The School Librarian’s Role in Promoting Reading Comprehension

1. Working with teachers Collaborate to define what it means to comprehend deeply. Working with children Ensure that children are comprehending what they read and study. The School Librarian’s Role in Promoting Reading Comprehension

2. When students understand, they; comprehend a wide variety of texts;  reflect on ideas; struggle for insight; extend existing knowledge stores; reapply knowledge in new contexts and generate new knowledge;

3. reapply knowledge in new contexts and generate new knowledge; create models to help them understand; manipulate thoughts to understand more completely; consider multiple perspectives; understand ways in which memory, knowledge, emotions, values and thinking change; engage in rigorous discourse about ideas; remember what they read and learn. . . keene, 2003

4. Teachers Work with teachers to understand what is essential to children’s literacy learning – encourage focus on what matters most. Children Help children focus on a few concepts of great import for a long period of time in a variety of text. The School Librarian’s Role in Promoting Reading Comprehension

5. What’s Essential? • Cognitive Strategies are the moves a reader and writer makes in his mind in order to read, write, speak, and listen. • Cognitive Strategies include: fully understanding the grapho-phonetic system, instantaneous visual word recognition, understanding of grammar and syntax, vocabulary, using background knowledge and interacting with other readers in order to understand more deeply.

6. What’s Essential? • Teachers explicitly teach the cognitive strategies most commonly used by proficient readers, writers, speakers and listeners. • Instruction in Cognitive Strategies is focused, in-depth, intensive, long term, and repeated throughout a child’s school life in progressively more difficult situations. • Cognitive strategies vary only slightly for of different age groups.

7. Teachers Work closely with teachers who are conducting comprehension strategy study in their classrooms. Children Work with children to ensure they use comprehension strategies in what they read. The School Librarian’s Role in Promoting Reading Comprehension

8. Comprehension Strategies • Monitoring for Meaning • Using Schema (background knowledge) • Determining Importance • Creating Mental and Emotional Images • Inferring • Asking Questions • Synthesizing

9. Teachers Help teachers to see how comprehension strategies apply to research projects. Children Encourage children to use comprehension strategies as they explore topics of passionate interest. The School Librarian’s Role in Promoting Reading Comprehension

10. Comprehension and Research • Researchers • *Researchers ask questions to narrow a search and find a topic • *Researchers ask questions to clarify meaning and purpose • *Researchers ask themselves • What are the most effective resources and how will I access them? • Do I have enough information? • Have I used a variety of sources? • What more do I need? • Does it make sense? • Have I told enough? • It is interesting and original thinking and does my writing have voice?

11. Teachers Assist teachers in identifying text and multi-media sources that are particularly conducive to the comprehension strategy they are studying. Children Assist children in selecting texts that will challenge them to comprehend deeply and consider important issues. The School Librarian’s Role in Promoting Reading Comprehension

12. Teachers Work with teachers to build a collection that matches students’ needs and interests in comprehension. Children Introduce children to a wide range of genres, media and texts – help them understand the distinctions between genres. The School Librarian’s Role in Promoting Reading Comprehension

13. A Variety of Genres • Biography • Historical fiction • Textbooks/Reference Text • Persuasion • Realistic fiction • Poetry • Memoir/Autobiography • Science fiction • Mystery • Journalism Opinion/Editorial • Tests • Expository text (narrative or didactic) • Picture Book • Photo essay • Promotional Materials and Advertising • Fantasy

14. A Variety of Text Levels • Work in instructional level text for: • Practice in decoding • Practice word recognition • Practice oral reading fluency • Practice in word work such as recognizing prefixes and suffixes, word analysis

15. A Variety of Text Levels • Work in challenging text (that may have been read to children) for: • ·Application of comprehension strategies • ·Book Club discussion • ·Reading with a partner • Reading to learn new content (especially when there are charts, graphs, pictures available)

16. Reading Comprehension is Thinking – thinking is hard – It’s supposed to be hard