Teaching Comprehension with Narrative/Hybrid Texts

1. Teaching Comprehension with Narrative/Hybrid Texts EDC 423

2. Objectives: You will be able to: • Describe one technique to help students differentiate between fiction, non-fiction and fantasy • Explain the two elements needed to make an inference while reading • Determine when inferences need to be made and identify the two specific pieces needed to make an inference • Use the QAR model to identify categories of questions, respond to questions, and generate your own questions from narrative text

3. What’s the difference? What’s a good a definition of each – for elementary aged children?

4. Non-Fiction, Fiction, and Fantasy…in 4th grade language • Non-Fiction: (TRUE) a story based on real things that really happened • Fiction: (PRETEND) a story that is pretend • Realistic Fiction: a story based on things that could happen in real life, but didn’t • Fantasy: a story based on things that could never happen in real life (magic, time travel)

5. Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) • Right There: LITERAL • Think and Search: INFERENTIAL (read between the lines and think how info fit together) • Author and You: INFERENTIAL (think about author clues and formulate own opinion) • On My Own: EVALUATIVE (what do you think?) IN THE BOOK IN MY HEAD

6. Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) Albert was afraid that Susan would beat him in the tennis match. The night before the match, Albert broke both of Susan’s racquets. • RIGHT THERE: When did Albert break both of Susan’s racquets? • THINK & SEARCH: Why did Albert break both of Susan’s racquets? • AUTHOR & YOU: What does the author seem to imply about Albert in this passage? • ON YOUR OWN: Why was Albert afraid that Susan would beat him?

7. Anchor Chart for Inferencing

8. Making Inferences Albert was afraid that Susan would beat him in the tennis match. The night before the match, Albert broke both of Susan’s racquets. AUTHOR & YOU: What does the author seem to imply about Albert in this passage? Let’s take a closer look with The Magic Treehouse text

9. Designing Questions That Require Inferential Thinking • Review the text to consider key inferences that readers should be making to comprehend the important ideas in the story – where are the “in-between the lines” logic connections needed? • Design questions that engage students in activating their prior knowledge and then bring students back to the text for the text-based clues needed to make a logical inference (rather than a good guess based on prior knowledge alone) • PK & TEXT CLUES => INFERENCE Text-based evidence to back up reasoning = Common Core Standards

10. Designing Questions for QAR • Work with a partner to generate one question for each category • Right There • Think and Search • Author and You • On My Own • How are Question-Answer Relationships useful for students? • How are Question-Answer Relationships useful for teachers?

11. Objectives: Can you… • Describe one technique to help students differentiate between fiction, non-fiction and fantasy • Explain the two elements needed to make an inference while reading • Determine when inferences need to be made and identify the two specific pieces of information needed to make an inference • Use the QAR model to identify categories of questions, respond to questions, and generate your own questions from narrative text

12. Homework • Finish the QAR worksheet if not completed using your Magic Treehouse text (return next Tuesday) • Read Ch. 5 (p. 140-151) – Review of narrative and expository text structures and the challenges of reading web-based texts • Coiro (2005) optional (on the wikispace) • Student Strategy Interview and Reflection due next Tuesday