the comprehension revolution: helping teachers take a closer look at the reader, text, activity, and...

The Comprehension Revolution: Helping Teachers Take a Closer Look at the Reader, Text, Activity, and Context

Patricia A. Edwards, Ph.D.Michigan State University

President-Elect, International Reading AssociationSeptember 22, 2009

English/ Second Language Reading is Complex

(Genesee, TESOL 2008)

Phonological processing abilities in

English

Print Related abilities/

experiences in EnglishBackground

Knowledge in English

Oral language

abilities in English

LITERACY IN NATIVE

LANGUAGE

Factors that Influence Learning to Read for English Language Learners

Learning context

Reading skills in L1 & L2

Oral proficiency in L1 & L2

Teacher’s skills& behaviors

Instructional practices

Explicit

AppliedRelevant

Builds on students’ prior knowledge, interests, motivation, and home language. Helps students make connections.

Includes frequent opportunities to practice reading with a variety of materials in meaningful contexts. Promotes engagement.

Includes explicit instruction in oral language, phonological awareness, the alphabetic code, fluency, vocabulary development, and reading comprehension.

Evidence-based Literacy Instruction for ELLs

Effective Practices for Teaching EL learners

• Teacher observations data (Baker 2003)

• Models skills and strategies • Makes relationships between concepts overt• Emphasizes distinctive features of new concepts• Scaffold use of strategies, skills, and concepts• Changes focus of literacy activities regularly• Adjust speech

Guidelines for Teaching Second Language Learners

• Uses visuals and manipulatives to teach content

• Provides explicit instruction in English language use

• Encourages elaborate student responses• Teaches vocabulary using gestures and

facial expressions


Have high expectations for learning Facilitate the development of essential language and

literacy skills at a student’s level of oral proficiency in English

Develop literacy through instruction that builds on language, comprehension, print concepts, and the alphabetic principle

Use language during instruction that is comprehensible and meaningful to the students


Create an instructional program that meets the needs of your students:

design a plan for new students

• readjust schedules, make decisions based on data, and make

instruction comprehensible

provide opportunities for students to engage in extended dialogues

assess students’ progress frequently

incorporate community expertise into the curriculum


Integrate ESL strategies in content area instruction

Activate background knowledge and connect content to students’ lives

Use graphic organizers, charts, and other visuals to enhance comprehension


Provide opportunities for discussions of texts

Recognize and value the different discourse (speaking) patterns across cultures

Text ComprehensionText Comprehension

Comprehension is the reason for Comprehension is the reason for

reading. If readers can read the words, reading. If readers can read the words,

but do not but do not understandunderstand what they are what they are

reading, they are not really reading! reading, they are not really reading!

www.nifl.gov

What skills, knowledge, and attitudes are required for good reading comprehension?

Reading Comprehension

• What students need to learn• Before, during and after

strategies• How to identify main ideas

and supporting details• Identify text genres/purpose

of text• How to find information• Critical thinking

• How we teach it• Teach before, during and

after strategies• Build/activate background

knowledge• Teach predictions• Use graphic organizers• Teach metacognitive

strategies• Teach “fix-up” strategies• Teach summarizing• Set up cooperative groups

What is Comprehension?• Comprehension is the

understanding of what you read

• Comprehension is an active, intentional process in which the reader engages with the text to both extract and construct meaning from written language.

What is Good Comprehension Instruction?In effective comprehension instruction, teachers tell students why and

when they should use strategies, what strategies to use, and how to apply them.

• Direct Explanation: Teacher explains why the strategy helps comprehension and when to apply the strategy.

• Modeling: Teacher demonstrates how to apply the strategy

• Guided Practice: Teacher guides and assists students as they learn how and when to apply the strategy

• Application: Teacher helps students apply the strategy until they can apply it independently.

Source: Armbruster & Osborn, 2003

What is Reading Comprehension?

“building bridges from the new to the known”

Pearson & Johnson (1978)


“the construction of the meaning of a written text through a reciprocal interchange of ideas between the reader and the message in a particular text”

Harris & Hodges (1995)


“thinking guided by print”

Perfetti (1995)


“the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning throughinteraction and involvement with written language. It consists of three elements: the reader, the text, and the activity or purpose for reading”

Rand Reading Study Group (2002)

Comprehension Strategies• Specific procedures that guide

students to become aware of how well they are understanding as they attempt to read

Comprehension is a Process

•Comprehension is a dynamic process, a transaction between

the reader, the text, and the context.

Louise Rosenblatt

What we know about the factors that What we know about the factors that affect reading comprehensionaffect reading comprehension

Proficient comprehension of text is influenced by:Proficient comprehension of text is influenced by:

Accurate and fluent word reading skillsAccurate and fluent word reading skills

Oral language skills (vocabulary, linguistic comprehension)Oral language skills (vocabulary, linguistic comprehension)

Extent of conceptual and factual knowledgeExtent of conceptual and factual knowledge

Knowledge and skill in use of cognitive strategies to Knowledge and skill in use of cognitive strategies to improve comprehension or repair it when it breaks down.improve comprehension or repair it when it breaks down.

Reasoning and inferential skillsReasoning and inferential skills

Motivation to understand and interest in task and Motivation to understand and interest in task and materialsmaterials

Reading Reading ComprehensionComprehension

KnowledgeKnowledge FluencyFluency

MetacognitionMetacognition

LanguageLanguage

•ProsodyProsody•Automaticity/RateAutomaticity/Rate•AccuracyAccuracy•DecodingDecoding•Phonemic AwarenessPhonemic Awareness

•Oral Language SkillsOral Language Skills•Knowledge of Language Knowledge of Language StructuresStructures•VocabularyVocabulary•Cultural InfluencesCultural Influences

•Life ExperienceLife Experience•Content KnowledgeContent Knowledge•Activation of Prior Activation of Prior KnowledgeKnowledge•Knowledge about Knowledge about TextsTexts

•Motivation & Motivation & EngagementEngagement•Active Reading Active Reading StrategiesStrategies•Monitoring StrategiesMonitoring Strategies•Fix-Up StrategiesFix-Up Strategies

Taught by methods Taught by methods that are…that are…

Engaging, meaningful & Engaging, meaningful & motivatingmotivating

Phonemic AwarenessPhonemic Awareness

PhonicsPhonics

FluencyFluency

VocabularyVocabulary

Text ComprehensionText Comprehension

Identifying words Identifying words accurately and accurately and fluentlyfluently

Constructing Constructing meaningmeaning

The Five Essential Components

of Beginning Reading Instruction

One of the Big Five:One of the Big Five: ComprehensionComprehension

ComprehensionComprehension

Vocabulary

Fluency

Phonics

PhonemicAwareness

321K

ListeningReading

ListeningReading

MultisyllablesLetter Sounds & Combinations

Adapted from Simmons, Kame’enui, Harn, & Coyne (2003). Institute for beginning reading. Day 3: Core instruction: What are the critical components that need to be In place to reach our goals? Eugene: University of Oregon.

The Many Strands that are Woven into Skilled Reading(Scarborough, 2001)

BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE LANGUAGE STRUCTURES VERBAL REASONING

LITERACY KNOWLEDGE

PHON. AWARENESS

DECODING (and SPELLING) SIGHT RECOGNITION

SKILLED

LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION

WORD RECOGNITION

increasingly

automatic

increasinglystrategic

Skilled Reading- fluent coordination of word

reading and comprehension

processes

3 Moments in the Teaching of Reading

PREPARING LEARNERS

INTERACTING WITH TEXT

EXTENDING UNDERSTANDING

Task 4

Task 5

Task 6

Task 1

Task 2

Task 3

Task 7

Task 8

Task 9

TEXT

• Activate prior relevant knowledge• Focus attention to concepts to be developed• Introduce vocabulary in context

• Deconstruct text, focus on understanding on a chunk• Reconnect chunk to whole text• Establish connections between ideas within text

• Connect ideas learned to other ideas outside the text• Apply newly gained knowledge to novel situations or problem-solving• Create or recreate based on new understandings

TEXT

The Construction-Integration Modelof Comprehension

Textbase:

The linking of idea units

Mental Model:

The idea units combined with the reader’s knowledge

Reader Text (purpose)

KnowledgeMathHistory LiteratureScience

Vocabulary knowledgeKnowledge of syntaxGenre knowledge

World knowledge/Topic knowledgeDiscipline knowledge - domain specific and domain general

Comprehension is the result of the interaction between the textbase and mental model.

Building a mental model from a text

• “Comprehension occurs as the reader builds a mental representation of a text message.”• ----Perfetti, C. A., Landi, N., & Oakhill, J. (2005).

Mental model

Word 1

Each word is fit into mental models (multiple structures) to the extent possible

Text messages are understood (and mental models are built) word by word

Mental model

Word 2



Mental model

Word 3



Mental model

Word 4



What Does the Research Say?

Reading Comprehension as a synthesis of complex skills cannot be understood without examining the critical role and importance of vocabulary instruction.

(National Reading Panel, 2000)

Text Comprehension

• Text comprehension can be improved by instruction that helps readers use specific comprehension strategies.

• Effective comprehension strategy instruction is explicit, or direct.

(Put Reading First, pp. 49, 53)

Old and New Definitions of Reading

Traditional Views New Definition of Reading

Research Base Behaviorism Cognitive sciences

Goals of Reading Mastery of isolated facts and skills

Constructing meaning and self-regulated learning

Reading as Process Mechanically decoding words; memorizing by rote

An interaction among the reader, the text, and context

Learner Role/Metaphor Passive; vessel receiving knowledge from external sources

Active; strategic reader, good strategy user, cognitive apprentice

Thinking about Reading Comprehension

• Comprehension results from an interaction among the reader, the strategies the reader employs, the material being read, and the context in which reading takes place.

Important Findings from Cognitive Sciences

Most of the knowledge base on this topic comes from studies of good and

poor readers. However, some of it is derived from research on expert

teachers and from training studies.

• Meaning is not in the words on the page. The readerconstruct meaning by making inferences and interpretations.

• Reading researchers believe that information is stored long-term memory in organized “knowledge structures.” Theessence of learning is linking new information to priorknowledge about the topic, the text structure or genre, andstrategic for learning.

Important Findings from Cognitive Sciences

• How well a reader constructs meaning depends in part on metacognition,the reader’s ability to think about and control the learning process (i.e., toplan, monitor comprehension, and revise the use of strategies and comprehension); and attribution, beliefs about the relationship among performance, effort, and responsibility.

• Reading and writing are integrally related. That is, reading and writing have many characteristics in common. Also, readers increase their comprehension by writing, and reading about the topic improves writing performance.

• Collaborative learning is a powerful approach for teaching and learning. The goal of collaborative learning is to establish a community of learners in which students are able to generate questions and discuss ideas freely with the teacher and each other. Students often engage in teaching roles to help other students learn and to take responsibility for learning.

Characteristics of Poor/Successful Readers

Characteristics of Poor Readers Characteristics of Successful Readers

Think understanding occurs from “getting the words right,” rereading.

Understand that they must take responsibility for construction meaning using their prior knowledge.

Use strategies such as rote memorization, rehearsal, simple categorization.

Develop a repertoire of reading strategies, organizational patterns, and genre.

Are poor strategy users:

•They do not think strategically about how to read something or solve a problem.

•They do not have an accurate sense of when they have a good comprehension readiness for assessment.

Are good strategy users:

•They think strategically, plan, monitor their comprehension, and revise their strategies.

•They have strategies for what to do when they do not know what to do.

Characteristics of Poor/Successful Readers

Characteristics of Poor Readers Characteristics of Successful Readers

Have relatively low self-esteem. Have self-confidence that they are effective learners; see themselves as agents able to actualize their potential.

See success and failure as the result of luck or teacher bias.

See success as the result of hard work and efficient thinking.

Milestones in Reading Research

• Evidence that meaning in not in the words, but constructed by the reader.

• Documentation that instruction in the vast majority of classrooms is text driven and that most teachers do not provide comprehension instruction.

• Documentation that textbooks were very poorly written, making information in them difficult to learn; subsequent response of the textbook industry to include real literature, longer selections, more open-ended questions, less fragmented skills, and “more considerate” text.

• Changes in reading research designs from narrowly conceived and well-controlled laboratory experiments with college students to (1) broadly conceived training studies using experimenters and real teachers in real classrooms and (2) studies involving teachers as researchers and colleagues in preservice and inservice contexts.

Milestones in Reading ResearchBecoming a Nation of Readers: The Report of the Commission on Reading (1984)

Publication of A Nation of Readers reaching out to parents, policymakers, and community members as legitimate audiences for direct dissemination of research information.

Important Trends in Reading Instruction

• Linking new learnings to the prior knowledge and experiences of students. (In contexts where there are students from diverse backgrounds, this means valuing diversity and building on the strengths of students.)

• Movement from traditional skills instruction to cognitive strategy instruction, whole language approaches, and teaching within the content areas.

• More emphasis on integrating reading, writing, and critical thinking with content instruction, wherever possible.

Important Trends in Reading Instruction

• More organization of reading instruction in phases with iterative cycles of strategies: Preparing for reading—activates prior knowledge by brainstorming or summarizing previous learnings; surveys headings and graphics; predicts topics and organizational patterns; sets goals/purpose for reading; chooses appropriate strategies.• Reading to learn—selects important information, monitors

comprehension, modifies predictions, compares new ideas with prior knowledge, withholds judgment, questions self about the meaning, connects and organizes ideas, and summarizes text segments.

• Reflecting on the information—reviews/summarizes the main ideas from the text as a whole, considers/verifies how these ideas are related; changes prior knowledge according to new learnings; assesses achievement or purpose for learning; identifies gaps in learning; generates questions and next steps.

Brief History of Comprehension Instruction

• Last Turn of the Century• Simple view of reading was dominant

• Comp=Decoding times Listening Comprehension

• Teach decoding via the alphabetic approach

• Kids could then understand to the degree that their knowledge and oral language skill permitted

• The best way to improve comprehension is, therefore, to increase knowledge

The first paradigm shift

• While the seeds of demise for the alphabetic approach began in the 1840s, they did not bear fruit until about 1910.

• Two major movements• Testing (an outgrowth of the scientific

movement in education)• Silent reading (the transparent evidence

from oral reading was longer available)

Developments from 1915-1970

• The expansion of comprehension assessment• Open ended• Multiple choice

• The development of skills to match the assessment and the workbook (1930-1970)

• The final straw (skills management systems—codified the skills)

The Comprehension Revolution: 1970-1990

IImpact of Chall’s book on early readingmpact of Chall’s book on early reading


• A gnawing feeling that there was something more to reading than decoding

• Durkin’s embarrassing little (1978)• Some 4,000 minutes of classroom

observation • A grand total of 11 minutes devoted to

comprehension instruction• Lots of testing and lots of questioning

during discussion


• New intellectual tools• Psycholinguistics• Cognitive Science

• Text analysis• Schema theory

• Old instructional ideas• Direct instruction• Model-guided practice-independent practice

Reading Comprehension: What Works Educational Leadership, Fielding and Pearson

All Teacher All Student

Joint

Responsibility

Modeling Independent

Guided PracticeGradual Release of Responsibility

Attempts to achieve a research-based approach to comprehension instruction

• Determine the skills that are associated with skilled reading

• In small scale experiments, teach the skills to kids who do not excel at them and determine whether learning them leads to improved comprehension for that skill and for comprehension more generally construed.

• Build a streamlined comprehension curriculum of mainline skills/strategies

• By 1985, we had documented the efficacy of a whole set of instructional routines and strategies…

• But…

Why did comprehension take a back seat for a decade?

• Did not really fit either of the big movements of the late 80s/early 90s.


• Whole language found the tradition of explicit instruction in comprehension strategies a little too “skillsy” in feel.

• Preferred to have comprehension emerge from genuine encounters with authentic, engaging texts.

• Provide good texts and good assignments and it will happen (and if it doesn’t, well at least…)


• Does not really fit the new phonics renaissance either

• Those who champion phonics first and fast tend to hold a “simple view” of reading• Reading Comprehension equals the

product of listening comprehension and decoding prowess• RC=[LC * Dec]

• If you want to build oral language, fine.• But comprehension strategies don’t really

matter

We seem to be ready for a comprehension renaissance

• Realization that no mater how important the code is, it is not the point of reading

• Suspicion that the simple view (RC =LC x Dec) will not get us where we want to go

• That we will have to work on strategies directly.

• RC = [(LC x Dec)] x CompStrat]• So how do you design a comprehension

curriculum?

What would it take to re-energize our K-12 comprehension curriculum?

• A goal

• A supportive context

• A model

• A comprehension curriculum

1. You need a goal: what is an expert reader

Active Integrate text with PK

Purposeful Infer word meanings

Monitor for achievement Evaluate text quality

Size things up Fit strategies to text genre

Attend selectively Plot, setting, character

Evolving summaries

Structural representations

Revise meaning models

2. You need a supportive classroom context

• Opportunity: large amounts of time for actual text reading

• Authenticity: reading real texts for real reasons• Range: reading THE range of text genres• Talk: talking about text with a teacher and one

another• Words: conceptually driven vocabulary development• Enabling Skills: solid base of decoding, monitoring

and fluency• Writing: writing text for others to comprehend

3. You need a model: Cognitive apprenticeship

You need a model: Cognitive Apprenticeship

0

100

0 100

Student Responsibility

Tea

cher

Res

po

nsi

bili

ty

4. You need a comprehension curriculum: sure fire strategies and routines.

Individual Strategies Routines

Making predictions Reciprocal Teaching

Think-alouds SAIL/Transactional Strategies Instruction

Uncovering text structure Questioning the Author

Summarizing

Question-generation

Reciprocal Teaching (Palinscar)

• Premise: teachers who guide students in the acquisition of a routine that can be applied iteratively to text segments help them get to and through texts that would otherwise baffle them.

• Pick a small set of key strategies and apply them again and again.

• Gradual release of responsibility

Reciprocal Teaching: The strategies

• Summarize

• Ask and answer a good question

• Clarify puzzling parts

• Predict the next bit

The evidence

• Really helps improve comprehension

• Works across the grade levels: K-12

• Pretty easy to apply

• Pretty biased toward a• Cognitive emphasis• Meaning-is-in-the-text perspective

Transactional Strategies Instruction(Pressley and colleagues)

Basic Goals1. Using strategies in a flexible and opportunistic manner

(problem-solving).2. Acquiring strategies while engaged in authentic reading3. Exploring the strategy environment that is created by both

teacher and student.4. Broadening strategies to include both cognitive and

interpretive strategies.

For a full treatment of SAIL, a curricular approach to TSI, see several articles in Elementary School Journal [(1992, 94 2)]

Basic Components of TSI

Cognitive Strategies

•Think Aloud

•Constructing images

•Summarizing

•Predicting (prior knowledge activation

•Questioning

•Clarifying

•Story grammar analysis

•Text structure analysis

•Italics=also in Reciprocal Teaching

Interpretive Strategies•Character Development:

•Imagining how a character might feel; identifying with a character

•Creating themes

•Reading for multiple meanings

•Creating literal/figurative distinctions

•Looking for a consistent point of view

•Relating text to personal experiences

•Relating text to other texts

•Responding to certain text features- point of view, tone, mood

Comparison with Reciprocal Teaching

Feature Reciprocal Teaching Transactional Strategies Instruction

Philosophy Cognitive apprenticeship Cognitive apprenticeship & Explicit teaching

Goal Cognitive strategies Cognitive and interpretive strategies

Questions Text-based and content specific

Text-based and content free

Metaphor Routine Tool kit

The evidence for TSI

• Solid evidence of improvement on• specific strategies• content of the lessons• more general comprehension

• Used in grades 1-9, but most of the research has been conducted in grades 2-4

Questioning the author (Beck, McKeown and colleagues)

• Basic premise: Try to get inside the author’s head to ask why (s) he might have said things the way (s) he did.

• Critical, but within the boundaries of the intended message.

• Basic strategy: Ask questions that encourage the reader into questioning the author’s goals and motives.

Questioning the Author

Goal Candidate Questions

Initiate the discussion What is the author trying to say?

What s the author’s message?

What is the author talking about?

Help students focus on the author’s message That is what the author says, but what does it ,mean?

Help students link information How does that connect with what the author already told us?

What information has the author added here that connects to or fits in with…?

Identify difficulties with the way the author has presented information or ideas.

Does that make sense?

Is that said in a clear way?

Did the author explain that clearly?

Why or why not? What’s missing? What do we need to figure out or find out?

Encourage students to refer to the text either because they’ve misinterpreted a text statement or to help them recognize that they’ve made an inference

Did the author tell us that?

Did the author give us the answer to that?

The evidence for Questioning the Author

• Teachers can learn the techniques

• Students double their participation in discussions

• Students increase their performance on higher order comprehension and monitoring

Teacher-Directed Instruction in Comprehension Strategies

• Some key aspects of strategy instruction• Authenticity of strategies (things that real

readers use)• Demonstration by teachers (what, why,

when, and how): making thinking public• Genuine apprenticeships: gradual release

of responsibility, learning from one another• Authenticity of texts (essential that it be

applied to real texts)

Teacher-Directed Instruction in Comprehension Strategies

• Embedding Strategy Instruction in Text Reading• The paradox of generalization: to get

strategies that generalize, we have to focus on the particular text at hand.

• Situated cognition: what we have to guide us in new situations are more like precedents than general routines

The use of visual displays and other “structural” devices

• Why they work• Help students “see” relationships and

structure (render the structure of the text transparent)

• They carry an implicit syntax (help students see relationships)

• Allow for active “transformation” of information (Representation)—a summary yes, but an “interpreted” summary

Four levels of Metacognitive Knowledge:

• Tacit readers

• Aware readers

• Strategic readers

• Reflective readers

Tacit Readers Readers who

lack awareness of how they think when they read.

Aware ReadersReaders who realize when meaning has broken down but do not know how to fix the problem.

Strategic Readers Readers who use

comprehension strategies to enhance understanding.

Reflective ReadersReaders who are reflect on their thinking and apply strategies flexibly depending on their purpose for reading.

We must teach students to:

• Track their thinking • Notice when they

lose focus• Stop and go back to

clarify thinking• Reread to enhance

understanding• Read ahead to

clarify meaning

• Identify what’s confusing about the text

• Think critically about the text

• Match the problem with the strategy that will best solve it

Strategies used by Proficient Readers:

• Making Connections

• Asking Questions

• Visualizing

• Drawing Inferences

• Determining Important Ideas

• Synthesizing Information

Making Connections

When students have had an experience similar to that of a character in a story, they are more likely to understand the character’s motives, thoughts, and feelings.

A.K.A.Prior KnowledgeSchema Theory

Three types of connections

• Text-to-self are connections that readers make between the text and their past experiences.

• Text-to-text are connections that readers make between the text they are reading and another text.

• Text-to-world are connections readers make between text and the issues, events, or concerns of society and the world at large.

Teaching children to make connections• Choose stories

close to their own lives and experiences

• Move from close to home to more global issues

• Model using “think-alouds”

Asking Questions

Questioning is the strategy that propels readers forward. When readers have questions they are less likely to abandon the text. Proficient readers ask questions before, during, and after reading.

Readers ask questions to:

• Construct meaning• Enhance understanding• Find answers• Solve problems• Find specific information• Acquire a body of information• Discover new information• Propel research efforts• Clarify confusion

Teaching children to question

• Share questions about your own reading• Stress that some questions are

answered, others are not• Demonstrate how to list and categorize

questions• Use “wonder books” and “question

webs”

Visualizing

Visualizing enables a reader to make the words on the page real and concrete. It is the ability to create a movie of the text in your head. When students create these “movies” while reading, their level of engagement increases and their attention doesn’t flag.

When readers visualize it…• Allows them to create mental images • Enhances meaning with mental imagery• Links past experiences to the text• Enables readers to place themselves in the story• Strengthens a readers relationship to the text• Stimulates imaginative thinking• Heightens engagement with text• Brings joy to reading

Teaching children to visualize

• Use wordless picture books

• Merge prior experience and the text to create mental images

• Use non-fiction trade books (with pictures) to make comparisons

• Use all senses to comprehend text

Making Inferences

Inferring is the bedrock of comprehension. It allows us to “read between the lines,” to make our own discoveries without the direct comment of the author. If readers do not infer they will not grasp the deeper meaning of the text.

When readers infer they

• Draw conclusions based on clues in the text

• Make predictions before and during reading

• Surface underlying themes• Use implicit information from the text to

create meaning during and after reading• Use the pictures to help gain meaning

Teaching children to infer• Help them better

understand their own and other’s feelings

• Use all aspects of the book to infer ( cover, pictures and text)

• Understand difference between prediction and inference

• Differentiate between plot and theme

• Using inferring to better understand textbooks

Determining Important Ideas

The ability to determine importance in text often requires us to use related comprehension strategies. We may have to infer the lesson or moral in a fairy tale or summarize the information in a science text. What we determine to be important depends on our purpose for reading.

When determining importance

• Learn new information and build background knowledge

• Distinguish what’s important from what’s interesting

• Discern a theme, opinion, or perspective

• Answer a specific question

• Determine the author’s message: inform, persuade, or entertain?

Teaching children to determine important ideas

• Activate prior knowledge• Note characteristics of

text length and structure• Note important headings

and subheadings• Determine what to read

and in what order

• Determine what to pay careful attention to

• Determine what to ignore

• Decide to quit when the text contains no relevant information

• Decide if the text it worth careful reading or just skimming

Synthesizing Information

Synthesizing allows us to make sense of important information and move on. It requires the reader to sift and sort through large amounts of information to extract the overall meaning. Synthesizing is the strategy that allows readers to change their thinking.

When readers synthesize, they• Stop and collect their thoughts before reading

on• Sift important ideas from less important ones• Summarize the information by briefly

identifying the main points• Combine these main points into a bigger idea• Make generalizations and/or judgments about

the information they read• Personalize their reading by combining new

information with prior knowledge to form a new idea, opinion or perspective

Teaching children to synthesize

• Retelling a story• Make margin notes

while reading• Summarize the

content and add personal response

• Taking notes and/or highlighting

• Read like a writer• Asking/Answering

difficult questions

Testing your knowledge…

Making Inferences

This strategy allows us to “read between the lines.”

Asking Questions

Proficient readers do this before, during, and after reading.

Synthesizing Information

This allows readers to change their way of thinking.

Summary: Comprehension improves when

• We support it with other types of instruction (vocabulary, word identification, fluency, writing)

• We teach strategies and routines explicitly• We provide lots of opportunities for just plain

reading• We contextualize it with engaging discussions

that embrace ideas, feelings, and insights embedded in clear purposes for reading

Questions?Questions?

For More Information...

• Contact:Patricia A. Edwards, Ph.D.

Michigan State University

Teacher Education Department

304 Erickson Hall

East Lansing, MI 48824-1034

Phone: 517 432-0858

E-mail: [email protected]

the comprehension revolution: helping teachers take a closer look at the reader, text, activity, and...

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