Section VI: Comprehension

1. Section VI: Comprehension Teaching Reading Sourcebook 2nd edition

2. Reader Competencies • Each reader brings unique competenciesthat affect comprehension. • Comprehension builds upon the reader’s • speed and accuracy of decoding; • reading fluency; • vocabulary size; • general world knowledge; • specific comprehension strategies.

3. Dimensions of Text • Content: subject matter • Genre: category of literature • Structure: narrative story structure or informational • Language: author’s expression of ideas: tone, voice • Adept diction: skillful and precise use of words • Writing quality: text clarity and coherence • Complexity: readability: words, sentences, concepts • Graphic design features: physical features of text • Media: means of communication: print, web-based

4. Elements of Comprehension • Text • Narrative • Informational • Activity • Purpose for reading: identifying reading task • Processes for reading: determining approach for reading • Consequences of reading: increased knowledge, engagement • Context • Social and cultural factors: school, family, community

5. What Good Readers Do • Before • Set goal or purpose • Preview text; make predictions • During Reading • Connect to world knowledge, make inferences • Adjust reading by skimming, focusing, rereading, notes • Check and adapt predictions, summarize passages • Ask questions, respond and evaluate text • Monitor comprehension, check and repair • After Reading • Reread, summarize, reflect • Determine how information can be used and recalled

6. Comprehension Strategies • Recognizing text structure • guides reader in identifying and recalling key information. • Predicting • involves world knowledge and cues in text and helps the reader set purpose and recall text. • Monitoring (metacognition) • involves the reader’s knowledge and control of cognitive processes. • Connecting to world knowledge • involves activating schema and applying known to new in text.

7. Comprehension Strategies • Asking questions • about the text fosters comprehension and provides self-assessment. • Answering questions • helps, as answers may be found in the text itself and in the students’ own knowledge. • Summarizing • helps students’ awareness of text structure and relationship between ideas in text. • Constructing Mental Images • promotes active processing of text and provides structure for organizing and remembering text.

8. Comprehension Instruction • Explicit Strategy Instruction • Direct explanation • Modeling • Guided practice • Independent practice • Scaffolding • Process: shifting responsibility for learning from teacher to student • Tools: graphic organizers, prompts, cooperative learning, read-aloud methods • Contextualized Instruction • Occurs in the context of reading conceptually challenging, relevant, high-interest texts.

9. Reader Response • Meaning is constructed through interaction between the reader and the text. • Different readers respond in different ways. • Readers in collaboration often produce meanings no single reader could. • Discussion and writing are effective ways to foster reader response. • Discussion Oriented Instruction: teacher guided/ student-led discussions, book clubs, literacy circles • Writing into (before), writing through (during), writing out (after)

10. Instruction for ELLs • Reading comprehension is closely tied to oral language proficiency . • Promote language production and vocabulary acquisition while working on comprehension skills. • Explicit and direct instruction actively engages students in monitoring their use of strategies in comprehension process. • For novice readers in their primary language: provide explicit word-level skills instruction to help them attain the level of performance of native English speakers. • For able readers in their primary language: emphasize transferring strategies from their native language to English .