Effective Teaching Strategies for Reading Comprehension

 

Students may start with literal pictures but should be encouraged to move beyond that by interpreting feelings and sensory elements and visualizing

  A “literal picture” of the character, setting or situation

With the senses (smell, hear, touch in addition to what the reader sees) to expand the mental image

and to infer beyond the text

Using background knowledge to infer beyond the text

Although visualization is more often thought of when reading narrative texts, visualization or

constructing mental images is an effective strategy for students to use for comprehending complex

informational text. Visualizing passages can help students organize and remember information

(Trabasso and Bouchard, 2002) as well as to recognize when information is incomplete or inconsistent

(Irwin, 1991). For example, in a process-explanation structure, which explains how something works or

is built, a student can visualize the process, which helps with information retention as well as the

identification of confusing or inadequate information in the text. Visualization also involves both making

connections and inferring (Harvey and Goudvis, 2000). In another situation, a group of students were

reading about different sources of energy, wind being one of the sources. The text referred to “wind

farms.” At first the thought of a wind farm, it made no sense when they visualized a traditional farm with

crops growing in rows. When one student suggested that they think about the turbines as crops, they

were able to visualize long rows of wind turbines, neatly laid out like crops on a farm. The students then

inferred that a “wind farm was an enormous area of land with wind turbines planted or erected in long

straight rows.”

Unlike fiction, there is less room for interpretation when visualizing nonfiction. It may be helpful to:

  
      • Visualize a segment of text using author

      • Create a time line

      • Visualize beyond the words in the text

      • Make diagram of a complex process.

      • llustrate a concept or draw a map.

      • Anggregataten information and chart it

      • Visualize the main idea of the text details

Summarizing The National Reading Panel (2000) analyses found that summarizing increases

engagement by focusing on the main ideas rather than the details. Summarizing requires students to

process the text by omitting irrelevant information and generalizing ideas various several examples. In

order to summarize, students must pay more attention to the text while they read or reread it. This also

results in increased engagement. Summarizing helps students understand the structure of the text.

Summarizing narrative text involves focusing on the story elements. Effective readers do not wait until

the end of a text to summarize but rather create a series of summary statements as they are reading to check understanding and build meaning. Students need to learn what these logical points are, for example, the end of an episode. Summarizing informational text, like fiction, involves identifying the gist, the main thesis, the key idea(s) or main point(s) of what was read. Creating a summary for informational text is often very challenging for students, since there is a tendency to include details, not just the main ideas.

For younger students, summarizing begins by talking about or retelling what they remember about the story. Sequence cards, story maps, and other graphic organizers offer the scaffolding needed for students to summarize text. For example, in kindergarten, students might use sequence cards to retell the events in terms of what happened first, next and last. By first grade they identify and use basic story

elements to retell the story. Second graders can learn to summarize the plot in chronological order by using a graphic organizer.

The literature on teaching summarizing contains a range of activities, many of which do not result in the

development of good summaries. For example, having students continuously add to a summary that one

student started, only teaches students that “more is better ” when conciseness should be the focus.

The goal of instruction should be moving students toward identifying the central idea as stated in the

text or in their own words. The following is a continuum of skills leading to summarizing. Summarizing is

a complex skill and takes years to develop. Young children have difficulty with the skills necessary to for

summarizing. They delete information but don’t combine or condense details. Learning to paraphrase

precedes their ability to begin combining and condensing. This continuum can be helpful for the scaffolding students need to become more proficient in summarizing.

      • Retelling anything remembered.

      • Retelling (paraphrasing) in one’s own words.

      • Retelling ideas in sequence.

      • Summarizing the main idea and details.

      • Recognizing convenient or necessary spots for summing up, not just at the end of
        every paragraph but at the end of chapters and key story events.

     • Summing up the most important information concisely by creating a gist statement.

     • Using inferences to summarize (Gear, 2006).

All these strategies should be employed throughout the reading process. As students become proficient

using strategies and engage with each other to discuss problems, they need to appreciate that what is

a problem for one student may not be a problem for another. An unknown word for one student may be

a familiar one to another. Students may come up with different visualizations or connections based on

their own personal experiences. Strategy instruction helps students understand that interpretations

of text can and should vary across readers. While there may not be one “right” answer to a question or

different strategies might be used to solve a problem, students should always be encouraged to discuss

the problems, share solutions and respect different interpretations of stories.

Teaching Comprehension Strategies

Strategy instruction is most effective when strategies are explicitly taught (National Reading Panel, 2000; Duffy, (2002) in the context of actual reading. This involves the instructional strategies of explanation plus modeling or demonstrating the strategy as to how and when to use it (Dewitz et al.

2009). In addition, instructional strategies should include scaffolding by teachers and opportunities for students to practice and apply strategies (Palinscar and Brown, 1984; Rosenshine et al., 1996). While the teacher serves as the instructional leader initially, students are actively engaged in the process and should be gradually given the opportunity to take over responsibility for recognizing when and how to

use strategies. Direct or explicit instruction involves the following process:

Strategy Explanation involves describing the strategy and explaining why it is important to use.

Explanations contribute to the ability of students to become independent in strategy use and should be clear and succinct. Once the students are sufficiently exposed to the strategy, teachers should ask them to explain the strategy and how it benefits them as readers. Explanation helps students to think about when they have used the strategy previously and motivates them to try the strategy on their own or when prompted. This explanation stage takes very little time but should not be omitted. For example:

Today, we are going to focus on the strategy of predicting. Making predictions helps us to think about what will happen as we read. Some people call it making a guess about what is going to happen. But we don’t just make a guess without thinking. When we make a prediction, we think about clues the author gives us in the story and we also think about what we have learned from our own experience or other stories.

Modeling Thinking aloud is a common and effective form of modeling and helps students focus on building meaning (Bauman, Seifert-Kessel and Jones, 1992) and understanding how successful readers construct meaning while reading. Thinking aloud is based on the work of Bereiter and Bird (1985) and is a critical component of strategy instruction. Think-alouds go beyond direct explanation by opening a window into the minds of proficient readers. They incorporate the how, why, and when of specific strategy use through the actual verbalization of the thinking while reading.

For example: While reading Arnold Lobel’s “The Garden”, in Frog and Toad Together, the teacher uses a think aloud to model predicting, I think that this is a good place to stop and make a prediction. Frog has just told Toad that the seeds will grow very soon after he plants them. But I know that when we planted seeds in our school garden, it took quite a bit of time for them to sprout. I predict that Toad is going to have to wait awhile to see his garden grow. Let’s read on and see what happens.

The intent behind using think-alouds is to help students develop their own ability to think about text, montor their comprehension, engage with the text, and to solve problems while reading. Think-alouds focus on ideas and problems as they are encountered while reading. Initially the teacher does the modeling and thinking aloud to make thinking “visible” – to let students in on how, when, and why proficient readers use strategies. As students begin to take over responsibility for strategy use, they

should be encouraged to think-aloud themselves.

Scaffolding Shifting responsibility to students requires scaffolding. Teachers can scaffold learning to

enable students to use comprehension strategies independently by prompting students at appropriate

points during the reading of the text. Scaffolding support includes additional explanation or modeling as

well as feedback. It is helpful for the teacher to communicate what students are doing well, what can be

improved and a model of how to do so. Although teaching comprehension strategies requires time and

effort, scaffolding is a support that should be gradually released.

For example: Toad has tried a lot of things to make his seeds grow. Can we retell what Toad did to make

his seeds grow? Let’s look back at what he did by reading closely and pointing to the text evidence.

• Teacher: The first thing Toad did was to ....

• Students: He yelled at the seeds...

• Teacher: And then Toad...

• Students: Toad read to the seeds.

• Teacher: And then...

• Students: Toad sang song and played music.

• Teacher: And the seeds still didn’t....

• Students: They didn’t grow.

• Teacher: That was a good retelling. He tried all of those things but Toad’s seeds just didn’t grow.

Note that scaffolding of strategies involves a dialogue between the teacher and students. In the example

above, the teacher and students create the retell, so that the students can be a part of providing the

think-aloud model.

Practicing and applying strategies Students should be encouraged to stop and think aloud by sharing

strategies they use. Reciprocal Teaching (Palinscar &Brown, 1984) and Transactional Strategies Use

(Pressley et al., 1994) emphasize the importance of student interaction and teacher-student dialogue.

Students can discuss and compare their strategy use with one another. Older students can use sticky notes to identify strategies they use while reading independently and then discuss and compare their strategy use with partners or in small groups. This shift of responsibility from the teacher to the students takes time and does not happen overnight.

Pressley & Woloshyn (1995) recommend teaching a few strategies at a time and modeling and explaining

those strategies a lot. In fact, teachers need to be prepared to do a lot of re-explaining. Once students

begin assuming responsibility for using strategies, they should be encouraged to apply this new knowledge when reading outside of the actual reading lesson. Teaching the strategies throughout the day increases the likelihood that students will apply to apply the strategies to other academic areas.

When modeling strategies, we assume that students understand what is involved with creating a summary, asking thoughtful questions, or predicting. We talk about monitoring understanding yet many students really have no idea what this means, what it looks like, or what to do. The first step in strategy instruction is to make no assumptions. In order to help students appreciate the versatility of strategies, each strategy below is segmented into components to make teaching more explicit and to scaffold to make strategies accessible to and usable by all students.

Teaching Skills to Access Complex Text Organizational structures should be introduced systematically and judiciously and should be taught explicitly. Once taught, each structure should be reviewed cumulatively (California Department of Education, 1999). This is not to say, however, that skills instruction should occupy a great deal of class

time. Instructional sessions should be concise and always should be conducted within the context of reading a text. In addition, skills instruction must alert students to the fact that a particular text type, such as an article in a magazine or a chapter in a novel, may use more than one type of organizational structure to arrange information. That is, it prepares them to be flexible in their use of comprehension skills to access complex text and to switch from one to another, as required, as they read a text.

Which comprehension skills should be taught? Unfortunately, there is no single, agreed upon set of essential comprehension skills to be taught. Indeed, one source lists twenty-six “traditional comprehension skills” (Fry, Kress, and Fountoukidis, 1993). To further complicate matters, the same skill may be referenced under several different names (Pearson and Johnson, 1978).

Obviously, not enough time is available in a busy school day to teach the entire universe of comprehension skills. Nor would this approach be productive. It is far more practical and logical to select for instruction those skills that are most useful to readers—that is, skills that can be used with the greatest variety of texts and reading situations (Baumann, 1988; Twining, 1985).These skills can be used not only to access complex text but also to use as tools in students’ own writing. Among these are skills that students can use to:

• Identify and consider the author’s point of view.

 • Identify and understand the author’s purpose for writing.

• Identify and understand cause-and effect relationships.
• Understand a sequence of events.
• Compare and contrast ideas, characters, and events.

• Classify and categorize information.
• Identify and distinguish main ideas and details.
• Draw conclusions and make inferences from what is read.

 • Distinguish fact from opinion.
• Distinguish fantasy from reality.

Some of these skills—such as identifying cause-and-effect relationships, identifying main ideas, understanding a sequence, comparing and contrasting, and classifying and categorizing—help students organize text information. Others—such as understanding the author’s point of view and purpose and distinguishing fact from opinion—lead them to a deeper understanding of a text, Although most of the skills mentioned can be employed in analyzing narrative text and informational writing, it is especially

helpful for students to have a repertoire of skills to use as they read expository texts. Expository text is the type of writing students most often encounter in their textbooks, as well as in newspapers, magazines, manuals, reference books, and guides. The following section takes a closer look at each of these skills and at how they work to help students better understand the texts they read.

Identifying Cause and Effect Relationships It has been argued that helping students identify and understand cause-and-effect relationships is one of the most important aspects of comprehension instruction (Pearson & Johnson, 1978). After all, seeking causes and analyzing effects are primary concerns of a wide spectrum of society; everybody seeks to identify and understand the why and the what

of everyday life.

In reading expository text, knowing what causes events to happen, such as economic depressions or droughts, can help readers put together the logical explanations needed to understand their social studies and science textbooks. Understanding what caused a character in a novel to run away from home or steal a loaf of bread can contribute to students’ involvement in a story.

As part of instruction in cause-and-effect relationships, it is valuable for students to learn signal words,

which are key words and phrases that alert students to this type of organizational structure. Called causal

indicators, these signal words include the following: because, for, since, therefore, so, consequently, reason

for, source of, led to, in order that, due to, and as a result.

Understanding a Sequence As they read, it is often difficult for intermediate-grade and younger students

to understand the progression of developments in a plot, of steps in a scientific process, of the evolution

of specific schools of art, or of events in a historical context because students do not have a firm grasp of

time-and-order sequence. Young students, for example, seem to equate time sequence with the sequence

of words they hear or read. That is, they interpret a sentence such as “Before Sam did his homework, he

played computer games” as meaning that Sam did his homework first, and then he played computer games

(Clark, 1971, cited in Pearson & Johnson, 1978). They seem to ignore or misunderstand time-and-order

signal words such as before, after, first, and next. Young students also have difficulty placing events in

time order and answering correctly questions about which event in a sequence came first, last, and so

forth (Pearson, 1977, cited in Pearson & Johnson, 1978). Clearly, instruction about how to recognize and

understand time-and order sequences of events can contribute greatly to students’ comprehension of

a variety of texts. As part of this instruction, students need to become familiar with certain key words and

phrases that signal sequential information. Among these signal words are the following: first, second, last,

earlier, later, now, then, following, next, after, during, and finally.

Comparing and Contrasting Authors use comparing and contrasting to point out similarities and

differences between two or more topics, including ideas, characters, settings, or events. The ability

to recognize and understand compare-and-contrast text structures has been shown to improve

comprehension for students at various grade levels (Meyer, 1984).

The compare-contrast text structure can be signaled by key words and phrases such as the following: like,

as, still, although, yet, similarly, different from, opposite, same, too, in contrast, but, however, rather, and

on the other hand.

Classifying and Categorizing Classifying and categorizing, which means putting like things or ideas

together, is a natural human activity. When something new is encountered, an attempt to understand it

is made by relating it to a class or category of similar things; for example, a kumquat is a citrus fruit, like an orange, a tangerine, or a lemon (Pearson & Johnson, 1978).

Because classifying and categorizing is such a common, natural activity, students benefit from knowing that authors often use this structure as a way of making new ideas and information easily accessible to their readers.

Identifying and Distinguishing Main Ideas and Details Authors of expository texts and narratives build arguments, develop ideas and plots, and generally write entire texts by stating directly or implying important, or main, ideas and then offering details to support those ideas. The ability of students toidentify relevant information in a text, including main ideas and the relations among ideas, is crucial to full comprehension. It has been found, however, that students at all grade levels are not able to find and analyze the main ideas in textbooks, especially if the main ideas are implied rather than stated clearly (Seidenberg, 1989).

To be most effective, instruction in distinguishing main ideas should show students how to use their prior

knowledge of the topic of a selection to help them determine what is more and less important. Helping

them activate their knowledge of other text structures and of signal words—first, next, consequently,

subsequently, therefore, and so on—aids them in organizing the text and subsequently figuring out what

the important idea is in a paragraph, section, or chapter.

Distinguishing Fact from Opinion Biographies; accounts of historical events; reviews of books, plays, and

cultural events; and other forms of expository text in which authors may take a particular perspective

can pose special problems for students if they are unable to distinguish a statement of fact from a

statement of the author’s opinion. Often, students simply accept what is written as factual. Further, they

often accept as factual something with which they agree strongly or that they see or hear repeated often

(Heilman, Blair, & Rupley, 1998).

To evaluate the information in what they read, students need to know what makes a fact a fact and what

makes an opinion an opinion. Typically, this means helping them understand that a fact can be verified

or tested. It can be checked in a reference book or through reputable Internet sites; it is reported in the

same way by any number of observers or writers. There is no disagreement among sources, for example,

that American astronaut Neil Armstrong was the first human to set foot on the moon. That is a fact. An

opinion, however, is not so easy to identify or characterize. Its validity cannot be demonstrated. Sources

may disagree, for example, that Neil Armstrong was the greatest of all the American astronauts.

Instruction should include discussion of statements in a selection to help students identify factors

such as dates and figures that can be used to determine whether or not the statements are verifiable. If

discussion does not help students distinguish fact from opinion, lessons should be extended, perhaps to

include trips to the library to find additional sources of information for cross-checking.

Teaching Comprehension Skills to Understand Writer ’s Craft

Comprehension skills can also be used to understand why an author writes in a certain way or uses

various literary elements to communicate. Recognizing these elements will not only enable students

to comprehend a text better, but it also may help them use these same skills in their own writing.

Identifying and Considering the Author’s Point of View In narrative writing, or fiction, point of view is the

perspective from which an author presents the actions and events in the story. In general, an author uses

either a first-person or third-person point of view. The characteristics of first-person point of view are

as follows.

• The story is told by a character who is involved in the story and who describes the action and tells about the other characters.

• The person telling the story uses first person pronouns, such as I, me, we, our, and my.

•The story provides only the thoughts, feelings, and emotions of the character telling the
  story. The characteristics of third-person point of view are as follows.

• The story is told by someone outside the story who is not involved in the action.

• The person telling the story uses third person pronouns, such as he or she and him or
   her

• The person telling the story is aware of all of the characters’ thoughts, feelings, and
   actions.

Making students aware of an author’s point of view can provide them with insights into the characters,

events, and actions in a story. For example, in a story told from a first-person point of view, the narrator’s

opinions and biases might color his or her descriptions of other characters and of what is happening.

Students who recognize this can look for other information in the text to help them form a full

understanding of what they are reading. Understanding the author’s point of view in an informational or

persuasive text can help students grasp the perspective or position that the author takes on the subject

matter. While the author’s point of view usually mirrors the author’s purpose, this may not always be

the case.

Identifying and Understanding the Author’s Purpose Every text is written for a purpose. Good readers

use their knowledge of the author’s purposes for writing to sort out what is important in a text from what

is less important (Dole, Duffy, Roehler, & Pearson, 1991). Knowing why an author wrote a particular

text gives readers an idea of what they can expect to find in the text. Authors write for a wide range of

purposes: to entertain, to inform, to share personal experiences, and to persuade. If an author’s purpose

is to entertain, then readers can relax and enjoy what they read. If the author’s purpose is to persuade,

readers can get more from their reading if they keep in mind that the author is arranging, including, and

excluding information in ways designed to convince them of the strengths of a particular perspective.

Other skills that may be used to understand and appreciate a writer’s craft include:

• Identifying and understanding plot, setting, and character

• Distinguishing among various genres and learning the features of each

• Recognizing language use and literary elements, such as rhyme, alliteration,

        sensory details, and so on.

  • Understanding text features

Teaching Comprehension Skills

As with comprehension strategies instruction (Roehler & Duffy, 1984), instruction in comprehension

skills progresses logically:

•

Teachers introduce each skill th

rough explanation and modeling. As part of rereading a text, teachers

identify a skill that can be applied, explain how the skill can be used to read the text, and finally model

how to employ the skill through thinking aloud.

•

After introducing each skill, teachers remind students to use it on their own, providing prompts and

hints about when its use is appropriate.

•

Teachers gradually decrease their prompts and hints, allowing students to assume more and more

responsibility for employing the skills on their own.

•

Teachers limit the number of skills to one or two that can be identified clearly in the selection. Tryi

ng

to have students concentrate on too many skills will confuse them and make it harder for them to use

any of the skills successfully. If a selection has good examples of several different skills, teachers can

return to the selection several times over a span of days.

•

Teachers solidify the reading/writing connection by having students incorporate different text

structures into their writing. As they use specific organizational structures in their writing, students

develop a clearer understanding of how to identify them as they read.

•

Teachers remind students often that the purpose of any skill exercise is to give them tools to use as

they read and write.

Conclusion

Students today are faced with ever increasing demands to read and read well. McNamara and Kendeou

(2011) stress the importance of teaching reading as a process and that strategy instruction has been

found to impact students’ appreciation of reading as a process, the goal of which is to understand what is

being read. But the ultimate objective of comprehension instruction should be student ownership of the

strategies and skills, knowing when comprehension breaks down and how to address the problem and

repair the breakdown. Teaching students to use a repertoire of comprehension strategies and skills can

set them securely on the path to becoming lifelong readers. Many opportunities to read independently

allow students to begin to coordinate the strategies they have learned; to adjust, modify, or change

strategies and skills until they are able to make sense of text. The higher order thinking of strategic

readers also enhances their reading experience and responses to literature and informational text.

And once students take ownership of the process, they take it one step further—they take what they

know, apply it to the unknown, and become creative thinkers who are able to assess problems from the

comfortable position of knowing they have the skills and can acquire the knowledge they need to solve any problem with which they are faced