1. Reading Comprehension Strategies
Highfield School
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2. Our session tonight
Some background
What are the strategies?
The importance of vocabulary learning
Revision of main points
Each of us – write on a post it – what you think is reading!
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3. Key areas of reading
• Phonemic awareness
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Comprehension
• Vocabulary
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4. Someone is not truly
reading if they don’t
understand what they
are reading.
Medical text
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5. Multiple research studies were
summarized by Pearson, Dole,
Duffy, and Roehler (1992)
who analysed what active,
thoughtful readers do when
they construct meaning from
text.
Always had good readers – teaching all readers what ‘ good readers do’
A bit of background
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6. Proficient readers
use specific strategies
to construct meaning
from text.
Good readers are
active readers.
What is a reading strategy? (or reading comprehension strategy)
A strategy is a plan to help you achieve something.
So a reading strategy helps you achieve understanding of the text.
Another word for understanding is comprehension.
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7. Can teach individually but good readers use these together dependent upon what they are currently read.
Rereading is a great comp strategy
Think of when you read – how often you reread a passage or exert
Our struggling readers sometimes struggle to see this –
Talk about what we are doing – our metacognition – what is happening inside our heads
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8. What are the strategies?
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10. Prior knowledge is the unique set of knowledge
each individual student brings to the reading
experience. It is a combination of the students’
attitudes, experiences, and knowledge.
By knowledge we mean;
• what the student already knows about the reading
process
• vocabulary knowledge
• topic knowledge
• concept knowledge
• and text types/genres and language features of
these.
Importance of language experiences – go to park, go fishing, cooking, feeding the ducks, learning to ride
a bike… these experiences add to our prior knowledge
The importance of talking about these experiences – even watching a TV programme and talking about it
Links between doing it, talking about it, reading about it, and later writing about it.
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13. Self monitoring supports comprehension by
giving the reader control over the reading
process. Before reading, they might clarify
their purpose for reading and preview the text.
During reading, they monitor their
understanding, perhaps adjusting their
reading speed to fit the difficulty level of the
text and using "fix up" strategies to deal with
any comprehension problems they may have.
After reading, they can monitor their
understanding of what they have read.
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15. Predicting is a key pre-reading strategy as it
helps to set a purpose for reading. Continuing
to make predictions and confirming or revising
them throughout the reading process
encourages students to become active readers
who have expectations of the text. This also
keeps them actively engaged in the reading
process. This engagement is crucial for
comprehension. By thinking about their
predictions and confirming or revising them,
students remain motivated and focused.
Nicola – wonderings…. Do not have to be right? Sometime better not being ‘right’
Can be used to keep us focused – “aha I thought this was going to happen…”
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18. Questioning is when the student poses
questions before, during and after reading a
text. Questioning plays an important part in the
process of self monitoring as students ask
themselves, “Does this make sense?”
Encouraging students to become aware of and
value the questions they ask naturally is a way
of helping them to engage with the text.
Before, during and afrer
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19. Asking and answering questions helps to
engage the reader with the text. It provides a
purpose for reading and gives the student a
reason to clarify meaning. This connection
helps to deepen comprehension.
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22. What is making connections?
text to self
text to text
text to world
Links to what I may already know… in my world, from something else I have read, what I actually know
about the world.
The more I read the more I know
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23. Making meaningful connections helps students
relate the text to their own prior knowledge. The
more connections, the more likely the student is
to comprehend the text. For example, if a
student is reading a book about snorkelling and
they have had that experience, they are more
likely to make more meaningful connections
than a person who has not had that same
experience.
Making connections helps to deepen
comprehension and create personal links with
what is being read. These connections impact
on a student’s motivation to read.
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27. Robyn – nordet??
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28. What is visualising?
(pictures in your mind
creating mental images =
the movie in your head)
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29. Visualising supports comprehension as
students create their own unique mental
images of what they are reading. By doing this,
they feel more connected to the story, enjoy the
story more and understand it more deeply.
Visualising is also useful for self monitoring. If
the ‘movie in your head’ stops, you realise you
have stopped understanding and need to stop
and use a strategy to repair meaning.
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32. In order to summarise, the student must attend
closely to the text and be able to include
information that gives the essence of the text.
Summarising also plays a part in the ability to
synthesise – if the students are able to
articulate the main points and ideas of a text,
they are more ready to synthesise.
Jamie – key notes and summarizing
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36. Inferring requires that readers
merge their background
knowledge with clues in the text to
come up with an idea that isn’t
explicitly stated by the author.
Inferences are based on text
evidence.
What else do I know that the text hasn’t told me – we went to beach and had a swim – ie it was summer
The boys dragged their feet through the door ( maybe they are not very happy)
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37. Some people say it’s like
Reading between the lines
or even
Reading between
the ears!
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38. Students develop deeper understandings of the
text when they ‘read between the lines’ to draw
their own conclusions by using prior
experience. They create their own unique
meaning of the text. As they read, these
understandings may be revised as the reader is
exposed to new information and confirms or
adjusts their thinking.
Develops as experiences develop – as you get more experiences you are able to infer more deeply.
Anna – cartoons
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39. Putting it all together – taking old ideas and making something new with them….
Makes the learning even more powerful ‘NZC states active, motivated, meaningful’
Knowledge as a verb rather than knowledge as a noun
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40. Synthesising is when the student
merges new information with prior
knowledge to form a new idea,
perspective, or opinion or to
generate insight.
Synthesis is an ongoing process.
As new knowledge is acquired, it is
synthesised with prior knowledge
to generate new ideas.
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41. Synthesising (creating)
• Useful Verbs
create
invent
compose
plan
construct
design
imagine
propose
devise
formulate
• Sample Question Stems
Can you design a ... to ...?
Why not compose a song about...?
Can you see a possible solution to...?
If you had access to all resources how would you deal with...?
Why don't you devise your own way to deal with...?
How many ways can you...?
Can you create new and unusual uses for...?
Can you write a new recipe for a tasty dish?
can you develop a proposal which would...Invent a machine to do a specific task.
• Potential activities and products
Design a building to house your study.
Create a new product. Give it a name and plan a marketing campaign.
Write a TV show, play, puppet show, role play, song or pantomime about...?
Invent a machine for a specific task
Sell an idea.
Devise a way to...
Write your prediction about how views on this topic would change in time or place
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42. Synthesising supports reading comprehension
because it requires students to combine their
prior knowledge with new knowledge and put
into their own words.
This creates ownership of the thinking. This can
be a powerful experience that makes it more
likely the student will remember the information
and transfer it to new situations which will help
to further reinforce their new thinking.
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43. The importance of
vocabulary
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44. “Vocabulary plays a significant
role in students’ reading success.
Without an understanding of the
words in a sentence, paragraph, or
passage, comprehension cannot
occur, and without comprehension,
one is not truly literate.”
Block & Mangieri (2006)
Adding to your own vocab and that of your children….
My most boring favourite = WENT!
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47. How are reading strategies
taught in the classroom?
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48. from ‘The Learner as a Reader’.
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49. • I’ll show you You watch me
• I’ll show you You help me
• You show me I’ll help you
• You show me I’ll watch you
Adapted from The Gradual Release of Responsibility Model – Pearson &
Gallagher, 1983, Nicky Anderson 2008
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Read togeher – talk with me – share the load - maybe you do the reading and I’ll do the thinking –
We have reading to, shared reading, guided reading…
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50. Students need to be
aware of what the strategies are and when
to use them.
Although they need to be explicitly taught
individually – the aim is for students will use
multiple strategies.
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51. Word attack strategies
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54. To re-cap…
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56. We teach the strategies
individually but
will use
multiple strategies
at one time.
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57. What is reading?
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