify all the clues/evidence that they gathered through reading that led them to that prediction. Students explain the predictions and the clues to each other and the teacher. When the clues are added together they should lead to the prediction that was made.

I predict

Clues

Start

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 4

Prediction and re-prediction: Graphic organiser 4

Clues

Predictions

Name:

This graphic organiser is similar to the previous one, but requires students to make up to six predictions over the period of reading. Clues that lead to each prediction are identified and recorded. Students can share and compare their predictions and clues with other students. This graphic organiser can also be used to support student demonstration and think-aloud of the prediction strategy.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 5

Prediction and re-prediction: Graphic organiser 5 Name:

Title: Look at the illustration on page ___

Prediction

Look at this sentence:

Prediction

Look at these three key words:

Prediction

This graphic organiser requires the teacher to write the title of the text in the ‘Title’ box. In the first box on the table, they add a page reference to an illustration from the text; in the second box, they write a sentence from the text with high meaning; and in the third box, they write three key words from the text. Students are then required to use these clues to make predictions. The predictions they make are recorded under the ‘Prediction’ headings. Students can do this task with all three excerpts from the text provided at one time, or they could see one ‘clue’ at a time, adding to, confirming, rejecting or changing their prediction in light of new information.

Chapter summary This chapter has provided support for explicit teaching, learning and student involvement related to the prediction and re-prediction comprehension strategy. It has included an overview of the strategy, how to teach it and the learning gains for students using this strategy. Teaching and learning activities for class, group, partner and individual group instruction have been suggested. These can be used to provide instruction during reading comprehension lessons and also as maintenance and practice activities. The next chapter develops the comprehension strategy of visualisation.

Chapter 5 Visualisation

When students use the visualisation comprehension strategy, they draw on their senses to think about what they are reading and to create mental images of the ideas and information conveyed in the text. To do this, they use their prior knowledge, along with the thoughts, questions and responses they have to the material in the text as they are reading it. When readers visualise they create mental images by thinking about: ·

the images they see as they read

the images they hear as they read

the images they taste as they read

the images they smell as they read

the images they touch as they read.

The visualisation strategy is also known as generating visual images and mental imagery. Over the years, much research has identified strong links between a student’s ability to create mental images and their ability to develop and extend reading comprehension. Visualisation is an important component of being able to respond to and think critically about the content of a text. The visualisation strategy helps the text ‘come to life’, enabling readers to visualise themselves at the scene or event, often feeling that they become part of the text themselves, seeing the text unfold first hand. Experienced readers often describe the visualisation strategy as: · · ·

‘getting a picture in your mind as you read’ ‘having a camera in your head during reading’ ‘having a movie going on in your mind while you read’.

The visual images a reader develops before, during and after reading support and guide them as they read. Visualisation starts before reading when students activate their prior knowledge about what they will be reading about, thinking about what they know already and how the information from the text and/or illustrations builds on this and helps them to get a mental image of the ideas and information in the text.

Building comprehension strategies During reading, readers combine the information they already have and the new information from the text to create images in their minds that lead to improved comprehension. The images they gain may help them to clarify an unknown idea or event, gain a clearer ‘picture’ of what the author is advising or suggesting, explain how one event in the text led to another, make clear a concept or a problem and give details of characters and places. Furthermore, when a reader visualises, they draw on the non-verbal knowledge they get from reading—the images the written text evokes. For example: · · ·

the smell, look, sounds and taste of sausages on a hot barbecue in summer the smell, look, sounds and feelings of waves crashing on a beach in summer the smell, look, sounds and feelings of waves crashing on a beach during a storm.

In this way, readers combine written text and representations to gain meaning and this is the strategy of visualisation.

Visualisation: possible learning goals By sharing learning goals with their students, teachers provide explicit instruction on how readers learn to visualise as they read, what they do as they visualise, how visualisation helps a student to develop as a skilled reader and how students can monitor their own reading through visualisation. Learning goals make explicit the knowledge and behaviours skilled readers use as they draw on the visualisation comprehension strategy to help them understand what they read. For example:

We are learning to visualise when we read. Visualisation is a strategy through which we draw on our senses to picture and think about the images we gain in our mind as we read:

•

before we read—we gain images from headings, illustrations and key words

•

during reading—we gain images from the vocabulary, structures and literary devices used in the sentences we read and the illustrations that support the text

•

after reading—we visualise using the information we have gained and learned.

Visualisation Learning to visualise helps students to become skilled readers because: ·

· ·

it helps them think about the ideas the author wants them to understand, relating these to what they know already and the images that come to mind as they read it draws on readers’ senses to encourage them to become personally involved in the messages and ideas the author is sharing it helps readers imagine they are there, thus making explicit and clarifying the content of the text.

Specific learning goals for visualisation vary depending on the learning needs of students, how confident the students are with understanding and using the strategy, the nature of the text and the complexity and demands of the reading tasks. Therefore, lessons for some students will focus on the use of one sense to gain meaning from text, others might focus on a combination of senses.

Example 1 Sarah is introducing the visualisation strategy to her students. She has observed that the students are often not able to describe or enter into discussion about the characters or events in a text. Sarah decides to focus on teaching the comprehension strategy of visualisation to help build their understanding. She plans the new learning to help students to think about what they ‘see’ as they read, to tell their partner and others in the group what they ‘see’ and to support their responses using words from the text. To do this, she divides the text into sections of two to four sentences. The learning goals for a series of lessons are:

Building comprehension strategies

Example 2 David’s students are learning to think about how the author has used vocabulary choices, sentence structure and punctuation to create images for the reader. The group has started a chart to record how visualisation helps their comprehension.

To help students to monitor their progress, David has developed this chart:

Visualisation

Specific learning goals While teachers consider a number of factors when selecting learning goals (and often involve students in this process), some examples of specific goals are provided below. These include all visualisation senses. However, teachers will choose one or a combination of these senses depending on the needs of their students. Visualisation—we will be successful when we can: · · · · · · · · · ·

think about and tell our group what we ‘see’/‘hear’/‘smell’/‘taste’/ ‘touch’ as we read use words from the text to support the images we ‘see’/‘hear’/‘smell’/ ‘taste’/‘touch’ as we read use nouns and adjectives, verbs and adverbs to tell others of the images we ‘see’ /‘hear’/‘smell’/‘taste’/‘touch’ as we read use phrases from the text to talk about and support the images we ‘see’/‘hear’/‘smell’/‘taste’/‘touch’ as we read use punctuation from the text to talk about and support the images we ‘see’/‘hear’/‘smell’/‘taste’/‘touch’ as we read explain what we ‘see’/‘hear’/‘smell’/‘taste’/‘touch’ as we read using words and pictures from each section of text use literacy devices used by the author to explain what we ‘see’/‘hear’/ ‘smell’/‘taste’/‘touch’ as we read, e.g. ‘as loud as’ (simile) use the ‘pictures’ we have in our minds to match the words we read explain our visual images, drawing on a range of evidence from text—the words, phrases, punctuation and literacy devices used by the author combine the verbal and non-verbal information we gain from reading to talk about the images we get as we read.

I see a big red train going fast. The words that helped me see this are ‘big’ and ‘fast’. I can hear a loud noise as the train moves faster.

I see an old house far away in the distance. The words that helped me see this are ‘away’, ‘ancient’, ‘remote’ and the phrase ‘built many years ago’. I can smell decay—the house is starting to fall down and it smells damp and old.

Building comprehension strategies Readers may also need to use visualisation as they apply some ‘fix-up’ strategies to help when they don’t understand something they have read. For example: ·

re-read a section to think more carefully about the images they get

When I re-read this section I saw … and I heard ...

ask for clarification of the words, ideas and images they don’t understand.

Providing deliberate instruction Through deliberately planned instruction, teachers show students what visualisation is and how to use this comprehension strategy. Teachers can make explicit the role of sensory images in creating, maintaining and monitoring reading comprehension. This deliberate instruction involves explanation and demonstration. Students should have multiple opportunities to use the strategy, demonstrate its use to other students and talk about what they are doing as they use the strategy to help them comprehend the author’s main messages. To ensure that students are able to use the visualisation strategy, teachers should, before reading, make certain that students have adequate prior knowledge about what they are reading. This involves deliberately linking to students’ prior knowledge (see Chapter 3: Making connections to prior knowledge, page 37). Visualisation is often initially introduced and taught through concrete words and short sentences from text.

What do I ‘see’ when I read the word ‘house’?

What do I ‘see’, ‘smell’ or ‘touch’ when I read the word ‘rain’?

Visualisation From individual words in text, students begin to understand how vocabulary and the way it is used in sentences will inform the images they gain from reading, for example: · · ·

students begin by thinking of the images they have of the word ‘house’ they then picture the word in the text and ask, ‘How has the image I have changed or been enhanced?’ then read the next sentence and ask, ‘Now what do I see?’

When teaching the visualisation strategy, it is useful to use the analogy of having a camera or TV in your mind to help you to understand what you are reading. The visualisation strategy can be taught before, during and after reading. Before reading, students can use visualisation to describe the images they have from the title, vocabulary and illustrations in the text. They can also visualise to describe the images they have of an event, a feeling or an action that is included in the text they will be reading. In this way, visualisation is deliberately used to link to prior knowledge in preparation for reading. During reading, students can be taught to think about and describe the images they see as they read sections of text. A range of tasks and graphic organisers can be used to support students to visualise as they read (see following pages). Teachers can demonstrate the visualisation strategy using talk-aloud and thinkaloud (see page 10). They can also deliberately establish learning opportunities for students to talk aloud and think aloud as they demonstrate and practise the strategy of visualisation with fiction and non-fiction texts. After reading, the visualisation strategy can be used to develop rich student conversations about the text, to describe events, characters and actions, to clarify concepts or ideas the students did not fully understand and to talk about what the author wrote, what the author wanted their readers to understand and what images readers gained as they read. Building Comprehension Strategies

Visualisation: BLM 1 Name:

What do I see as I read?

What do I hear as I read?

Explicit teaching enables students to learn to think about what they see, hear, feel, taste and touch as they read. Readers in the early primary years will benefit from prompts and scaffolds to cue them in to the images they can draw on as they visualise (see Visualisation: BLM 1).

What do I taste as I read?

What do I smell as I read?

What do I touch as I read?

Instruction that deliberately helps students to use one or more of their senses is described below. For some students, it is important to focus initially on just one sense as they read. Other students may be able to draw on a range of sensory images. Teachers can therefore plan and scaffold instruction to meet the varying needs of the students in their class.

Building comprehension strategies

Learning tasks The following section contains learning tasks to teach and maintain the comprehension strategy of visualisation. Teachers can select and adapt those activities most appropriate to the needs and reading abilities of their students, and use these activities to meet challenges that arise as students read.

Teaching imagery from vocabulary In this example, teachers use vocabulary in the text to teach imagery. Students read nouns and describe the images they see, then do the same for verbs. This task is developed to include nouns and adjectives, and verbs and adverbs. This can be an oral activity or can be recorded by students or pairs on a chart. In the example below, the teacher has recorded nouns from the text and has used the visualisation prompts to encourage oral language opportunities for talk about the vocabulary.

Nouns Written by Kerrie Shanahan Illustrated by Steve Axelsen

I see

pirate

‘What do you see?’

map

‘What picture do you get in your mind?’

box sand log From Pirate Sam, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

My Family and Me Written by Emily Wood Photography by Michael Curtain

From My Family and Me, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

In the example below, the teacher has recorded vocabulary from the text and has listed the students’ responses to the images these words evoked.

Words in text

Images we get

father

my dad, man, tall, big, smiling

kick

soccer ball, long way, boot, leg going up

skate

wheels, fast, skid

brother

boy, little, big, friend

Visualisation In the example below, a chart has been developed to prompt students to talk aloud and think aloud to express the visual images they have gained from vocabulary in the text. Think about and talk about What you see as you read

What you hear as you read

I hear …

What you smell as you read

I smell …

I see …

What you taste as you read

I taste …

Listen and write The teacher reads aloud to students, asking them to listen and to write down or draw their most vivid visual image from the section being read. More advanced readers can also be asked to record what the author did that made this image clear to them, i.e. the vocabulary and/or punctuation the author used.

Stop and record Building Comprehension Strategies

Visualisation: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

Draw the images you see as you read.

During shared or guided reading, the teacher stops at various places and asks students to record the visual image they have and what helped them to form this image. Students are asked to give evidence from the text and/or their own prior knowledge and experiences to support the images they have. Refer to Visualisation: Graphic organiser 1 to support this activity.

As students read, they stop and tell the teacher (and other members of the group) when they have created a visual image, what the visual image is and what helped them to form this image. They explain what they did to create the image, the language and writing features used by the author that developed this image and their own prior experience/knowledge that helped them gain this image.

Building comprehension strategies

Using illustrations The teacher and students draw on the illustrations (including photographs, charts and diagrams) in the text and think aloud about the visual images these have created. This picture helps me to see … When I look at this picture I can hear … From this picture I can sense the smell of …

Listen, visualise and sketch This activity can be done before or during reading. Before reading a section of text, students close their eyes while the teacher tells them what the text will be about. They then sketch what they ‘saw’ as they listened to the teacher. This is a before-reading task. While students are reading the text, they sketch what they ‘see’ during reading. In this sketch, students are encouraged to think about the images they gain from the vocabulary and descriptions used by the author. This is a during-reading task. Students compare the two sketches and discuss how the visual images differed from the first to the second sketch. Note: this activity can also be used to have students describe what they ‘feel’ and ‘hear’.

Thinking about learning Teachers develop a list with students of the kinds of actions they can take to better visualise when they read. The list can be added to as students learn more about how they can become more accurate with their visualisations.

Key questions for visualisation The following key questions will reinforce the visualisation strategy. The questions can be asked by teachers, or by students of other students. · · ·

‘What do you “see” as you read? What words help you see this?’ ‘ What do you “hear” as you read? What punctuation helps you hear this?’ ‘What do you “smell” as you read?’

Visualisation · · ·

‘What image(s) do you have as you read this word?’ ‘What image(s) do you have as you read this sentence?’ ‘What image(s) do you have as you read this paragraph?’

The following are reflective questions to be asked after reading. · · · · · ·

‘What did you “see” as you read this—how did you get this image?’ ‘ What did you “taste” as you developed your image from reading this section of text?’ ‘ How has visualisation helped you to understand the characters better?’ ‘ How has visualisation helped you to understand the events in this text better?’ ‘ How has visualisation helped you understand the main ideas in this text?’ ‘ How does the visualisation strategy help us as comprehenders?’

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks When organising group instruction, teachers consider opportunities for students to practise the skills involved in visualisation through a range of different texts. Many of the tasks described above, along with the graphic organisers provided for this chapter (see downloadable resources) will be useful for maintenance and small-group practice. Students in the early primary years will likely draw on one sense at time as they learn to use the visualisation strategy to help their comprehension. However, as reading ability and experience develop, they will learn to use a range of images consecutively and to integrate visualisation with other strategies to develop, maintain and monitor comprehension.

Use of prompt cards During group oral repeated reading, the use of prompt cards is an effective way for students to monitor the visualisation strategy. Prompts include:

When I read this I saw …

When I read this I heard …

When I read this I saw … and this made me think about …

When I read this I tasted …

When I read this I heard … and this made me think about …

When I read this I touched …

When I read this I saw … and this made me understand …

When I read this I smelled …

When I read this I smelled … and this made me understand …

Building comprehension strategies

Self and peer assessment of the strategy Self and peer assessment teach students to learn about and understand their own learning, to monitor their own achievement and to set goals for future lessons. Students require deliberate teaching and modelling of how to use these assessments before they can use them independently or with a partner. Building Comprehension Strategies

Peer assessment

Visualisation: BLM 2 Name:

Buddy’s name:

Peer assessment The picture you have sketched shows me that:

When you explained the images you got as you read I heard you: • Tell me what you saw and give a reason for this

Yes/No

• Tell me what you heard and give a reason for this

Yes/No

• Tell me what you touched and give a reason for this

Yes/No

• Tell me what you tasted and give a reason for this

Yes/No

• Tell me what you smelled and give a reason for this

Yes/No

See Visualisation: BLM 2. The top section of this BLM can be used to assess how all senses are being used. The bottom section shows how teachers can adapt this peer assessment to include senses students are currently being taught. This may mean that for some students peer assessment may focus on only one or two senses.

The picture you have sketched shows me that you saw:

When you explained the image you got as you read I heard you tell me what you saw

Yes/No

When you explained the image you got as you read you gave me a reason from the text

Yes/No

Building Comprehension Strategies

Another form of peer assessment is: ‘Tell me what images you got as you read.’ This is similar to a walk-through of a text. Students ‘walk and talk’ through the text explaining to each other the images they gained as they read. Points can be allocated to this task, e.g. one point for each partner explanation—five points and you have completed the task!

Self assessment

Visualisation: BLM 3 Name:

Self assessment I am learning to use the visualisation strategy to help me comprehend as I read. Today I learned that …

One thing I need to practise is …

See Visualisation: BLM 3. Students consider what they learned, what they need to practise and what their next goal is as they are learning to use the visualisation strategy.

Graphic organisers

Tomorrow my goal will be to …

Building Comprehension Strategies

The graphic organisers for this chapter provide independent, partner or group activities that support teaching and learning of the visualisation strategy. These can be used in small-group instruction, as practice activities and to ensure maintenance of taught strategies.

Graphic organiser 1

Visualisation: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

Draw the images you see as you read.

This graphic organiser requires students to draw the images they ‘see’ as they read. This can be used for fiction and non-fiction texts. It can be used when students are reading during instruction, after instruction by assigning specific sections to each box and in response to listening to a teacher or partner read aloud. The teacher encourages students to talk about the images they have drawn and to give evidence as to how these images were gained from reading.

Visualisation

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 2

Visualisation: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

This graphic organiser requires students to record images they ‘see’ and ‘hear’. The organiser allows for four sections of text to be reviewed in this way. This could be four sentences or four paragraphs, or a combination of both.

Draw the images you see. Write what you hear.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 3

Visualisation: Graphic organiser 3 Name:

See

Hear

Taste

Smell

This graphic organiser requires students to draw on a range of senses to determine the overall image they are getting from reading. They identify key elements from each sense and then summarise the main image they have. This can be used for one or more sections of text as well as a summary of the entire text.

Touch

Overall, the image I have is …

Building comprehension strategies

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 4

Visualisation: Graphic organiser 4 Name:

Image

Evidence

Image

Evidence

Image

Evidence

This graphic organiser requires students to sequence the images they get as they read and record evidence to support these images. The evidence will come from vocabulary used in the text. The graphic organiser can be used for single sensory images (i.e. ‘see’ or ‘hear’) or it can be used for a combination of sensory images (i.e. ‘hear’, ‘smell’ and ‘touch’). Students can record with pictures, symbols and/or words.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 5

Visualisation: Graphic organiser 5 Name:

What I see

What I hear

Simile

Alliteration

Repetition

Sketch

What I smell

This graphic organiser requires students to draw on their knowledge of literary devices to write similes, alliteration and repetition to describe the visual images they are gaining as they read. Students then sketch the overall images they have gained. This activity not only draws on students’ knowledge of how authors use literary devices to create meaning but also encourages students to think about the impact the images they gain from reading have on their overall understanding of the text.

Chapter summary This chapter has provided support for explicit teaching, learning and student involvement related to the visualisation strategy. It has included an overview of the strategy, how to teach it and the learning gains for students using this strategy. Teaching and learning activities for class, group, partner and individual group instruction have been suggested. These can be used to provide instruction during reading comprehension lessons and also as maintenance and practice activities. The next chapter develops the comprehension strategy of asking and answering questions.

Chapter 6 Asking and answering questions

Asking and answering questions is the comprehension strategy through which skilled readers ask questions of themselves, the text and others in relation to what they are reading. In both asking and answering questions, students gain deeper understanding of the ideas, actions, events and information in a text. They learn to decipher important details central to comprehending text, to think critically about what they have read, to discuss, reflect, inquire and reason. Skilled readers ask and answer questions before, during and after reading. Before reading, they ask questions that prepare them for reading. Often these questions lead them to form predictions about what they might read. The questions may be based on one or more illustrations from the text, the title, the key idea or theme or a short extract shared with students prior to reading. During reading, students ask and answer questions for a variety of purposes that include: to check for understanding, to clarify new information or vocabulary, to follow a particular argument or line of thought or to identify facts, opinions, actions and behaviours. Asking and answering questions during reading often helps the developing reader to feel they are ‘in’ the text—to identify personally with the characters, actions, feelings and ideas. In this way, active questioning by the reader helps the text to come alive. In addition, asking and answering questions during reading effectively monitors a student’s developing comprehension. After reading, skilled readers ask and answer questions to seek additional or supporting information, to clarify aspects of the text, to consider alternative actions, opinions and outcomes and to become more familiar with the content and the main ideas they have just read about. Skilled readers ask and answer questions to: imagine consider reason ponder infer evaluate

question analyse reflect judge investigate inquire

Building comprehension strategies

Asking and answering questions: possible learning goals By sharing learning goals with their students, teachers provide explicit instruction on how readers learn to ask and answer questions as they read. They deliberately explain and instruct students on how to ask and answer a variety of questions asked for a variety of purposes. They demonstrate how using the strategy helps students to develop as skilled readers and how students can monitor their own reading through questioning. For example:

Key learning goal: We are learning to ask and answer questions as we read. Asking and answering questions is a strategy in which we deliberately think about the information the author has presented in the text. We think about the information in sentences, paragraphs, illustrations, titles, charts, diagrams and photographs and use this information to help us to ask and answer questions. Some questions we ask will help us to discover new information; some questions we answer will help us to understand the main ideas in the text. We learn that there are a variety of purposes for asking and answering questions. We use this strategy: •

•

before we read What will this text be about?

What will this character do in the text?

What is happening in this illustration?

What do I already know about this?

What will I read first?

What will I learn from reading this text?

What is happening?

What is the most important idea?

What do I expect to happen next? Why?

Am I understanding this?

Who is the main character?

Where is this taking place?

during reading

Asking and answering questions

•

after reading. What happened? Why did this happen?

How did this match my predictions?

What did I learn?

What did the main character do?

Why did it end this way?

What else might have happened?

What do I already know about this?

Learning to ask and answer questions helps us to become skilled readers because we learn to: •

deepen our understanding of the text

•

check that we understand what we read

•

connect and engage with the ideas in the text.

Specific learning goals for asking and answering questions vary depending on the learning needs of students, how confident the students are with understanding and using the strategy, the nature of the text and the complexity and demands of the reading tasks. While teachers consider a number of factors when selecting learning goals (and often involve students in this process), some examples of specific goals are provided below. Asking and answering questions—we will be successful when we can: · · · · · ·

read a sentence and ask a question about what we have read read a sentence and answer a question about what we have read read a paragraph and ask a question about the main idea in the paragraph read a paragraph and ask a question about the main character in the paragraph give evidence from the text to justify asking a question give evidence from the text to justify answers to a question.

Building comprehension strategies Specific learning goals may also relate to the kinds of questions students are learning to ask and/or answer as follows. Asking and answering questions—we will be successful when we can: · · · · · · ·

ask a literal question; answer a literal question ask an inferential question; answer an inferential question ask a question that starts with ‘why’/‘what’/‘how’/‘when’/‘where’/‘who’ ask a true/false question; answer a true/false question ask a multiple-choice question; answer a multiple-choice question ask an analytical question; answer an analytical question ask an evaluative question; answer an evaluative question.

Providing deliberate instruction Through deliberately planned instruction before, during and after reading, students can learn to use the questioning strategy to help them understand what they are reading. They will learn to ask and answer a range of questions about information in text that includes: · · · · ·

information from the title and cover page information from continuous text information from illustrations and photographs information from the contents page information from tables, charts, maps and diagrams.

Visual features such as font and layout may also generate opportunities for questioning text. Sometimes students find asking and answering questions a difficult strategy to develop. Other students may require the challenge of asking and answering more difficult questions. As teachers model the questioning strategy, they instruct, explain, question and demonstrate so that students learn to reflect on their own knowledge of the strategy and respond to such questions as: · · · ·

‘What is a question and why do I ask one?’ ‘ What information do I want to find out? What type of question should I ask to get this information?’ ‘What sort of question is this and how can I answer it?’ ‘What information do I need to be able to answer this question?’

Teachers can model using the talk-aloud and think-aloud approaches (see pages 10–11) to learn the questioning strategy as demonstrated in the following two examples.

Asking and answering questions

Example 1: asking questions based on visual features Floating gardens There is an amazing

floating garden in Mexico.

This garden

was built in a lake

In this example, Victor uses the think-aloud approach to demonstrate how to use the visual features of text to form and ask questions.

by the Aztec people over 500 years ago.

Victor: ‘When I first looked at the page I noticed the heading “Floating gardens”. I knew what a garden was but I needed to ask myself—what is a floating garden? I wondered: Is this garden really on water? What grows in this garden? These questions made me think about what I might find out as I read the text.

The Aztecs dug up weeds and mud and used these to make garden beds that floated on the lake. They planted vegetables in the floating garden beds.

‘Next I looked at the photograph. I saw that there were boats floating in water and I answered my own question that yes, there really must be a floating garden. I wanted to find out who built this garden and where it was so I asked myself: Who built this garden? Where is this garden?

From Amazing Gardens, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

‘Now I had quite a few questions I wanted to answer. I had used the heading and the photograph to help me form these questions. My next job was to read to see if I could find the answers to my questions.’ ·

Victor then makes explicit the questions asked from the visual features. Victor: ‘When I read the title what questions did I have? Why did I form those questions? How did asking questions help me as a reader?’

The

Fun Run

Example 2: asking questions based on the cover ·

Kate: ‘When I looked at the cover of this book there were some questions I asked myself. I saw a big elephant with pink ears holding on to a skipping rope. I asked myself: Who is the elephant? What is this elephant doing? Is the elephant really trying to skip? Why is this elephant on the cover of this book?’

Written by Mary-Anne Creasy Illustrated by Steve Axelsen

From The Fun Run, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

In this example, Kate uses the think-aloud approach to demonstrate how to use the cover of the text to form and ask questions.

Kate then records the questions she has asked. Kate: ‘I have looked at the cover and I have asked four questions about the elephant. Now I will need to read the text to see if I can find the answers. What will I need to do?’

Building comprehension strategies

Learning tasks The following section contains learning tasks to teach and maintain the comprehension strategy of asking and answering questions. Teachers can select and adapt those activities most appropriate to the needs and reading abilities of their students and use these activities to meet challenges that arise as students read. Each of these tasks can become an oral language activity for asking and answering questions or a written language recorded activity, or both.

Asking and answering questions based on the title and cover Teachers ask students to look at the cover and the title of a text and ask questions about the information they see. They record the questions students ask so that other students in the group can take turns to answer them. As students answer questions, the teacher ensures that they give a reason to support their answer. After the questions have been asked and answered, the teacher discusses with students what information they gained and what they had to be able to do to: · · ·

ask a question answer a question check the answer to a question.

It may be useful for teachers to have some question cards to scaffold students as they learn to ask and answer different types of questions. Students can be directed to ask specific questions. Teachers can vary the type and number of questions to meet the needs and abilities of their students. From Pirate Sam, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Written by Kerrie Shanahan Illustrated by Steve Axelsen

What is the title of this story? Who is Pirate Sam? What is Pirate Sam doing? What is Pirate Sam wearing? Where is Pirate Sam? What does he have in the boat with him?

Alternatively, students could take turns going around the group asking different questions about the title and cover. Each student has a turn to ask a question and to answer someone else’s question. Asking and answering questions about the title and cover page prepares students for reading the text and builds anticipation and prediction about what might happen in the story.

Asking and answering questions

Asking and answering ‘what, why, how, where, when and who’ The teacher writes each of the six questions on cards: What? Why? How? Where? When? Who? They teach students how to ask each question separately so that they are confident in asking a range of questions. Once students are able to ask these questions, the following activities can be developed. ·

The cards are placed upside down in a pile in the middle of the group so that students cannot see what question is on top. As students read a section of text they take turns at selecting a card. The student who has the card asks a question about the section they have just read, i.e. if the card is ‘Who?’, the student asks a ‘who’ question). Other members of the group try to answer the question, giving a reason to support each answer. Once answered, the card is returned to the pile.

Each question card is placed face up in the middle of the group. As students read a section of text they take turns at selecting a seen question from the cards. Others in the group take turns at answering the questions as above. Once the question has been asked, the card is set aside until all questions have been asked.

How?

When?

What?

? Why

Where?

Who

Building comprehension strategies ·

Two piles of question cards are placed on the table. Students take turns to select one from each pile to ask and answer questions.

Who?

What would?

Why?

When did?

Why can?

Asking and answering true/false questions Deliberately teaching students to write true/false statements from text they have read is a purposeful way of teaching them to understand this type of question. After they have read a section, the teacher asks students to compose a true or false statement based on what they have read. This requires students to identify key points and important information. They will need to think critically about their statements and how they frame them. Students then present their statements to other group members or to a partner to be answered.

Asking and answering literal and inferential questions Teachers provide instruction on what a literal question is and how to ask and answer literal questions. They teach literal questions through sharing of learning goals, specific instruction within lessons, students questioning each other and students finding answers to literal questions. For example:

We are learning to ask and answer literal questions. A literal question is a question that can be answered directly from the information in the sentences or illustrations in the text. Teachers also provide instruction on what an inferential question is and how to ask and answer inferential questions. They teach inferential questions through sharing of learning goals, specific instruction within lessons, students questioning each other and students finding answers to inferential questions. For example:

We are learning to ask and answer inferential questions. An inferential question is a question that cannot be answered directly from the text. Readers need to think about what they already know, think about the information in the text and gather clues to form ‘hunches’ about what the author means.

Asking and answering questions As students develop their ability to ask and answer literal and inferential questions, they are required to switch between the two types of questions during instructional reading and as an independent activity when they re-read text with partners. It may be useful for teachers to provide prompts for students as follows:

Literal questions: the answer is right there Inferential questions: the answer is not told directly—we have to use the information we have to guess

Additionally, students can take turns at asking a question—the student answering the question has to provide an answer and state whether the question was literal or inferential and why.

Developing quizzes from information in the text Building Comprehension Strategies

Asking and answering questions: Graphic organiser 2 Name(s):

How many questions can you answer?

• • • • • •

Score card Name Number correct

This activity will reinforce the asking and answering questions strategy either during reading or as a follow-up. Students can record questions on paper as they read and use these questions as the basis of a quiz for their peers after reading. Points can be allocated for correct answers. Students can be asked to use talk-aloud or think-aloud (see page 10) to explain and/or demonstrate how they reached the correct answer. In this way, one or two points per answer can be allocated. Asking and answering questions: Graphic organiser 2 can be used to support this activity.

Key questions about asking and answering questions The following key questions will reinforce the asking and answering questions strategy. The questions can be asked by teachers, or by students of other students. · · · · · · · ·

‘What do you know already?’ ‘What else do you need to know?’ ‘What question would help you find that out?’ ‘What information from the text will you ask a question about? ‘What type of question will you ask?’ ‘ What do you need to know and do to be able to answer a literal question?’ ‘ What do you need to know and do to be able to answer an inferential question?’ ‘How does asking a question help you understand what you read?’ ‘How does answering a question help you understand what you read?’

Building comprehension strategies

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks When organising group instruction, teachers consider opportunities for students to practise the skills involved in questioning through a range of different texts. Many of the tasks described above, along with the graphic organisers provided for this chapter (see downloadable resources), will be useful for maintenance and small-group practice. In addition, students can go back over their questions at the end of reading and discuss why they asked them, what they learned from answering them and how the questions helped them to build comprehension of the overall text, or specific aspects of the text, e.g. a character, an idea or an event. Students in the middle primary years may also be challenged to consider how they can use their knowledge of the questioning strategy to monitor their own reading and ‘fix up’ errors in comprehension as they occur.

What question did I have about what I was reading? What did I not understand? What question(s) did I ask to check my understanding?

Self and peer assessment of the strategy Self and peer assessment teach students to learn about and understand their own learning, to monitor their own achievement and to set goals for future lessons. These assessments require students to ask and answer questions related to the content of the text and also to the features of text—the title, the illustrations, the layout, the sentence structure, the dialogue. Two suggestions for peer assessment and two for self assessment are provided below. BLM 4 can be used by students to monitor their use of this strategy as they learn and practise it over a series of lessons. Deliberate teaching and modelling of both self and peer assessments is required before students can use them independently or with a partner. 84

Asking and answering questions

Building Comprehension Strategies

Peer assessment 1

Asking and answering questions: BLM 1 Name:

Buddy’s name:

See Asking and answering questions: BLM 1. In this assessment task, peers use the questioning strategy to work together to ask, respond to and check each other’s understanding of what they have read.

Peer assessment 1 Think of something interesting that was in the text you read today. Write questions for your partner to see if they understand this too!

Ask a question to see how well your partner knows/understands: • the main character Question:

• the setting Question:

Note: This activity links to student knowledge of text structure and text features associated with specific types of texts.

• the problem Question:

• the solution Question:

Building Comprehension Strategies

Peer assessment 2

Asking and answering questions: BLM 2 Name:

See Asking and answering questions: BLM 2. In this activity, students provide a written report card for their peers to summarise what they observed of their peer’s ability to ask and answer questions.

Peer assessment 2

Name:

Date:

You were able to answer the following questions: 1. 2. 3.

Overall your answers to the questions showed you: Have very good understanding of what you read Have some understanding but need to re-read to find out more information Have limited understanding of what you read

Building Comprehension Strategies

Self assessment 1

Asking and answering questions: BLM 3 Name:

Self assessment 1

I am learning to ask and answer questions to help me understand what I read. This strategy is helping me because

How am I going?

See Asking and answering questions: BLM 3. Students can assess their own use of the strategy using the prompts on the BLM. Teachers keep track of student self assessments over time to help monitor how their students think they are progressing. Self assessments are a useful tool for conversations about learning and progress and for feedback between teachers and students.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Self assessment 2

Asking and answering questions: BLM 4 Name:

Self assessment 2 I can …

Not yet

Just starting

Read a sentence/ paragraph and ask a question about what I have read

Read a sentence/ paragraph and answer a question about what I have read

Getting there

Got it!

See Asking and answering questions: BLM 4. This self assessment enables teachers and/or students to add specific types of questions to the assessment, based on the types of questions taught during instruction.

Give evidence from the text to justify asking a question

Give evidence from the text to justify my answer to a question

Ask and answer the following types of questions: • • • •

Building comprehension strategies

Graphic organisers The graphic organisers for this chapter provide independent, partner or group activities that support teaching and learning of the asking and answering questions comprehension strategy. These can be used as part of small-group instruction, as practice activities and to ensure maintenance of taught strategies. Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 1

Asking and answering questions: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

This graphic organiser requires the students to record the questions they have as they read. At the end of the activity students can:

Record the questions you have as you read.

record answers to their questions classify the questions according to purpose, e.g. to understand the plot, to understand the character, to understand the setting classify the questions according to the type of question, e.g. literal or inferential highlight the questions that most helped them to understand the main ideas in the text in red, those that helped them check their understanding in yellow and those that they asked to clarify information in blue.

This activity also provides a useful log of the types of questions students ask as they read. Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 2

Asking and answering questions: Graphic organiser 2 Name(s):

How many questions can you answer?

• • • • • •

Score card Name Number correct

This graphic organiser is for students to record questions that will form the basis of a quiz for other students who have read the same text. The quiz can be compiled independently or in pairs. It can be used with other students as part of group instruction with the teacher (where the teacher participates in the questioning and also asks students about the questions they are asking others). It can also be used as a group maintenance activity when the teacher is working with another group. In this case, a group leader may keep and record quiz points.

Asking and answering questions

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 3

Asking and answering questions: Graphic organiser 3 Name:

Who

Where

This graphic organiser provides a series of question starters and can be used in a variety of ways including:

When

Why

How

What

students record questions they have and the answers they discover during reading (either instructional reading or independent re-reading of known text) students number each question starter from 1 to 6. At the end of each section of text they have read, they roll a die. They then ask a question that starts with the question starter assigned to the number on the die students ask and answer questions and initiate discussion based on illustrations and photographs in the text.

Chapter summary This chapter has provided support for explicit teaching, learning and student involvement related to the asking and answering questions strategy. It has included an overview of the strategy, how to teach it and the learning gains for students using this strategy. Teaching and learning activities for class, group, partner and individual group instruction have been suggested. These can be used to provide instruction during reading comprehension lessons and also as maintenance and practice activities. The next chapter develops the comprehension strategy of inference.

Chapter 7 Inference

Inference is the comprehension strategy through which skilled readers use their prior knowledge along with information in the text to interpret, make assumptions, predict and/or draw conclusions about what they have read. The assumptions, interpretations, predictions and conclusions reached are not facts that are explicitly stated—they represent what the reader thinks they know as a result of taking the information in the text, reasoning from this and forming an inference. Readers form inferences from clues in the text. To do so the reader is required to search for deeper meanings—often described as ‘reading between the lines’. The information the reader gains when they infer is ‘implied’ information. It is often useful for students to think of the act of inferring information as becoming a detective—using clues in the text to work out what is happening and why. The clues they gain from reading become ‘evidence’ that builds up and enables students to make, describe and explain the inferences they are making as they are reading. Many readers in the early and middle primary years will not infer spontaneously and need carefully scaffolded instruction to support their understanding and use of this comprehension strategy. In addition, prior knowledge and vocabulary knowledge influence a reader’s ability to infer information as they read. The inference strategy is closely aligned to a number of other strategies, particularly the prior knowledge, prediction and visualisation strategies. It is therefore important to consider a reader’s developing knowledge and use of a range of strategies when providing instruction on inference. Skilled readers learn to infer before and during reading. They also infer after reading when they think back and reflect on what they have read. Before reading they make inferences based on titles, illustrations and prior knowledge.

Building comprehension strategies During reading they infer to gain, build and monitor comprehension. They draw on their knowledge of the author’s purpose and the structural features of the writing. They consider the vocabulary choices, the use of various sentence structures and the development of ideas and context as they gain meaning through inference. After reading they may infer based on the author’s purpose, the outcomes of what they have read and the events that may follow. Reading comprehension instruction provides students with the knowledge and understanding of how inference is gained: ·

at word level—knowledge of the meaning of a word develops inference as does knowledge that many words have multiple meanings. The teacher might say: ‘ Consider what you infer as you read each of these words: angry, beach, tree hut, run.’

at sentence level. The teacher might say: ‘ Consider what you infer as you read this sentence: The windy road seemed to go on forever.’

within a group of sentences or paragraph—at this level of inference students need to be able to recognise the links between two or more ideas. The teacher might say: ‘Consider what you infer as you read this paragraph: ‘ Many people crowded to see the final race. Ben was excited and nervous all at the same time. “How am I going to cope?” he said out loud. There was a loud “bang!” and the crowd shuffled forward. ‘ What kind of a race did you infer this to be? Did you infer Ben was in the race or that he was watching the race? Did you infer the loud bang was the signal for the race to start or did you infer a problem had occurred? What links between different ideas did you need to make in order to be able to infer?’

Readers also make inferences by drawing on a range of information they gather across various parts of an entire text. This is one important way of making their reading coherent. While readers may confirm, reject or alter their inferences as they read, the inferences they make help them to gain a deeper understand of text content.

Inference

Learning to infer: possible learning goals By sharing learning goals with their students, teachers provide explicit instruction on how readers learn to infer as they read. They deliberately explain and instruct students on how to make and check inferences. They provide instruction to demonstrate how use of the inference strategy helps a student to develop as a skilled reader and how students can monitor their own reading through monitoring and reflecting on their inferences.

Key learning goal: We are learning to infer as we read. Inference is a strategy in which we deliberately think about what we know and the ideas presented in the text in order to understand information the author has not stated explicitly. We use this strategy to help us gain deeper understanding of what the author has written. Learning to infer helps us to become skilled readers because we learn to: •

think carefully about what we are reading and what the underlining meaning is by learning to ‘read between the lines’

•

think carefully about what we are reading and whether it makes sense

•

think carefully about and understand the personalities and actions of the characters by making connections between stated and implied information

•

search for clues to gain deeper meaning and better understand the main ideas presented in the text

•

make assumptions and draw conclusions using explicit and implied information from text and illustrations

•

feel more involved and enjoy what we are reading as we read it.

Specific learning goals for inference vary depending on the learning needs of students, how confident the students are with understanding and using the strategy, the nature of the text and the complexity and demands of the reading tasks. Readers in the early primary years will be learning to make simple inferences. Readers in the middle primary years will be learning to make more complex inferences drawing on a wider range of textual clues. While teachers consider a number of factors when selecting learning goals (and often involve students in this process), some examples of specific goals are provided below. Inference—we will be successful when we can: · · ·

give examples of literal information gained from the text give examples of inferential information gained from the text recognise and discuss the links between two or more ideas that have led to an inference being made 91

Building comprehension strategies · · · · · ·

use our prior knowledge to help us infer describe what an inference is ask and answer questions about the information we have inferred ask and answer inferential questions explain what we inferred and how we came to make these inferences explain the difference between something stated explicitly (right there on the page) and something stated implicitly (not stated but a strong hunch) identify and discuss the ‘clues’ that helped us infer, e.g. a single word, a group of words, the use of punctuation, the use of repetition, onomatopoeia, simile, metaphor, the use of bold or italic font.

Instruction will focus on teaching students to infer a range of information from text including: · ·

feelings, e.g. reading to infer if a character is happy, sad, excited, determined, angry or deflated characteristics, e.g. reading to infer if a character is young or old; reading to infer if the setting is rural or urban.

More advanced readers will benefit from instruction that also focuses on gaining literal and inferential information from a range of visual text that includes maps, diagrams, photographs, charts and tables. In all cases, readers require prior knowledge of non-fiction text content before reading if they are to be able to infer information as they read. Remembering and using the information that has been read is important in learning to infer from non-fiction text. From The Weather Today, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Here are some tools early meteorologists didn’t have.

This is a barograph. It is a barometer that records the changes in air pressure that it measures. This helps meteorologists predict the weather by giving them a record of changes that they can compare with what they know happened.

This is a weather balloon. It goes high into the atmosphere to get information about the air at that height. It has weather instruments on board and can measure temperature, humidity and air pressure.

This is a weather satellite. Weather satellites take pictures of weather from high above the earth. They can see huge amounts of weather at once, which makes it easier for meteorologists to predict what will happen in certain areas. They can also test how clean the air is.

This is a picture of a hurricane. It was taken from a satellite to help forecasters predict weather, especially rain. The pictures show where rain is falling so forecasters can work out where the rain will go next. Forecasters can also give people warning of very heavy rain.

What information is stated? What information is inferred? What information do I need to combine?

From Pedal Power, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Learn to ride a unicycle 1 Wear a helmet and wrist guards. It is also a good idea to wear thick knee-high socks as you may get hit with the pedals a few times before you get the hang of it.

2 Get two friends to stand on either side of you and get up on the unicycle with your arms around their shoulders.

Did you know? The tallest unicycle ever ridden was 35 metres tall. The rider travelled a distance of 8.5 metres and wore a safety wire that was attached to an overhead crane.

3 Sit up straight and look straight ahead with your weight on the seat, not on the pedals. Rock the pedals back and forward to help you get a sense of balance. Try moving the pedals forward and backward.

What information is stated? What information is inferred? What information do I need to combine?

4 Do this again holding on to your friends’ wrists.

5 Try only holding on to one friend’s wrist.

6 Now go and try using a wall instead.

7 Practise a lot! 13

Inference From Pedal Power, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Chapter 1

Riding bikes Every day, all around the world, millions of people put on their helmets and go for a ride on their bikes. Some ride to school or work, some ride to get fit and others ride for fun. And some people ride bikes for a job.

What information is stated? What information is inferred? What information do I need to combine?

Providing deliberate instruction Learning to infer requires explicit instruction, including deliberately planned opportunities for students to learn how to make assumptions as they read, how to reason and how to draw connections. Below are examples of deliberate instruction in these skills.

Demonstrate and explain how to make assumptions To assume is to think, imagine or guess. · Saving Dad

Written by Mary-Anne Creasy Illustrated by Meredith Thomas

Simon (teacher): ‘When I looked at this illustration I saw Dad rubbing his head. I assumed he had hurt his head. I looked at the picture of the girl holding the dog close to her and read the title Saving Dad. I used both of these pieces of information to assume the dog belonged to the girl and that the dog had saved the girl’s dad. From these assumptions I inferred that the dog had saved Dad from something very bad.’ Simon then fills in the following graphic organiser to record the assumptions he made and the clues from the page that he used to make these assumptions.

From Saving Dad, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

The assumptions I made

The clues I used

Building comprehension strategies

Demonstrate and explain how to reason To reason is to work out, to deduce. ·

Simon: ‘Tell me what you see in the picture.’ Katelyn (student): ‘I see the dad and the girl on a motorbike. I see the dog racing behind. I see some cows underneath them.’ Simon: ‘Why are the cows underneath the girl and the dad?’ Katelyn: (no response) Josh (student): ‘Maybe they are underground.’

From Saving Dad, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Simon: ‘The cows seem to be going the other way to the girl and the dad. What reason could there be for this?’ Josh: ‘They could be lost.’ Simon: ‘How have you worked that out?’ Josh: ‘From thinking about the picture.’ Katelyn: ‘From using our prior knowledge.’ Simon: ‘You have used the information in the text to reason. This means that you have worked out an answer to a question you had about the information in the picture. You used several pieces of information from the picture and you also used your prior knowledge. Let’s read to find out what is actually happening.’

Demonstrate and explain how to draw connections between stated and implied information To draw connections is to make links between different pieces of information.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Inference: Graphic organiser 3

•

• •

•

Simon: ‘Now that I have read page 2 and looked at page 3 there are some things I know—these have been stated—and some things I think—these have been implied. If we write down what we know and then write down what we think, we can draw connections between both pieces of information to help us infer.’ Together Simon and the class complete Inference: Graphic organiser 3, giving reasons for what they record in each column.

•

What I know (prior knowledge)

What I infer

Name:

Inference

Demonstrate and explain how to draw conclusions To draw conclusions is to reach a final thought or idea. ·

Simon: ‘I have been thinking about what kind of character Abbey is. Have you reached any conclusions about this?’ Alicia (student): ‘I think Abbey is very sensible.’ Simon: ‘How did you reach that conclusion?’ Alicia: ‘First she tried to lift the motorbike off her dad (student points to this illustration), then she sent Sam to get help (student points to the sentence on page 8: “Go home, Sam,” said Abbey. “Go on. GO HOME.”) She also tried to light a fire to gain attention (student points to the second sentence on page 10). She used a red coat to make a flag (student points to the picture on page 12). She tried lots of sensible ways to help her dad.’ Simon: ‘You have told us and shown us four examples of actions that led you to the conclusion that Abbey is sensible. This is something you have inferred by reaching a conclusion. Well done.’

The think-aloud approach will help students learn to make connections between literal (stated) and implied information. It is effective in helping students to articulate what they are thinking and what they are doing as they make inferences when they read. It is also effective in helping them to discover how making inferences is useful in developing deep understanding and memory of text.

Learning tasks The following section contains learning tasks to teach and maintain the comprehension strategy of inference. Teachers can select and adapt those activities most appropriate to the needs and reading abilities of their students and use these activities to meet challenges that arise as students read.

What is stated explicitly? Literal information.

What information is implied? Inferential information.

Building comprehension strategies

Finding clues Building Comprehension Strategies

Inference: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

Question to be answered:

Clues:

This activity uses Inference: Graphic organisers 1 and 2. As students read sections of text and explore the information in the illustrations, they discuss and record their responses to inferential questions asked by the teacher. They write the clues they find for answering each question in the bag of clues. Students are encouraged to ‘add up the clues’ to reach inferences that will answer each question.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Inference: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

Inferential question:

Clues

Inferential question:

Clues

Inferential question:

Clues

Teachers provide a series of pictures that can be sequenced from the text. They ask students to place these together and discuss the inferences they are making when they use one and then a combination of picture clues from the text. Once students have discussed and completed this task, they are encouraged to talk aloud about the information they gained and the inferences they made. Students can also write inferential statements to explain what is happening, why it is happening and where something is taking place.

Inferential question:

Clues

This activity can be extended to include both pictures and key vocabulary from text.

Causal inferences Students are taught to make causal inferences, which is inferring something will happen as a result of an action or event. Prompts include: · · ·

Because of … I infer that … will happen I know … happened so now I infer … will happen So far I have read about … As a result I infer that I will now read about …

Teaching inference using picture books Picture books provide a wealth of opportunity for deliberately planned instruction on the inference comprehension strategy. They also provide a starting point for helping students to learn to write and interpret inferential statements. Teachers can provide opportunities for students to discuss what they infer from picture books, to orally retell the story through the inferences they made and to share, reason and justify based on the individual inferences made from the same information. The following are examples of student questions showing the process of inferential questioning.

Inference From The Queen’s New Chef, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

How does the chef feel?

What has the chef made?

What do the people think?

What will the Queen think?

What connections did we make between the picture, what we have read so far and our own experience?

The following example shows inferences made as a student linked to prior knowledge and made assumptions to help them infer.

The pancakes will be really yummy.

The Queen will love this!

The queen is really lucky.

This chef will win. 11

Building comprehension strategies

Teaching students to make inferences from sentences Teachers prepare a series of sentences from the reading text or from material students are using in their reading across the curriculum. Next to each statement, students write what they infer from reading the sentence. They use different coloured pens or pencils to highlight the ‘clues’ in the sentence and for each, try to label what they inferred as a result of that clue.

it was winter

it was cold

the character was happy

It was a really windy day but that did not bother me. the character had a hat and scarf on

the character liked windy days

Students share sentences with partners and other group members, asking each other to explain the inferences they made as they read the sentence.

Finding and discussing clues Students search for clues about what the author wants us to know but has not stated explicitly. Teachers and students use the following format to guide discussion and record ideas. Author’s clues

What they helped me understand and think about

Teaching inference through re-reading When students engage in re-reading activities they have gained a considerable amount of prior knowledge based on the first reading. They can bring this to the text to develop their knowledge and skills in learning about the strategy of inference. For this reason, re-reading provides several explicit opportunities for instruction, as follows. ·

Where teachers have recorded initial inferences from the first reading, a re-reading provides an opportunity for students to discuss the inferences they made, talk about why they made them and what different forms of information they drew on to make them, and what information they drew

Inference on in later reading that either confirmed or altered their inferences. Through carefully constructed questions and student explanations, teachers can draw out a range of opportunities for students to learn about, discuss and record the behaviours and knowledge they draw on as they infer information. The table below illustrates a record of inferences made during a first reading that the teacher and students revisited in subsequent re-readings. From There’s Gold in That Cave, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

“There is gold in that cave,” said Skinny Tim. “It says so on this map.”

Our first inferences

Building Comprehension Strategies

Inference: Graphic organiser 7 Name:

Title:

Inferential questions

Answers

Clues and connections

Were our inferences correct?

Inference

Reason

You have to follow a path to find gold.

We looked at the picture and the labels.

Yes! The path was on a map. The labels were places they went to.

Only big and brave people will find the gold.

The words ‘big’ and ‘brave’.

No! Big Stan was quite scared but he found the gold.

Skinny Tim is the tall man.

We looked at the illustration and matched the name.

Yes!

The re-reading of a text can be used to focus teacher and student questioning on inferential questions. Teachers record the inferential questions asked on chart paper or the interactive whiteboard. Next to each, they record the answer and then the clues in the text that students drew on in order to ‘read between the lines’ and infer. See Inference: Graphic organiser 7.

Summary of inferences

Building comprehension strategies

Examining text structure The structure of a text varies depending on the purpose of the writing, e.g. a narrative is structured quite differently to a report and to an explanation. Students are taught to recognise and search for the structural features of texts and use this knowledge to make and check the inferences they make during reading. For example: · ·

Building Comprehension Strategies

in a narrative, the reader’s knowledge of the structure of beginning, middle and end, and of problem–solution, can be used to support inference in an explanation, the reader’s knowledge that the text will include what the phenomenon is and why or how this is so can be used to support inference.

Infer from role-play

Inference: Graphic organiser 8 Name:

What I saw

What I inferred

•

Teachers encourage students to role-play excerpts of text. Students can role-play in groups of two or three while other students discuss and/or record the inferences they make about characters/actions/feelings/attitudes/most important information and so on. See Inference: Graphic organiser 8.

Inference helped me to:

Develop a group chart Teachers develop a group chart with steps to help readers infer. Below is an example from a reading group in a Grade 2 class.

To infer when we are reading we need to:

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•

think about our own experiences—what we know already

•

think about what the illustrations tell us

•

think about the ideas the author has written

•

tell each other—what I know from what is actually stated

•

tell each other—what I also know from clues within the text.

Inference Develop a group wall display In this task, students work together to develop a wall display of what they know about inference.

Key questions about inference Asking the following key questions during reading instruction will reinforce the inference strategy. The questions can be asked by teachers, with students answering and giving reasons for their answers, or by students of other students. · · · · · · · · · · · ·

‘ As you read this sentence, what literal information did you gain? What inferential information did you gain?’ ‘ As you read this paragraph, what literal information did you gain? What inferential information did you gain?’ ‘Does the author say that? How do you know?’ ‘What words helped you infer? Why?’ ‘What illustrations helped you infer? Why?’ ‘What prior knowledge helped you infer? Why?’ ‘What “clues” did you join together to help you make this inference?’ clue + clue + clue = inference ‘ What connections did you make as you read this sentence/paragraph/page?’ ‘How did you make these connections?’ ‘What did you learn from the inferences you made?’ ‘ How did your inferences help you better understand what you were reading?’ ‘How can you explain inference to someone else?’

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Building comprehension strategies

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks When organising group instruction, teachers consider opportunities for students to practise the skills involved in inference through a range of different texts. Many of the tasks described above, along with the graphic organisers provided for this chapter (see downloadable resources), will be useful for maintenance and smallgroup practice. In addition, students can go back over their inferences at the end of reading and discuss why they made the inferences and how learning how to infer helped develop their comprehension. Students in the middle primary years may also be challenged to consider how can use their knowledge of the inference strategy to monitor their own reading and ‘fix up’ errors in comprehension as they occur.

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Inference

Self and peer assessment of the strategy Self and peer assessment teach students to learn about and understand their own learning, to monitor their own achievement and to set goals for future lessons. Suggestions for self and peer assessment are provided below. Deliberate teaching and modelling of the use of these assessments is required before students can use them independently or with a partner. Building Comprehension Strategies

Self assessment 1

Inference: BLM 1 Name:

Date

Date Date

Date Self rating 1. I understand what inference is

3. I can explain to others what I do when I infer

What I inferred What I thought about What I read

2. I know how to connect ideas to infer

What I learned

Self assessment 1

See Inference: BLM 1. Students record what they know about inference and what they did that helped them learn to infer.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Self assessment 2

Inference: BLM 2 Name:

Self assessment 2 I can …

Not yet

Just starting

Getting there

Got it!

Give examples of literal information gained from the text

Give examples of inferential information gained from the text

Use prior knowledge to help me infer

Describe what an inference is

See Inference: BLM 2. This activity can be completed as students learn to master the inference strategy. Students tick and date where they assess themselves to be and add to this over several lessons, thus building a picture of achievement over the duration of the inference teaching focus.

Ask inferential questions

Answer inferential questions

Explain what I inferred and how I came to make this inference

Building Comprehension Strategies

Peer assessment

Inference: BLM 3 Name:

Peer assessment When you shared your think-aloud process for inference, I heard and saw you: • Explain what you were reading

Yes/No

• Explain (Tell me) what you inferred

Yes/No

• Explain (Tell me) what prior knowledge you used

Yes/No

• Explain and show what clues in written text you used

Yes/No

• Explain and show what visual clues you used

Yes/No

Comment:

See Inference: BLM 3. This activity can be completed in pairs or as a small-group activity with the teacher. The amount of support needed to complete this will vary according to various groups.

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Building comprehension strategies

Graphic organisers The graphic organisers for this chapter provide independent, partner or group activities that support teaching and learning of the inference comprehension strategy. These can be used in small-group instruction, as practice activities and to ensure maintenance of taught strategies. Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 1

Inference: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

Question to be answered:

Clues:

This graphic organiser requires students to record the key inferential question they want to answer at the top of the bag. As they read, they write in the bag all the clues they gather that help them to make inferential statements and answer the inferential question. The key question can be provided by the teacher or the students. If the students are forming inferential questions for others, this may be done as a pre-reading activity that is linked to pre-viewing of a text.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 2

Inference: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

Inferential question:

Clues

Inferential question:

Clues

This graphic organiser enables four different inferential questions to be recorded by students. Students becomes ‘detectives’, searching for and recording the clues that help form inferences. This can be an independent, pair or small-group activity.

Clues

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 3

Inference: Graphic organiser 3

•

This graphic organiser allows teachers and students to record what they know— their prior knowledge—and what they infer as they read. This can be used in a group lesson or independently as part of a re-reading of text.

•

What I know (prior knowledge)

What I infer

Name:

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Inference

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 4

Inference: Graphic organiser 4 Name:

Write your own inference equations.

+ Clue

Clue

Inference

This graphic organiser teaches students to understand how a number of different clues in the text will add up to an inference made during reading. This occurs when connections are made between different clues. The format of this graphic organiser shows students how ‘adding’ clues together will ‘equal’ an inference: clue + clue + clue = inference

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 5

Inference: Graphic organiser 5 Name:

Inferences made during reading

Inferences

Words that helped me infer

Clues

Clues from illustrations that helped me infer

Prior knowledge (what I already knew) that helped me infer

This graphic organiser requires students to record several of the inferences they make during reading and state the clues they used: words in the text, clues from illustrations and information from their prior knowledge.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 6

Inference: Graphic organiser 6 Name:

This graphic organiser requires students to record clues that helped them to infer on a ladder ‘leading’ to the inference. The analogy is that as students climb up the ‘clues’, they begin to form stronger inferences. Clues are recorded on each rung of the ladder and can include vocabulary, phrases, ideas triggered from other texts, ideas and experiences from prior knowledge, actions, events, headings and subheadings.

Inference

Clue

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 7

Inference: Graphic organiser 7 Name:

Title:

Inferential questions

Answers

Clues and connections

This graphic organiser can be used by students during a re-reading of a text, to record inferential questions, answers and the clues in the text that students drew on to form the inference.

Summary of inferences

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Building comprehension strategies

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 8

Inference: Graphic organiser 8 Name:

What I saw

What I inferred

•

This graphic organiser can be used by students to record what they saw and what they inferred as they watched other students performing a role-play of an excerpt of text.

Inference helped me to:

This chapter has provided support for explicit teaching, learning and student involvement related to the inference comprehension strategy. It has included an overview of the strategy, how to teach it and the learning gains for students using this strategy. Teaching and learning activities for class, group, partner and individual group instruction have been suggested. These can be used to provide instruction during reading comprehension lessons and also as maintenance and practice activities. The next chapter develops the comprehension strategy of summarisation.

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Chapter 8 Retell and paraphrasing

Retell is an essential comprehension strategy for readers of all ages. When students can retell they are able to talk aloud about what they have read. They use words, phrases and ideas in the text to tell others what the text was about. Retell enables the student to process what they have read by thinking about the text, organising what they have read in their own mind and sharing this with others. Paraphrasing is similar to retell but requires students to use their own words to tell and/or explain what they have read. Like retell, it is a strategy for all ages. The first part of this chapter provides information on teaching the retell strategy. The chapter concludes with information on paraphrasing (see page 118). Many of the retell activities can be adapted to provide instruction and practice with paraphrasing.

Students use a range of information to retell The retell strategy reinforces student knowledge and understanding of the structure of the text and of the language used by the author. The information they draw on when they retell comes directly from the text. This includes their knowledge of the text type they are reading (fiction or non-fiction), the structure/ genre of the text, the vocabulary used by the author and the sequence of main events or important ideas. The text information is what will help readers to structure their retell.

Retell develops an understanding of the type of writing Fiction text is imaginative text. Non-fiction text is factual text.

As students learn to retell, they learn to differentiate between fiction and nonfiction text. They also begin to develop an early sense of author’s purpose. They learn that when they retell fiction they are telling others about a story, play or an event that is not actually true. They choose language directly from the 107

Building comprehension strategies text and will likely relate this (either consciously or unconsciously) to their own knowledge and experiences. When they retell non-fiction, they learn to draw out important points and events and to retell these in an understandable and precise way that enables others to clearly understand what information the text is conveying. From The Coral Reef, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Coral polyps need to grow in shallow water so they can get plenty of sunlight. Sunlight allows the algae that live inside the polyps to make food.

Coral polyps need shallow water and sunlight.

Retell develops an understanding of the vocabulary used by the author As students learn to retell they learn to use language used by the author. Through retell, students learn to understand the meaning of the vocabulary in the context that it has been used by the author. They also learn to pay attention to the author’s use of particular phrases (e.g. the use of an adjective to describe a noun) or literary devices (e.g. the author may have used repetition to exaggerate something, resulting in the student consciously choosing to use the same repetition as they retell). Much vocabulary research highlights the importance of learners using vocabulary encountered in text in a number of different ways in order to build cognition of the word and its meaning(s) and to develop their reading vocabulary (e.g. Baumann & Kameenui 2004; Graves 2006; Lubliner & Scott, 2008). For this reason multiple exposures to new vocabulary, including deliberate use of new and interesting vocabulary through retell, is important.

Retell develops an understanding of the sequence of ideas As students learn to retell they learn to use vocabulary associated with sequence in order to retell events as they occurred or as they were explained in the text. They learn to use sequence vocabulary such as ‘At the beginning’, ‘Next’, ‘Then’, ‘Later’ and ‘After that’ to retell events. They also learn to use numerical order—‘First’, ‘Second’, ‘Third’—to retell in the order presented through the text. The use of sequence vocabulary helps students to recall and retell events in the sequence in which they were read.

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Retell and paraphrasing

Some time later

Next First

r Late

After that

Then

Retell develops and supports oral language As a strategy, retell develops and supports active listening skills by teaching students to think about the information they hear and to remember it. Retell requires a student to think purposefully about what they hear and encourages them to seek clarification when they do not understand something. It helps students to listen to make connections between what they already know and what they are hearing. Retell also helps students to learn to listen for specific words and events, e.g. sequence words and subject-specific vocabulary.

Learning to retell: possible learning goals By sharing learning goals with their students, teachers provide explicit instruction on what retell is, how to retell, how retell will develop skilled readers and how students can monitor their own reading through retell.

Key learning goal: We are learning to retell what we have read. Retell is the strategy by which we tell about what we have read AFTER we have read it. Retell helps us to become skilled readers because we learn: •

that if we cannot retell we need to read the text again

•

how to check if we understand what we read

•

how to better understand the words and ideas the author has written.

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Building comprehension strategies Specific learning goals for retell vary depending on the learning needs of students, how confident the students are with understanding and using the strategy, the nature of the text and the complexity and demands of the reading tasks. While teachers consider a number of factors when selecting learning goals (and often involve students in this process), some examples of specific goals are provided below. Retell—we will be successful when we can: ·

read a page and retell what we have read

This page was about …

read several pages and retell what we have read

This book is about …

· · · · · · · ·

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Reading this page I learned …

In this text we read about …

use pictures to help us retell use key words to help us retell tell others what we have read using words from the text to help us tell others what we have read in the sequence we have read in the text retell the beginning, middle and end of the text retell according to the sequence in which we read the information retell through the eyes and actions of the main character retell through the shifts in settings.

Retell and paraphrasing

Providing deliberate instruction: retell By providing explicit teaching of the retell strategy and practice activities, teachers enable students to build their knowledge of retelling in order to recall, state and understand important ideas and events. Students can be taught to retell the text by: · · · ·

selecting the important details telling the details in the correct order using a clear and expressive voice re-reading to check facts as necessary.

Through instruction teachers explain to students what retell is and deliberately model a retell. They involve students in this process by asking them to explain what the teacher is doing and why they are doing this as they retell. They ask students to demonstrate and explain what a retell actually is, what needs to be in a retell and how to use sequence for retelling events in order. Teachers should start teaching retell with easier and shorter texts and then move on to longer texts as students develop confidence and the ability to know what retell is and how to retell. ·

In the example below, the teacher, Tina, provides explicit demonstration of the strategy. Tina: ‘Watch me—I am going to retell a story using these cards.’

What

Who

Where

Tina retells the text to the students telling them what happened, who it happened to and where it happened. She deliberately uses language from the text in her retell. After she has demonstrated this to her students she asks: Tina: ‘What did I do when I was retelling? How is retell different to reading a text? How can retell help you to understand what you are reading?’ ·

Tina and her students then develop and write a list of behaviours they saw and heard during the retell.

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Building comprehension strategies

When we watched and listened to your retell we … Saw you

Heard you

Learning tasks The following section contains learning tasks to teach and maintain the comprehension strategy of retell. Teachers can select and adapt those activities most appropriate to the needs and reading abilities of their students and use these activities to meet challenges that arise as students read.

Oral retell after each page/section read The goal of this activity is to encourage readers to talk about and retell what they are reading and what has been read. Students will draw on their prior knowledge, the illustrations and the written text to help them as they retell. Teachers can observe, prompt and question students as they retell as one way of monitoring and understanding factors helping or hindering their students’ developing comprehension. After each page students have read, teachers can ask questions such as: · · · · ·

‘What did the author tell us on this page?’ ‘What was this page about?’ ‘What happened on this page?’ ‘What did the author tell us in this paragraph?’ ‘What was this paragraph about?’

Prompt for further information by asking about characters, places and events as needed.

Retell by asking and answering questions about the text Teachers use the think–peer–share approach to encourage students to think about what they have read, turn to a peer in the group and share what they read about. They extend this to include opportunities for partners to prompt each other, for example: · ·

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‘Can you tell me anything else?’ ‘What else did you read?’

Retell and paraphrasing

Retell using pictures and illustrations Students are encouraged to retell through pictures and illustrations in the text with prompts such as: · · · ·

‘Use the pictures to tell us what happens on this page.’ ‘Use the pictures to tell us what happens. Now see if you can find some words the author used to tell us this.’ Provide students with a selection of pictures from the text. Ask them to sequence the pictures in order and retell based on the sequenced pictures. Provide students with a selection of pictures and key words from the text. Ask them to sequence the pictures and place key words alongside. Then ask them to use both the pictures and the words to retell the text. Provide students with a selection of pictures and sequence words to show order. Ask them to sequence the pictures and place sequence words alongside. Then ask students to use both the pictures and the sequence words to retell the text. Sequence words include ‘First’, ‘Next’, ‘Then’, ‘Some time later’, ‘At the end’, ‘Later’, ‘In conclusion’ and ‘Finally’. Provide students with a selection of pictures from the text and a set of question cards. Tell them to use the cards to ask questions of the pictures to retell the main ideas in the text. Question cards include ‘What’, ‘When’, ‘Where’, ‘Why’ and ‘Who’.

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Retell using text sequence Teachers provide language structures to support students as they learn to retell. These will include sentences that can be used as prompts, for example: · · · · · · · · · ·

At the beginning of this text … At the beginning of this fiction text … The first idea in this non-fiction text was … On the next page we read about … As we read further we learned about … This story started by … The next event was … The problem encountered was … As I read this text I learned about … Reading this page told me about …

Students are encouraged to use language and language structures from the text as they develop their ability to retell.

Retell using key words from the text Teachers encourage retell based on key words in the text. ·

· ·

They write key words on a chart. Students make their way through the text including key vocabulary in their retell. Key vocabulary can be ‘ticked off ’ when used in each retell. They provide a list of key words that students can use to order and retell. They write key words on cards. Students are given the key words and a set of question cards (‘Who’, ‘What’, ‘Where’, ‘When’, ‘Why’). Students ask questions about the key words in order to retell what happened in the text.

Retell using key sentences from the text Students learn to retell based on key sentences. · ·

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Teachers write key sentences on strips of paper or cardboard. Students arrange them in the order they occurred in the text and retell from this. This task can be extended by selecting a range of key phrases and some sentences. Students arrange these in the order they occurred in the text and retell from this. Note: the combination of sentences and phrases a teacher selects will affect the challenge level of this task.

Retell and paraphrasing

Draw sketches to assist retell ·

Teachers read the text aloud to students. They ask students to sketch while listening to the text, then to retell from their sketches. Note: Teachers may use an entire short text for this activity and ask students to sketch one or two things they hear or they may use an extract from a text that contains information they require students to be able to retell. This task can be extended for more advanced readers, who can complete a series of four to six sketches, cut them up and give them to another student to use to sequence and retell. Students may complete a storyboard based on the text and retell from their storyboard. This can be an individual or partner activity.

Retell based on the structure of the text Fiction texts Building Comprehension Strategies

After students have read the text, teachers ask them to re-read to identify what happened at the beginning, middle and end of the text (Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 1 will be useful for this task). Once they have sequenced the events in the story, students are encouraged to use this to retell the story to several other students in the group. Students can compare the details they each include in their retell and discuss the differences between each.

Students consider the story through the eyes of one of the main characters. They sequence what happened to the character and use this as the basis of a retell to a partner or back to the whole group (Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 3 will be useful for this task).

The teacher lists with the students the key settings in the text. Students retell the story based on what happened at each of these settings (Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 5 will be useful for this task).

Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

What happened at the beginning?

What happened in the middle?

What happened at the end?

Building Comprehension Strategies

Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 3 Name:

Main character:

What happened first?

What happened second?

What happened third?

What happened next?

Building Comprehension Strategies

Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 5 Name:

Text:

Key settings in the text

What happened at each setting

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Building comprehension strategies Non-fiction texts ·

Where there are subheadings in the text, teachers and students discuss the significance of these headings in understanding the main points the author is telling readers about. Students use these subheadings to retell the main points of the text. Where diagrams and charts are included in the text, teachers and students discuss the significance of these features in helping the reader to understand the text content. Students practise retell based on these features.

Deliberately link the retell strategy to other comprehension strategies The retell strategy links well to the visualisation and asking and answering questions comprehension strategies. Students can retell through the visual images they gain as they read, e.g. the first/second visual image I have of the setting, the first/second visual image I have of the character. They can also retell by asking and answering questions of themselves and others as they read. This can be through oral questioning or through preparing and presenting a series of quiz questions.

Key questions about retell The following key questions will reinforce the retell strategy. The questions can be asked by teachers, or by students of other students. · · · · · · ·

‘What is the text called?’ ‘Was the text fiction or non-fiction?’ ‘What is it about?’ ‘What did you learn from reading the text?’ ‘What were the main ideas? Tell them in the order they occurred.’ ‘What is the most important thing you remember from this text?’ ‘What is the most important thing you learned from this text?’

Prompt students as necessary: · · ·

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‘Can you tell me more?’ ‘What makes you say that?’ ‘What else can you tell us about the text/event/character/topic?’

Retell and paraphrasing

Teachers may also provide prompts to encourage retell activities. These could be included as part of group instruction and could also be independent activities. Prompts may include: • • •

using puppets for retell (student-made or commercially purchased puppets) putting students into the role of a TV or radio news reporter playing Hot Fire, where students pass around an object such as a ball or a bag. Whoever holds the object has to continue the retell before passing it on. The object passed around is the ‘hot fire’.

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks When organising group instruction, teachers consider opportunities for students to practise the skills involved in retell through a range of different texts. Many of the tasks described above, along with the graphic organisers provided for this chapter (see downloadable resources), will be useful for maintenance and smallgroup practice. In addition, students may practise the retell strategy through drama, audio and digital recording or podcast. Students can also work in small groups and retell a text together, with each retelling a specific part. This can include retell from text features including charts, maps, diagrams and photographs.

Self and peer assessment of the strategy Self and peer assessment teach students to learn about and understand their own learning, to monitor their own achievement and to set goals for future lessons. Deliberate teaching and modelling of the use of these assessments is required before students can use them independently or with a partner. Building Comprehension Strategies

Peer assessment

Retell and paraphrasing: BLM 1 Name:

See Retell and paraphrasing: BLM 1. Students use the top part of the sheet to record their retell of the text to two or more other students. Their partner checks the retell, asks two or three questions and signs the bottom part of the sheet.

Partner monitoring Who did I retell to today? Date

Partner 1

Partner 2

How well did I retell today? Date

Sign

Note: Teachers and students determine the criteria for assessing the retell based on the learning goals of the lessons they are engaged in.

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Building comprehension strategies

Building Comprehension Strategies

Self assessment

Retell and paraphrasing: BLM 2 Name:

Student learning log I have learned to …

My next goal is to …

See Retell and paraphrasing: BLM 2. Students record what they are learning and their goal for the next retell session. They share and discuss this with their teacher and with other students in their group as they talk about their learning. Students can also refer to their learning log as they demonstrate what they have learned about retell to their teacher and/or their peers.

Group feedback task Students select their own texts for retell. They work in groups of three, taking turns to retell and giving each other feedback to include: · · · ·

‘When you retold the story to us I noticed that you …’ ‘One thing you did really well when you retold the story was …’ ‘One thing I learned about retell today was …’ ‘One thing I learned about what you retold today was …’

Paraphrasing Paraphrasing is the reading comprehension strategy that requires the reader to put the content of what they have read into their own words. In effect they are learning to translate what they have read and comprehended into their own language. Like retell, paraphrasing is a strategy students can use to monitor and improve their comprehension. Paraphrasing differs from retell in that retell requires a reader to use vocabulary directly from the text. Paraphrasing helps students to retell. It can be taught as a strategy on its own, or in conjunction with other strategies. Paraphrasing and retell are similar but NOT the same. In retell, students use vocabulary direct from the text. In paraphrasing, they draw on and use their own vocabulary.

Providing deliberate instruction: paraphrasing Many of the activities outlined in this chapter as retell teaching and learning activities can be adapted for paraphrasing (see pages 112–115). Paraphrasing is often taught by directing students to put the text down at certain stages of reading and tell in their own words what they have read so far. As with retell, paraphrasing can be supported by note-taking, identifying key sentences, asking and answering questions and sketching.

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Retell and paraphrasing The following example shows the procedure that can be used to teach the purpose of the paraphrasing strategy and how to use it. ·

The teacher, Helen, explains the strategy to her students.

We use the strategy of paraphrasing to help us put what we have read and understood into our own words. First we read a section of the text. Then we put the text down and say what we have just read. If we need to, we can check the text again for facts and try a second time.

The earth is surrounded by a layer of air called the atmosphere.

From The Weather Today, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Helen paraphrases: ‘Around the earth is the atmosphere.’

Helen demonstrates the strategy. She reads a section of text, then puts the text down and says what she read using her own words.

Helen reads another section of text. She begins to paraphrase and asks students to join in by putting into their own words what she has just read.

The earth is surrounded by a layer of air called the atmosphere. This is where all the weather happens. As the wind, temperature, cloudiness and moisture in different parts of the atmosphere change, so does the weather.

Kostas (student) paraphrases: ‘We get changes in weather because the atmosphere changes.’ Helen: ‘Can you tell the group the words and ideas you used to help you paraphrase?’ Sophie (student) paraphrases: ‘Changes in the air surrounding the earth change the weather.’ Helen: ‘How do you know this? Which words and phrases help you to know this?’

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Building comprehension strategies Helen asks students what they needed to know and do in order to paraphrase what was read. It is important for students to understand that: · · · ·

As they paraphrase, they may return to the text to skim over a section to check on an aspect of text they are describing. If they can’t remember something they want to include, they can return to the text to find additional information. Paraphrasing is a way of monitoring comprehension—if you can’t paraphrase then you are not understanding the detail of what you are reading. Paraphrasing is a useful strategy for fiction and non-fiction texts.

Graphic organisers The graphic organisers for this chapter provide independent, partner or group activities that support teaching and learning of the retell and paraphrasing strategies. These can be used as part of small-group instruction, as practice activities and to ensure maintenance of taught strategies. Each graphic organiser can be used for either retell or paraphrasing. Teachers write either ‘RETELL’ or ‘PARAPHRASING’ in the box at the top of the graphic organiser before the task is introduced to the students. Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 1

Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

This graphic organiser requires students to retell or paraphrase what happened in the beginning, middle and end of a fiction text. If it is a retell then they must include vocabulary from the text. If they are paraphrasing they use their own vocabulary. Students can complete this with words, phrases, sentences, as bullet points, with a sketch or with any combination of these.

What happened at the beginning?

What happened in the middle?

What happened at the end?

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 2

Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

Key words from text What happened at the beginning?

What happened in the middle?

What happened at the end?

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This graphic organiser requires students to identify and list key vocabulary from a fiction text. They then use this list to support them as they either retell or paraphrase what happened at the beginning, the middle and the end of the text. This graphic organiser can be used to support an individual or group oral retell of the text and can also be used for a written retell/paraphrase task.

Retell and paraphrasing

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 3

Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 3 Name:

This graphic organiser helps students to learn to retell and/or paraphrase through the eyes of the main character. The task also builds student knowledge and use of sequence vocabulary. This can be used to support both oral and written retell and paraphrasing. Students can also record ideas and or sketches and use these to support an oral retell.

Main character:

What happened first?

What happened second?

What happened third?

What happened next?

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 4

Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 4 Name:

Key words

Sketch

This graphic organiser requires students to draw on the key vocabulary and images from the text and the images they visualise as they are reading (see also Chapter 5: Visualisation, page 61) to help them to retell or paraphrase the text. Students record key words and sketches to help them retell. The task can also be used as a prompt to support an oral retell and/or paraphrasing.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 5

Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 5 Name:

Text:

Key settings in the text

What happened at each setting

This graphic organiser requires students to list the key settings in the text, then retell the story based on what happened at each of these settings.

This chapter has focused on the comprehension strategies of retell and paraphrasing. It has provided an overview of the strategies, learning goals and examples of effective teaching and learning activities. Retell and paraphrasing are not only comprehension strategies—they are also a common form of reading comprehension assessment. Observing and recording a student’s retell and/or paraphrasing of a text enables the teacher to identify the aspects of the text the student thought were most important, and helps them observe how the student organises information from text and whether they are able to identify concepts and main ideas. Furthermore, both strategies are often considered a precursor to summarisation. The next chapter explores the comprehension strategy of summarisation.

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Chapter 9 Summarisation

Summarisation is the comprehension strategy through which skilled readers learn to make mental and written summaries of what they read. This is an important strategy for students in the middle primary years as they begin to read longer and more complex texts and learn how to reduce the information they gather down to the most important detail. The summarisation strategy requires active thinking by the students as they read, identifying the main points and ideas the author is making. Readers need to choose the most important ideas based on the purpose of the material. In doing this, skilled readers consider the text structure, the vocabulary used and the overall theme of the text to help them summarise. Students in the early primary years will focus on retell and paraphrasing, and these strategies are often considered a ‘bridge’ to learning to summarise. As students move through the middle primary years of school, the demands of texts require them to extend their ability to retell and paraphrase and develop their ability to summarise. Summarisation is a complex strategy because it requires students to draw on a range of other strategies. Therefore the summarisation strategy will often involve students in: · · · · · · · ·

linking to their prior knowledge asking and answering questions determining importance paraphrasing and retelling linking to knowledge of text structure and purpose understanding literal meaning understanding inferential meaning synthesising information across a whole text, or large parts of a text.

The skills involved with learning to summarise take time to develop and require explicit teaching and ongoing practice and maintenance with lots of different types of texts.

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Building comprehension strategies The following are examples of instruction that draw on other strategies to support the development of the summarisation strategy. ·

· · · ·

Asking and answering questions strategy: asking what, why, how, where, when and who questions is useful in helping students to organise information from text in order to be able to create summaries. Identifying literal information: listing literal information and recalling this information to create summaries. Identifying inferential information: listing inferential clues and recalling this detail to create summaries. Developing knowledge of text structure: creating a template of the structure of the text and completing this to develop a summary of the text. Synthesising information across a text: drawing a diagram to bring together ideas within the text.

Learning to summarise: possible learning goals By sharing learning goals with their students, teachers provide explicit instruction on how readers learn to summarise as they read. They deliberately explain and instruct students on how to create a summary, how use of the summarisation strategy helps students to develop as skilled readers and how students can monitor their own reading through making, checking and reflecting on their summaries. When students learn to summarise they learn to: · · · · · · · · · ·

think about parts of a text and how the parts relate to the whole text look closely at text and think about what they are reading to work out the most important information record important ideas in the sequence in which they occur in a text remember details about what was read identify and state the most important points and ideas combine ideas about the same topic, event or issue delete information that is trivial or less important to the overall ideas in a text reflect on how the parts of a text relate to each other restate what the author has said in fewer words use vocabulary associated with making summaries.

When first introducing and teaching the skills of summarisation, teachers should use a text that contains familiar content, links directly to the prior knowledge of students and is written using a structure that is familiar to them.

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Summarisation Specific learning goals for summarisation vary depending on the learning needs of students, how confident the students are with understanding and using the strategy, the nature of the text and the complexity and demands of the reading tasks. While teachers consider a number of factors when selecting learning goals (and often involve students in this process), some examples of specific goals are provided below. Example 1 is a chart constructed by the teacher and students to focus instruction and student reflection.

Example 1 Key learning goal: We are learning to summarise what we read. Summarisation is a strategy in which we deliberately think about what we know and the most important ideas the author is telling us. Learning to summarise helps us become skilled readers because we learn to: •

think about what we are reading

•

work out the most important ideas

•

list these ideas

•

put these ideas together to ‘sum up’ or SUMMARISE what the author has told us.

Example 2 shows learning goals where students share and describe the main idea—what they selected as the main idea and why they selected this idea.

Example 2 Learning to summarise—we will be successful when we can: •

read a paragraph

•

think about what we have read

•

highlight the most important idea

•

share the most important idea with others and give reasons why we think our idea is most important.

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Building comprehension strategies Example 3 shows learning goals that support combining information across a larger section of text.

Example 3 We are learning to combine important ideas on the topic to make a summary. We will be successful when we can: •

work out the main idea from each section of text

•

write these ideas down

•

go over what we have written and delete the ideas that we think are least important

•

combine the most important ideas

•

present our summary for others to consider. Providing deliberate instruction Through deliberately planned instruction during and after reading, students can learn to use the summarisation strategy to help them understand and remember what they are reading. Sometimes students find summarisation a difficult strategy to develop. For this reason, it may be important to demonstrate explicitly the processes of read, pause, reflect, predict and check, encouraging students to talk aloud and think aloud as they do so.

Example 1 ·

In this lesson, the teacher, Liz, focuses on the key question: Why do animals use caves? Liz: ‘This text tells us about animals that go into caves. Why might animals go into a cave?’ (predictions are recorded)

Written by Hannah Reed

From Animals in Caves, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

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Summarisation ·

Liz reads aloud the first sentence on page 2: ‘Many animals use caves.’ Liz: ‘I want you to read on to the end of page 2 to find out why animals use caves.’ Students read page 2 to themselves before responding to the question as follows: Clare (student): ‘To find food.’ Carlos (student): ‘To find shelter.’ Jake (student): ‘To live.’ Liz: ‘You have found three important facts from this page. We can record these as:’

To find food

To find shelter Why do animals use caves?

To live

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Building comprehension strategies · ·

Students take turns at making a summary statement from what they have read so far. As the lesson develops, Liz and the students add other important information to the diagram as follows:

To find food pack rats

To find shelter Why do animals use caves?

foxes

bones and scraps

rest and sleep To live cave fish live in deep streams

cave spiders live all the time

Liz: ‘We have made a diagram to show a summary of the most important ideas about why animals live in caves. We read the text and thought about what was most important. We recorded the ideas we thought were most important. We left out other less important information. We have summarised what the author said in fewer words. We are learning to summarise during and after reading.’

Example 2

I Am an Inventor

In this example, students are learning to combine important information from various parts of the text to create a succinct summary about the invention of a safer bicycle helmet. The teacher, Anna: – –

Written by Mary-Anne Creasy

From I Am an Inventor, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

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–

provides a clear description of the summarisation strategy deliberately selects high-interest content that links to the prior knowledge and experiences of her students models the think-aloud approach (see page 10) to show how she worked out the most important information.

Summarisation Anna: ‘We have been learning how to identify important ideas to help us create a summary. We know we have to be able to figure out the most important ideas, highlight or list these and put this information together as briefly as possible. Today we are going to practise creating a summary. We will read the text and highlight the main ideas in the order we read them.’ ·

Anna: ‘Let me show you what I am doing when I summarise.’ She reads aloud pages 6 and 7. Chapter 1

Don sees a problem Twenty years ago, Don worked on a research project at a university.

He was researching

what happened to bicycle helmets when riders crashed. Don set up experiments in his laboratory to test more than 100 different types of helmets.

Don also visited crash sites to see what happened to helmets when people crashed. It was part of his job to take the helmets back to the laboratory to study them.

Becoming an inventor Step 1: Find a problem that needs to be solved. 6

Anna: ‘When I read this, I thought about what information was most important. I knew that what happened to bicycle helmets when riders crashed was very important so I highlighted this information in blue. I also thought testing different types and visited crash sites to study helmets might be important so I underlined these words.’ Chapter 1

Don sees a problem Twenty years ago, Don worked on a research project at a university.

He was researching

what happened to bicycle helmets when riders crashed. Don set up experiments in his laboratory to test more than 100 different types of helmets.

Don also visited crash sites to see what happened to helmets when people crashed. It was part of his job to take the helmets back to the laboratory to study them.

Becoming an inventor Step 1: Find a problem that needs to be solved. 6

Anna: ‘It seems that this text is going to be about making bicycle helmets safer. I can predict this from the most important information I have found so far. Watch me as I read the next pages aloud and think about the most important ideas the author has written on these pages.’ She reads pages 8 and 9 aloud.

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Building comprehension strategies

When Don’s daughter was learning to ride a bike, he checked his daughter’s helmet.

He knew it was not as safe

as it could be. It was then that Don decided that he would have to make a safer helmet himself. He would become an inventor. During the experiments, Don found out that the helmets did not protect the riders’ heads as well as they could.

The lining inside the

helmets was too hard.

The lining needed

to be much softer to protect a rider’s head from the force of a crash. Don knew that helmets needed to be safer, but no one was interested in what Don had found out from his experiments. 8

Anna: ‘When I read this I had to think carefully about what the author was telling me. I could not just pick out any idea. I had to think of what the most important information was. I knew that Don discovered that the helmets did not protect riders’ heads as well as they could so I thought that was a really important discovery. I also read that he decided to make a safer helmet himself and I thought that this was important information. So I highlighted these ideas in blue.’ Learning to combine information from one part of the text to the next through highlighting creates a visual for students to return to as they delete less important information. ·

As Anna continues to model her thinking aloud for students, she observes their understanding of the process of highlighting important ideas to develop the summarisation strategy. She begins to invite students to contribute the ideas they think are most important and to explain the reason for their selection using the think-aloud approach themselves.

Chapter 2

A great idea

I thought that the lining would be the part Don would need to make safer.

Don knew that the lining inside a helmet was the most important part of the helmet. He tried different ways to make the lining inside the helmet softer. One day Don was at home preparing for one of his classes at the university

I thought this was really important information because this told us how the lining of the helmet was going to change.

when a great idea popped into his head. He thought about using little foam cones inside the lining of a bicycle helmet. He thought that the foam cones would protect the rider’s head from the crash.

Becoming an inventor Step 1

Step 2: Think of an invention that will solve the problem.

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I thought this was the most important idea because it is what the whole page is about – protection!

Summarisation As teachers model the summarisation strategy, they instruct, explain, question and demonstrate so that students learn to reflect on their own knowledge of the strategy and respond to such questions as: · · · ·

‘What did I do when I made a summary statement?’ ‘What did I do when I summarised a range of information?’ ‘What did YOU do when YOU made a summary statement?’ ‘What did YOU do when YOU summarised a range of information?’

Learning tasks The following section contains learning tasks to teach and maintain the comprehension strategy of summarisation. Teachers can select and adapt those activities most appropriate to the needs and reading abilities of their students and the learning goals they are focusing on, and use these activities to meet challenges that arise as students read. Building Comprehension Strategies

Recognising and summarising main ideas—narrative text

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 3 Name:

This learning task is for narrative text. Students draw on their knowledge of the sequence of events to help them as they learn to recognise and summarise the main ideas. They find the most important ideas and events that happened at the beginning, the middle and end of the text. As they do so, they learn to put together the most important ideas and events in the story in sequence. This can be recorded on Summarisation: Graphic organiser 3.

Find the most important ideas as you read. Sequence

Important ideas

Beginning

Middle

End

Building Comprehension Strategies

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 4 Name:

Important information

Supporting detail

Key words

Problem/setting/ character

Vocabulary from the text

One summary sentence

Identifying and summarising important information —narrative text This learning task is for narrative text. Students focus on identifying important information about either a problem occurring in the text, the setting or one or more characters. They record the important information and for each idea they add evidence from the text and write one summary sentence. This can be recorded on Summarisation: Graphic organiser 4.

Choosing titles as summaries of information read In this task, students read a section of text and select a title and/or subtitles to become a summary of what they have read. Students explain why they chose the title, drawing on evidence from the text and justifying their choices.

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Building comprehension strategies

Building Comprehension Strategies

Summarising non-fiction text

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 5 Name:

List main ideas in order

Diagram to illustrate main idea

Key words

In this task, students record main ideas as they read. They list the key words that are in each section and draw a diagram to illustrate each main idea. Students draw on their knowledge of the sequence of ideas to help them as they learn to recognise and summarise the main ideas. This can be recorded on Summarisation: Graphic organiser 5.

Recording new information This task provides a way for students to record or log new ideas as they read them. They can then return to their record after reading to delete less important information and form a concise summary of what they have learned.

Summary cloze In this task, the teacher prepares a cloze that summarises the main ideas students have read. Students work either independently or in pairs to complete the cloze based on what they have identified and learned from reading and summarising the text. More advanced readers can work in pairs to prepare a summary cloze for other group members and take turns completing and discussing each other’s cloze exercise. Building Comprehension Strategies

Categorisation

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 7 Name:

Record the main ideas under each category. Discuss your main ideas with others and explain how you came to select these. Category 1

Category 2

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Category 3

In this task, students are required to categorise the information they are reading according to main headings (see Summarisation: Graphic Organiser 7). The teacher provides the main headings for categorisation. For example, a text about animals might have the following categories for identifying and recording important information and forming a summary: Animals (Hedgehogs); What they eat; Habitat; Predators. Information can be recorded from running text, pictures and diagrams. Categories are listed at the top of each column.

Summarisation

Making oral summaries during and after reading This task focuses on teaching students to make oral summaries as they read and at the end of reading. Students are asked to provide a one-sentence summary at the end of a section of text. They take turns telling their summaries to other group members, explaining as they do so what a summary is and how they reached their summary statement. This activity can also be developed by having students respond orally to questions about the text and provide oral summaries based on key vocabulary that has been recorded during reading. Using oral language opportunities is also an effective way of developing student use of vocabulary associated with summarisation, in particular sequence vocabulary, e.g. ‘first’, ‘then’, ‘next’, ‘after’, ‘to summarise’, ‘at the beginning’, ‘later’,’ in conclusion’.

Key questions for summarisation The following key questions will reinforce the summarisation strategy. The questions can be asked by teachers, or by students of other students. · · · · · · · · · · ·

‘What is this mostly about?’ ‘ What is the most important information you are reading? How do you know?’ ‘What does the author want you to learn from reading this?’ ‘What is the essential information in this paragraph/on this page?’ ‘Why do you think this information is important?’ ‘What information can I leave out?’ ‘What are the three/four/five most important ideas?’ ‘What evidence do you have to support your most important ideas?’ ‘Does your summary include all the important events?’ ‘How did you decide not to include some information?’ ‘Have you deleted trivial information?’

Maintenance and small-group practice tasks When organising group instruction, teachers consider opportunities for students to practise the skills involved in summarisation through a range of different texts. Many of the tasks described above, along with the graphic organisers provided for this chapter (see downloadable resources), will be useful for maintenance and small-group practice. In addition, students can return to their summaries after reading and discuss what the summaries contain, what they learned from summarising as they read and how learning to summarise helped develop their comprehension.

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Building comprehension strategies Students in the middle primary years may also be challenged to consider how they can use their knowledge of the summarisation strategy to monitor their own reading and ‘fix up’ errors in comprehension as they occur.

Self and peer assessment of the strategy Self and peer assessment teach students to learn about and understand their own learning, to monitor their own achievement and to set goals for future lessons. Students require deliberate teaching and modelling of how to use these assessments before they can use them independently or with a partner. For this reason, each of the suggested formats can be modified to be completed by the group as a whole.

Peer assessment Students work with a peer to present the information they have recorded on one of the graphic organisers or during a learning task completed through summarisation instruction. Student 1 starts by summarising what the task required and then presents what they found and what they did to complete the task. Their peer asks the following questions: · · · ·

‘What was the most important information you gained from reading this text?’ ‘How did you work out what was most important?’ ‘How did you work out what was least important?’ ‘What did you learn about summarisation today?’

Students then change roles. At the conclusion of this task, the students together summarise the key ideas they both agreed were important in the text. Note: This task can also be used for up to four students to give and receive feedback on their summarisation skills. Building Comprehension Strategies

Self assessment 1

Summarisation: BLM 1 Name:

Date:

Self assessment 1 Learning goal

•

One thing I am doing really well

One thing I still need to learn

How I will do this

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Self rating

•

See Summarisation: BLM 1. This enables students to add specific summarisation learning goals relating to the focus of one or more lessons in the boxes under ‘Learning goal’. Students can then rate their own achievements against these goals. They reflect on their progress towards understanding and using this strategy under the following headings: ‘One thing I am doing really well’, One thing I still need to learn’ and ‘How I will do this’.

Summarisation

Building Comprehension Strategies

Self assessment 2

Summarisation: BLM 2 Name:

Self assessment 2 I can ...

Not yet

Just starting

Getting there

Got it!

Remember details about what I read Record ideas in sequence Identify and state the most important ideas Combine the most important ideas • • •

Summarisation helps me as a reader because

See Summarisation: BLM 2. Teachers fill this in with students at the conclusion of one or more lessons. Students can add assessments over time, and can add to their description of how summarisation helps them as a reader. The three bullet points allow students and/or teachers to add additional specific learning goals for individual or groups of students.

Graphic organisers The graphic organisers for this chapter provide independent, partner or group activities that support teaching and learning of the summarisation strategy. These can be used in small-group instruction, as practice activities and to ensure maintenance of taught strategies.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 1

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

BIG ideas

This graphic organiser requires students to place the ‘big’ ideas they read in the centre of the organiser and the supporting ideas on the outside. It can be used in two ways:

• •

Building Comprehension Strategies

The teacher fills in the graphic organiser with students as the text is being read. This may be done during a first reading or as part of a re-reading. Students work in pairs to complete this graphic organiser as they re-read the text following group instruction with their teacher.

Graphic organiser 2

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

Summary cycle

This graphic organiser provides a sequencing activity to use as a framework for students to construct summaries of fiction and non-fiction texts. Students complete this to record main ideas in the sequence in which they occur.

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Building comprehension strategies

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 3

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 3 Name:

This graphic organiser can be used to record the most important information in sequence—beginning, middle and end (see also Recognising and summarising main ideas—narrative text, page 131). It can be used with fiction texts including short stories, picture books, plays and novels.

Find the most important ideas as you read. Sequence

Important ideas

Beginning

Middle

End

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 4

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 4 Name:

Important information

Supporting detail

Key words

Problem/setting/ character

Vocabulary from the text

One summary sentence

This graphic organiser is for recording and summarising important ideas from fiction texts (see also Identifying and summarising important information—narrative text, page 131). Students record ideas about either a problem that occurs, a setting or a character. They identify and record specific vocabulary used by the author to help them understand the significance of this information.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 5

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 5 Name:

List main ideas in order

Diagram to illustrate main idea

Key words

This graphic organiser requires students to list main ideas in the order they occur (see also Summarising non-fiction text, page 132). It can be used with nonfiction texts. Students identify and record key vocabulary associated with each of the main ideas. They also draw a diagram that illustrates each main idea. They can then share and describe their diagram and its significance to the idea(s) in the text with others.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 6

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 6 Name:

Paragraph 1 Key sentence Supporting detail

Supporting detail Paragraph 2 Key sentence Supporting detail

Supporting detail Paragraph 3 Key sentence Supporting detail

Supporting detail Paragraph 4 Key sentence Supporting detail

Supporting detail

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This graphic organiser is for texts with several paragraphs. For each paragraph read, the students record the key sentence and up to two supporting details. Paragraphs do not have to be sequential (e.g. the organiser could read paragraph 1, paragraph 4, paragraph 7 and paragraph 10) and can include information from photographs, diagrams and tables.

Summarisation

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 7

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 7 Name:

Record the main ideas under each category. Discuss your main ideas with others and explain how you came to select these. Category 1

Category 2

Category 3

This graphic organiser requires students to record main ideas under categories that are provided either during or after reading (see also Categorisation, page 132). The teacher selects up to three categories. The categories can be used as the basis for follow-up discussion and reflection on learning after reading.

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 8

Summarisation: Graphic organiser 8 Name:

Important fact

Supporting information

Main idea/question

Important fact

This graphic organiser can be based on a key question about what students are reading or in response to one main idea. Students identify up to three important facts related to the question/main idea and record these along with two further pieces of supporting information. Use of this graphic organiser was described on pages 126–128 in the example provided from Animals in Caves.

Supporting information

Chapter summary This chapter has provided support for explicit teaching, learning and student involvement related to the summarisation comprehension strategy. It has included an overview of the strategy, how to teach it and the learning gains for students using this strategy. Teaching and learning activities for class, group, partner and individual group instruction have been suggested. These can be used to provide instruction during reading comprehension lessons and also as maintenance and practice activities. The next chapter discusses how reading comprehension programs can be developed to integrate a range of comprehension strategies at one time, depending on the learning needs and experiences of students.

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Chapter 10 Multiple-strategy instruction

The previous chapters have described and exemplified how readers in the primary years benefit from explicit instruction to develop mastery of a single comprehension strategy. However, it is also important to teach students to understand and practise using multiple strategies in combination to develop and maintain comprehension. Skilled readers do not rely on one strategy—they access, use and combine comprehension strategies to make meaning before, during and after they read. This chapter shows teachers and literacy leaders how to provide instruction that combines the use of more than one strategy in any one lesson. Multiple-strategy instruction teaches students how and when to use a combination of strategies—‘tools’—to help comprehend a range of fiction and non-fiction text.

The combination of strategies chosen for any one lesson, or series of lessons, will be informed by the learning needs of the students, by the specific content knowledge necessary for students to understand as they read and by the structure of the text. Text will also contain individual challenges that teachers identify when they prepare for instruction. As teachers read each text in preparation for instruction, they should consider the following questions: · · · · ·

‘What are the literacy demands of this text?’ ‘What personal, cultural and academic prior knowledge do my students have that will support their comprehension of this text?’ ‘What do I want my students to know and understand as a result of reading this text?’ ‘What strategies will students need to use to be able to make sense of the ideas and information in this text?’ ‘What structural features of the text will students need to understand and follow?’

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Building comprehension strategies

Single-strategy instruction: providing in-depth instruction and learning opportunities in the use of one comprehension strategy at a time so that students become proficient and automatic in the use of this strategy as a tool for comprehending a range of texts. Multiple-strategy instruction: providing in-depth instruction on how to combine two or more comprehension strategies at a time so that students can access various comprehension strategies in response to the challenges they face when reading a range of texts.

In the primary classroom, instruction supports the integration of comprehension strategies as students learn to draw on and use several strategies at one time. This chapter provides two different approaches to multiple-strategy instruction for students in the middle primary years: Approach A (see below) and Approach B (see page 145). Each approach integrates the use of formative assessment (see page 12) and provides deliberate opportunities for students to talk and learn about learning. In conclusion, the chapter describes a range of learning activities and graphic organisers to support multiple-strategy instruction.

Approach A: Combining three strategies In this class, the students had begun reading a range of narrative texts. The teacher, Anna, was concerned that the students were not able to engage in indepth discussion about the characters or events they were reading about. She had observed a number of occasions that her students simply ‘made up’ an answer without searching the text for clues or evidence to support their response. As a result, Anna decided to focus instruction on combining three comprehension strategies: linking to prior knowledge (see page 37), visualisation (see page 61) and simple inference (see page 89). She selected a narrative text in which the main character was a child of a similar age to her students and the context was familiar to them.

From Gabby’s Fast Ride, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Written by Matilda May Illustrated by Chantal Stewart

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Multiple-strategy instruction

Step 1: Anna presents the problem to the students Anna explains: ‘I have noticed that you are not always able to answer questions about the characters in the texts you are reading and do not discuss what the characters are like and what they do. Because of this we are going to concentrate on learning and practising three comprehension strategies to help us understand the characters as we read. These strategies are: linking to our prior knowledge, visualisation and making inferences.’ Anna lists the strategies on the board and asks students to tell her what they know about each one. Together they review each strategy and Anna records their responses. As she records, Anna makes a note of incorrect or confused responses and clarifies these with students.

We are learning to combine the strategies of linking to our prior knowledge, visualisation and making simple inferences to help us understand and discuss what we are reading. What we know about ... Linking to our prior knowledge

Visualisation

Inference

This is what we already know

What we ‘see’

Not true

Things we have done

Pictures

Anna asks questions about the students’ responses: · · ·

‘Jon has suggested that visualisation is “pictures”. Can you tell us what Jon means by this?’ ‘Can you give us an example of what a “picture” would be?’ ‘Who can tell us about a time when they saw a “picture” when they were reading? How did this “picture” help you to understand the text?’

Anna allows time for the class to talk about the suggestions students have made and to recall and explain times when they used each of these strategies. Prompts could include: · · · · ·

‘What do you know about this strategy?’ ‘When have you used this strategy?’ ‘How has using this strategy helped you understand what you were reading?’ ‘What kind of text were you reading when you used this strategy?’ ‘How did using this strategy help you to learn new content?’

Students are encouraged to think about their thinking—to become aware of how they learn and the strategies they use.

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Building comprehension strategies

Step 2: Clarifying learning goals Anna tells students that they will be reading a narrative text with a focus on understanding the feelings and actions of the characters. She explains that they will be learning to use three strategies in combination to help develop and build their comprehension. She clarifies and lists the following learning goals with her students, taking care to ensure that they have an accurate understanding of each strategy.

We are learning to combine the strategies of prior knowledge, visualisation and inference to help us comprehend the narrative text we are reading. We will be successful when we can:

• think about what we know and what we see as we read and

use this to help us gain a better understanding of a character

• combine what we know and what we see to help us infer what a character is feeling and thinking.

• combine what we know and what we see to help us make inferences about why a character acts the way they do.

Beginning the lesson Building Comprehension Strategies

Multiple-strategy instruction: Graphic organiser 1

Activating prior knowledge

Name:

Examine the cover to determine: What do you

know

about the character? (You are using your prior knowledge.)

I know

• • • • What images do you have of the character? (You are visualising.)

I see I hear I smell

Anna develops a prior knowledge activity based on the words and images on the front cover. Students are asked to examine the cover picture and title and record what they know about Gabby, the images they have of Gabby and what they assume Gabby will be like (see Multiple-strategy instruction: Graphic organiser 1).

What do you assume the character will be like? (You are inferring.)

• • •

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Students share and discuss their responses with each other, comparing similar and differing ideas.

Multiple-strategy instruction

Reading the text Anna uses the guided reading approach (see page 29). She instructs the students to read the first section to find out why the chapter is titled ‘A new helmet’. The students share their ideas before Anna takes them back to the text— re-reading it aloud and asking questions to develop the combined strategies as she does so. The example below shows how Anna could ask questions about different strategies to draw students’ attention to their prior knowledge, their visual images and their inferences as they read and gain meaning from the text. From Gabby’s Fast Ride, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

prior knowledge

Chapter 1: A new helmet

“Helmets aren’t cool,” said Gabby.

Gabby loved to ride her bike and

“If you don’t wear a helmet

she loved to ride it fast.

you can’t go riding,” said Dad.

So Gabby

was very happy when her family decided to ride to Snake Valley. It was Gabby’s favourite bike ride.

inference

“But it doesn’t fit me anymore,” said Gabby.

prior knowledge visualisation

“Where’s your helmet?” asked Mum.

visualisation 4

At the end of the discussion Anna asks the students to summarise what they have understood by linking to their prior knowledge, by thinking about the visual images they get as they read and from drawing inferences. Anna records their responses as follows:

We are learning to combine the strategies of prior knowledge, visualisation and inference. Character’s name: What we know from prior knowledge

Visualisation

Inference

Anna tells the students that Gabby has a safer new helmet and instructs the group to read page 6 to find out why the helmet is safer. When the students have read the text they discuss their responses with each other while Anna listens. She then re-reads the text with the students, asking carefully selected questions to combine prior knowledge, visualisation and inference and to help students to understand how using the three strategies together helps develop comprehension. 143

Building comprehension strategies From Gabby’s Fast Ride, Flying Start to Literacy, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

While Gabby was putting on her helmet, her mother and brother started off on the bike track to Snake Valley.

prior knowledge visualisation “We got you a new sort of helmet,” said Mum.

visualisation

“It has little foam

cones inside the lining.

It is much

safer, just in case you crash.”

prior knowledge

“I’m not going to crash,” said Gabby. But she put on the helmet anyway.

inference

Approach A has shown how a teacher combined three strategies to help her students to comprehend a narrative text effectively. As her students gain confidence in using multiple strategies to support their comprehension, Anna will provide opportunities for applying multiple strategies during instruction. She will also plan and provide opportunities for both paired and independent use of these strategies. For examples of instructional, paired and independent activities for combining prior knowledge, visualisation and inference, refer to graphic organisers 1, 2 and 3 (see below). Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 1

Multiple-strategy instruction: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

Examine the cover to determine: What do you

know

about the character? (You are using your prior knowledge.)

I know

• • • • What images do you have of the character? (You are visualising.)

I see I hear I smell What do you assume the character will be like? (You are inferring.)

• • •

This graphic organiser is based on using information from the cover and/or title page of a text and focuses on building understanding of characters students will encounter as they read a narrative text. The students examine the information on the cover about the character (e.g. name, interests, characteristics, visual description) and record this under the question: ‘What do you know about the character?’ Students are then asked to draw on their knowledge of visualisation to examine the information on the cover and record the visual images they have of the character. They record these under the question: ‘What images do you have of the character?’ They record their inferences under the question: ‘What do you assume the character will be like?’ As the students read the text they refer back to this task, noting the images and inferences that were found to be correct. They discuss the other images and inferences made during reading and how their prior knowledge helped them to make these connections.

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Multiple-strategy instruction

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 2

Multiple-strategy instruction: Graphic organiser 2 Name:

Title/Topic/Theme: What do I know already?

• • • • • What do I hear?

What do I see?

What do I smell?

What do I touch?

Two things I infer

Building Comprehension Strategies

This graphic organiser can be used to explore a topic, title or theme within a text. Students record what they know already (their prior knowledge). This can be an open-ended task or teachers may ask students to relate this to their social, cultural or academic prior knowledge depending on the nature of the text and the purpose for reading. Students record the images they gain either before reading (based on their prior knowledge) or during reading. Two inferences are also recorded. Note: This graphic organiser can be completed before or during reading. Teachers may also use it after reading, assigning a specific section of text to be used as the basis of the task.

Graphic organiser 3

Multiple-strategy instruction: Graphic organiser 3 Name:

Picture: What this makes me think about before I read

The inferences I make about the text before I read

Images I have

What I know now that I have read this text

This graphic organiser is based on an illustration in the text. Teachers select the illustration and direct their students’ attention to it. The students view and discuss the illustration. They record their ideas and the connections they are making to their own experiences/prior knowledge in the first box: ‘What this makes me think about before I read.’ Then they discuss and think about the inferences they make about what the text will be about based on this illustration. They record these ideas in the box: ‘The inferences I make about the text before I read.’ As they read the section related to the illustration they record the images they gain. They record these in the box: ‘Images I have.’ After reading, the students record what they know now. In doing this they link back to their prior knowledge, the inferences they made and the images they gained. They record this in the box: ‘What I know now that I have read this text.’

Approach B: Combining two strategies In this second approach to teaching students how to combine a number of comprehension strategies, the teacher, Matt, begins by revising two strategies that had previously been taught. He revises these individually over two weeks before providing explicit instruction of how to integrate them. Matt’s students have been exploring the theme ‘Change and continuity’ as part of their social studies and literacy instruction. Students have learned how to use the comprehension strategies of asking and answering questions (see page 75) and paraphrasing (see page 118). Matt now wants to provide explicit instruction to help his students understand how both of these strategies, when used in combination, will help them develop their comprehension as they read.

145

Building comprehension strategies

Step 1: Revising each strategy Matt asks the students to ‘mine their memory’ to remember what they know about using the strategy of asking and answering questions. After initial discussion, he asks his students to work in pairs to complete the following activity.

Important things to remember when asking and answering questions:

• • • • Building Comprehension Strategies

Asking and answering questions: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

Record the questions you have as you read.

The students share and discuss their responses with others in the group. Matt asks questions to clarify their understanding and assigns Asking and answering questions: Graphic organiser 1 and a small section of text as a revision task for the students. He observes the students as they complete this task, prompting their responses and asking further questions of the text and the task to ensure that the students understand the independent use of this strategy. Matt completes the revision of this strategy by developing a chart with his group on which they list important things to remember when asking and answering questions.

Strategy: Asking and answering questions What we DO when we use this strategy

• •

What we THINK ABOUT when we use this strategy

• •

How using this strategy helps us to understand what we read

• •

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Multiple-strategy instruction

Building Comprehension Strategies

Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 1 Name:

What happened at the beginning?

What happened in the middle?

What happened at the end?

Matt repeats this sequence with the paraphrasing strategy. Students are reminded that the paraphrasing strategy requires the reader to put the content of what they have read into their own words. Matt checks their understanding of this strategy, reminding the students that paraphrasing can be supported by note-taking, identifying key sentences, asking and answering questions and sketching. He checks their knowledge of the importance of understanding sequence, assigning Retell and paraphrasing: Graphic organiser 1 as an assessment and readiness task. When Matt is confident that his students can understand and apply both strategies, he introduces the task of learning to combine the strategies to gain understanding of text.

Step 2: Combining the strategies for learning Matt tells the students that they will be learning to combine the strategies of asking and answering questions and paraphrasing to help them understand text related to their current curriculum study ‘Change and continuity’. He lists the following learning goals with his students:

We are learning to combine the strategies of asking and answering questions and paraphrasing to help us comprehend the non-fiction text we are reading. We will be successful when we can:

• a sk questions to help us understand the ideas we are reading and explain these ideas in our own words

• a sk questions and paraphrase to help us check and monitor our understanding of what we are reading

• a nswer questions about the text using our own words • a nswer questions to help us understand the ideas we are reading and explain these ideas in our own words.

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Building comprehension strategies

Beginning the lesson Activating prior knowledge Matt shows his students the text they will be reading. He discusses with them the features of the text—the headings and subheadings, the photographs and the text. He also discusses the visual features of the text—the use of colour, different-sized type and arrows to direct the reader. As he does this he returns the students’ attention to the learning goals to remind them that both the asking and answering questions strategy and the paraphrasing strategy will be useful in helping them comprehend this text. From Pedal Power, AlphaExplore, Eleanor Curtain Publishing

Alp

plo

Pedal Power Inside: All about Road Bikes Racing Bikes BMXs Tandems Trailer Bikes Unicycles and more!

Written by Hannah Reed

Matt introduces and explains the prior knowledge task. This is a task he has deliberately planned to link to his students’ knowledge of content and also to the two strategies they will be focusing on during this lesson. Students work in pairs to complete the following task:

Working in pairs. Together: A 1. Read the heading and subheading. 2. Ask each other questions about the information you gain from these headings. 3. Answer each other’s questions. B 1. Look closely at the photographs. 2. Ask each other questions about the information you gain from these photographs. 3. Answer each other’s questions. C. Tell what you know from the headings and photographs using your own words.

148

Multiple-strategy instruction

Reading the text Matt uses the shared reading approach (see page 23). He tells his students to listen and follow the text with their eyes as he reads the first section. ask questions about different types

ask and answer questions

paraphrase what road bikes are like

ask questions: What does this word mean?

Chapter 2

Bikes, bikes, bikes

ask questions answer questions

There are many different kinds of bikes. They can have one, two or more wheels. Bikes can look very different from each other but all have wheels, a seat and a way to steer them. All bikes are moved by the rider’s muscles. Bikes are used for many different reasons. Some bikes are used in races. People may compete to see who can go the fastest over long and short distances and on smooth and rough land. They may compete to see who can do the best tricks with their bikes. Mountain bikes These bikes have strong frames and thick tyres that grab the road and stop the bike from sliding. Many mountain bikes have springs called shock absorbers that soften the bumps and jolts from rough tracks.

paraphrase how mountain bikes work

Road bikes Road bikes have curly handlebars to allow the rider to lean forward over the bike. They have thinner tyres than many other bikes. These things help them go faster.

Racing bikes Racing bikes are the lightest bikes of all. They are used for racing on a track. They don’t have brakes. Instead, when the race is over the rider rides slowly until the bike comes to a stop.

paraphrase differences between mountain bikes and road bikes

paraphrase term

Recumbent bikes Recumbent bikes have a seat that is like a chair. Riders sit in a leaned-back position to ride.

ask questions: How do you stop?

paraphrase what I know about racing bikes paraphrase how racing bikes stop

After reading the first paragraph Matt uses the think-aloud approach (see page 10) to demonstrate how he decided which information he did not fully understand and made up his mind to ask a question about. Matt explains: ‘When I read this paragraph I understood that the author wanted me to know that there were many different types of bikes. I knew this from the heading and from the first sentence. However, I wondered how bikes could be that different to each other so I asked myself the question: “How are some bikes different to others?” I read through the paragraph again and discovered that some bikes have only one wheel, some have two wheels and others have more than two wheels. I wasn’t sure what this kind of bike would look like so I scanned the photographs in the book and found one that helped me understand what a bike with three wheels would look like. Explaining this in my own words, I now know that bikes can be different depending on how many wheels they have.’ Matt’s question was: ‘How are some bikes different to others?’ Matt’s paraphrase was: ‘Bikes can be different depending on how many wheels they have.’

149

Building comprehension strategies Matt then reads the paragraph again, instructing his students to listen carefully to think of a question they would like to ask that would help them understand the ideas in this paragraph. Students ask the question, search the text for the answer and paraphrase the information to tell others what they have learned. Matt refers his students back to the success criteria for the lesson to encourage them to think about and monitor their own progress so far. He places a tick next to the criteria to show them that they are on their way to achieving this goal.

We will be successful when we can:

• Ask questions to help us understand the ideas we are reading and explain these ideas in our own words

✔

Matt reads the second paragraph aloud to the students. He asks them to listen and think of a question they would like to ask that would help them understand the ideas in this paragraph. After reading aloud he asks students to share their question with others in the group and records the questions they share: Matt asks the students to answer these questions in their own words. After they have

What different reasons are bikes used for? What do people do when they compete? What does ‘compete’ mean? attempted this, he asks them to think about what they needed to know and be able to do in order to answer their questions. Matt instructs his students to re-read the paragraph to themselves and then use the paraphrasing strategy to answer their question and those of their peers. After students have completed this task, Matt explains how the subheadings and photographs on these pages also provide information about the different uses of bikes. Then the students read each section together, explaining in their own words what they have learned about bikes as they read.

150

Multiple-strategy instruction

What I have learned about the different uses of bikes: Mountain bikes: Road bikes: Recumbent bikes: Racing bikes: The lesson concludes with each student taking a turn to paraphrase the main information they have learned from reading this text. They finish by reflecting on how their deliberate use of the two strategies—asking and answering questions and paraphrasing—helped them to access information to comprehend the text.

Combining a range of strategies for comprehension instruction The following section refers to graphic organisers that can be used during and after instruction to provide students with explicit instruction and maintenance in the use of multiple strategies for comprehension. Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 4

Multiple-strategy instruction: Graphic organiser 4 Name:

Retell

Visual images we gained

Beginning

Middle

This graphic organiser focuses on the retell and visualisation strategies. Students are asked to retell, recording the events and/or information at the beginning, middle and end of the text. As they do this they record the visual images they gained as they read. This task is suitable for fiction and non-fiction text.

End

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 5

Multiple-strategy instruction: Graphic organiser 5 Name:

Section of text

Questions I have

I have practised the strategies of:

Important information

Yes

• asking questions • summarising important information • locating supporting detail • answering questions

Supporting detail

This graphic organiser focuses on the asking and answering questions and summarisation strategies. Students use this as they make their way through text— either paragraph by paragraph or section by section. They record the questions they have about what they have read. Then they search to find the important information in answer to their question and record this and other supporting detail. A range of questions can be asked. Refer also to Chapter 6: Asking and answering questions (page 75) for types of questions to include. Students self-assess ‘yes’ or ‘no’ against the strategies they have used.

151

Building comprehension strategies

Building Comprehension Strategies

Graphic organiser 6

Multiple-strategy instruction: Graphic organiser 6 Name:

Strategies I used today to help me understand what I read

The purpose of this task is to draw students’ attention to the range of comprehension strategies they may use at any one time in order to comprehend text. The task is suitable for use after reading one or two sentences, a paragraph, a page or a full text. The organiser can be used in two different ways:

This strategy helped me to understand …

Students record the range of strategies they used as they read and what they learned from using each of the strategies. They draw on their developing knowledge of strategies to complete this task.

Teachers pre-record the strategies they want their students to focus on. For example, if the lesson was focusing on the retelling and summarising strategies, the teacher may record inference, note-taking, retell and summarisation in each of the boxes. If the lesson was focused on the prediction and inference strategies, these two strategies would be in each box.

Goals for future learning:

Self assessment Building Comprehension Strategies

Multiple-strategy instruction: BLM 1 Name:

Self assessment I am learning to practise the following strategies in combination to help me comprehend what I read. 1 2 3 4 My next learning goal is to:

1. Not yet able to use this strategy 2. Beginning to use this strategy in combination with others 3. Able to use this strategy in combination with others

Involving students in self assessing their combined use of comprehension strategies is an important aspect of developing their cognition about reading. Self assessment encourages students to think carefully about what they are learning and how they are using this knowledge to help them become better readers. Asking students for evidence to support their developing ability and their self assessment ratings is an important part of the self assessment process and important in generating discussion and reflection about learning. Multiple-strategy instruction: BLM 1 provides an example of self assessment used for multiple-strategy instruction. It allows for teachers and/or students to record the strategies they are using in combination and then to reflect on their use. The self assessment also provides space for future goal-setting.

Chapter summary There are many ways teachers and students can learn about and practise integrating comprehension strategies. This chapter has provided information and support to help teachers and their students do this. Teachers will also develop teaching opportunities and support material based on combining those strategies for which their students require explicit and/or additional support.

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References and recommended reading Chapter 1: Effective reading comprehension practices Bannert, M. & Mengelkamp, C. 2008, ‘Assessment of metacognitive skills by means of instruction to think aloud and reflect when prompted. Does the verbalization method affect learning?’, Metacognition and Learning 3, pp. 39–58. Block, C.C. & Pressley, M. 2002, Comprehension Instruction: Research Based Best Practices, The Guilford Press, New York. Brown, A.L. 1978, ‘Knowing when, where and how to remember: A problem of metacognition’ in Glaser, R. (ed) Advances in Instructional Psychology, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey, pp. 77–165. Davis, A.J. 2007, Teaching Reading Comprehension, Learning Media, Wellington, New Zealand. Duffy, G.G. 2003, Explaining Reading: A Resource for Teaching Concepts, Skills and Strategies, The Guilford Press, New York. Flavell, J.H. 1979, ‘Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive developmental inquiry’, The American Psychologist, 34, pp. 906–911. Harvey, S. & Goudvis, A. 2007, Strategies That Work: Teaching for Understanding and Engagement (2nd edn), Stenhouse. Hattie, J.A., Biggs, J. & Purdie, N. 1996, ‘Effects of learning skills interventions on student learning: a meta-analysis’, Review of Educational Research, 66, pp. 99–136. Keene, E.O. & Zimmerman, S. 1997, Mosiac of Thought: Teaching Comprehension in a Reader’s Workshop, Heinemann, Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Paris, S.G. & Jacobs, J.E. 1984, ‘The benefits of informed instruction for children’s reading awareness and comprehension skills’, Child Development 55 (6), pp. 2083– 2093. Paris, S.G. & Winograd, P. 1990, ‘How metacognition can promote academic learning and instruction’ in Jones, B.F. & Idol, L. (eds), Dimensions of Thinking and Cognitive Instructions, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey, pp. 15–51.

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Building comprehension strategies Pressley, M. 2001, ‘Comprehension instruction: What makes sense now, what might make sense soon?’, Reading Online, 5 (2), www.readingonline.org/articles/ handbook/pressley. Pressley, M. 2002, Reading Instruction That Works. The Case for Balanced Teaching (2nd edn), The Guilford Press, New York. Pressley, M. 2006, Reading Instruction That Works. The Case for Balanced Teaching (3rd edn), The Guilford Press, New York. Pressley, M. & Afflerbach, P. 1995, Verbal Protocols of Reading: The Nature of Constructively Responsive Reading, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, New Jersey. Pressley, M. & Gaskins, I. 2006, ‘Metacognitively competent reading comprehension is constructively responsive reading: How can such reading be developed in students?’ Metacognition and Learning, 1, pp. 99–113. Schraw, G. 2001, ‘Promoting general metacognitive awareness’ in Hartman, H. (ed.), Metacognition in Learning and Instruction: Theory, Research and Practice, Kluwer, Dordrecht, pp. 3–16. Trabasso, T. & Bouchard, E. 2002, ‘Teaching readers how to comprehend text strategically’ in Block, C.C. & Pressley, M. (eds), Comprehension Instruction: Researchbased Practices, The Guilford Press, New York, pp. 156–177. Vygotsky, L.S. 1962, Thought and Language, The MIT Press, Cambridge.

Chapter 2: Reading comprehension teaching approaches Brown, S. 2004, Shared Reading for Grades 3 and Beyond: Working It Out Together, Learning Media, Wellington, New Zealand. Clay, M.M. 2000, Running Records for Classroom Teachers, Heinemann, Auckland, New Zealand. Davis, A.J. 2007, Teaching Reading Comprehension, Learning Media, Wellington, New Zealand. Dowhower, S.L. 1989, ‘Repeated reading revisited: Research into practice’, Reading & Writing Quarterly, 10, pp. 343–358. Dowhower, S. L. 1999, ‘Supporting a strategic stance in the classroom: A comprehension framework for helping teachers help students to be strategic’ in The Reading Teacher, 52 (7), pp. 672–688.

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References and recommended reading Kuhn, M.R. & Stahl, S.A. 2000, Fluency: A Review of Developmental and Remedial Practices, Center for the Improvement of Early Reading Achievement, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Ministry of Education 2000, Using Running Records: A Resource for Classroom Teachers, Learning Media, Wellington, New Zealand. Samuels, S.J. 1997, ‘The method of repeated readings’, The Reading Teacher, 50, pp. 376–381 (original work published in 1979). Tierney, R.J., Readence, J. & Dishner, E. 1995, Reading Strategies and Practices, Allyn & Bacon, Boston. Topping, K.J. 2006, ‘Building reading fluency: Cognitive, behavioural and socioemotional factors and the role of peer-mediated learning’ in Samuels, S.J. & Farstrup, A.E. (eds), What Research Has To Say About Fluency Instruction, pp. 106–129, International Reading Association, Newark, Delaware.

Chapter 8: Retell and paraphrasing Baumann, J.F. & Kameenui, E.J. 2004, Vocabulary Instruction: Research to Practice, The Guildford Press, New York. Graves, M.F. 2006, The Vocabulary Book: Learning and Instruction, Teachers College Press, New York. Lubliner, S. & Scott, J. 2008, Nourishing Vocabulary: Balancing Words and Learning, Thousand Oaks, California.

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Index asking and answering questions 1, 6, 16, 24, 32, 38, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 82, 83, 86, 87, 112, 116, 118, 123, 124, 146, 147, 151 assessment cloze 21 data 19, 20, 23, 36 formative 7, 12, 13, 20 peer 12, 21, 47, 58, 72, 84, 85, 103, 117, 134 self 12, 47, 48, 58, 72, 84, 85, 103, 117, 134, 135 cloze activities 21, 44, 132 deliberate instruction 6, 7, 9, 12, 15, 16, 23, 30, 40, 47, 53, 58, 66, 67, 72, 78, 82, 91, 93, 103, 111, 117, 118, 126, 134, 140, 151 developing readers 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 14, 15, 23, 75 discussion 14, 15, 20, 21, 23, 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, 35, 38, 41, 42, 43, 45, 49, 59, 63, 87, 98, 137, 140, 143, 146, 152 early readers 4, 5, 7, 10, 14, 15, 23, 44, 56, 67, 89, 91, 123 graphophonic information 4 group instruction 14, 15, 23, 26, 29, 33, 38, 46, 50, 57, 59, 60, 71, 72, 74, 84, 86, 87, 102, 104, 106, 117, 118, 120, 133, 135, 137 guided reading 14, 23, 25, 26, 29, 32, 36, 69, 143 high-frequency words 1, 5, 6

inference 1, 6, 9, 17, 20, 89, 90, 91, 92, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 141, 143, 144, 145, 152 integrating strategies 6, 7, 140 language experience 23, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31, 32, 36, 37 learning goals 1, 12, 13, 19, 23, 24, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 39, 47, 52, 53, 62, 63, 65, 76, 77, 78, 82, 91, 109, 110, 121, 124, 125, 126, 131, 134, 135, 142, 147, 148 learning intentions 13 making connections to prior knowledge 1, 6, 7, 22, 24, 30, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 66, 67, 69, 89, 92, 94, 97, 101, 105, 142, 144, 145 metacognition 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 13, 14, 18, 32 monitoring reading c omprehension 9, 11, 15, 21, 32, 34, 58, 66, 112, 120 oral language 4, 26, 27, 68, 80, 96, 109, 133, paired reading 23, 25, 32, 33, 34, 36, 144 paraphrasing 1, 107, 118, 119, 120, 121, 123, 147, 148, 151 peer teaching 7, 14, 43 prediction and re-prediction 1, 6, 9, 13, 17, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 75, 77, 80, 89

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Building comprehension strategies reading by students 3, 11, 23, 30, 31, 35, 37, 38, 43, 47, 52, 61, 62, 67, 68, 75, 76, 91, 112, 133, 134, 140 reading behaviour 5, 6, 8, 19, 21, 25, 35, 62, 75, 99, 111 reading to students 14, 23, 25, 26, 34, 35, 69 reflection 16, 125, 137, 152 research 3, 5, 9, 61 retell 1, 6, 16, 31, 34, 35, 96, 107, 108, 109, 110, 111, 112, 113, 114, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 123, 151, 152 semantic information 4, 6 shared reading 14, 23, 25, 26, 32, 69, 149 skilled readers 1, 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 21, 36, 37, 39, 51, 52, 56, 62, 63, 75, 76, 77, 89, 91, 109, 123, 124, 125, 139 strategy instruction 7, 9, 14, 32, 124, 139, 140, 141, 142, 145, 151 summarisation 1, 20, 123, 124, 125, 126, 128, 130, 131, 133, 134, 135, 151, 152 syntactic information 4, 6 talk-aloud approach 10, 18, 26, 31, 53, 69 think-aloud approach 10, 11, 18, 20, 26, 31, 40, 53, 69, 70, 79, 95, 130, 149 visualisation 1, 6, 16, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 89, 116, 141, 143, 144, 151 vocabulary 1, 17, 23, 32, 37, 38, 44, 45, 51, 62, 67, 68, 69, 70, 74, 75, 89, 90, 96, 105, 107, 108, 109, 114, 118, 120, 121, 123, 124, 133, 136

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• • • • • • •

making connections to prior knowledge prediction and re-prediction visualisation asking and answering questions inference retell and paraphrasing summarisation.

Alison Davis

for the primary years

Blackline masters and graphic organisers can be downloaded and used for independent, pair and small-group work during instruction and as part of planned practice and maintenance throughout the year.

Building comprehension strategies

Building comprehension strategies for the primary years

Alison Davis