The Threads of Reading Blog » Comprehension

Building Deep Thinking With Content Instruction

KTankersley — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 06:00:16 +0000

A great way to help students increase their understanding of content text is to get them talking and sharing with one another about a text. Instead of asking simple knowledge and comprehension questions about the text, have students work with partners or small groups to answer 3-4 process or reaction types of questions over the assigned text. Allow students time to both discuss the question, form a response and then share out to the class. Since both types of questions require students to think more deeply and demonstrate deeper levels of comprehension, the whole class benefits from rich discussions that take place with these types of questions. You will also benefit from hearing your students report out and may uncover confusions, misunderstandings or areas where students made connections that you never expected.

Some examples of process questions include the following:

1. What didn’t you understand or what was confusing about this section of the reading assignment?

2. What text in this section was interesting to learn or gave you some new ideas?

3. What is the most difficult part of this concept and what could you do to better understand it?

Some examples of reaction types of questions include the following:

1. If you were the teacher, what questions would you ask your students about this concept or idea?

2. What kind of a picture or doodle does this concept make you think of?

3. What 3 ideas or concepts that you have learned before could be connected to this topic/concept?

Using Fix-Up Strategies

KTankersley — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 21:51:51 +0000

One of the characteristics that separates good readers from poor readers is what the reader does when s/he realizes that the text has stopped being meaningful. Good readers have “fix-up” strategies that they use to help reconnect with text and regain meaning. Poor readers, on the other hand, more often than not, become overwhelmed and simply give up. Be sure to teach your students what good readers do when they lose meaning. Tips to share are:

1. Go back and reread.

2. Read ahead to see if the meaning becomes clear as you read more.

3. Read the text more slowly or read the text aloud.

4. See if there are any clues you can use such as pictures, illustrations, or other words in the sentence.

5. Look up a word that is confusing or ask someone to help clarify the meaning of a new word, a sentence or a section of text as may be needed.

When students practice using their fix-up strategies, they become more proficient and successful readers.

Tips to Help Increase Comprehension

KTankersley — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 17:19:15 +0000

Teachers from all content areas continue to struggle with how to help students comprehend more of what they read in their content area textbooks. These simple 8 tips can help content teachers better prepare students to comprehend more of what they read on a daily basis:

Help students activate their prior knowledge on a topic before beginning a new unit. When students make connections to information they already know, they process new information more fully and more thoroughly.
Make sure that students know the purpose for reading. When students know what they will be doing with information they can use more useful strategies to read. Provide guiding questions to help students get the most out of the text they are reading.
Help students organize information and create visual images from the text. Our brain is programmed to remember visual information so help students put what they are learning in frames or graphic organizers.
Help students read “deeper” by helping them draw inferences and make conclusions. Teachers can help their students by asking probing questions that require students to go beyond superficial responses and thinking.
Require students to summarize the key ideas from text either orally or in writing. Marzano, Pickering and Pollock (2001) tells us that being able to summarize information is a powerful skill that helps build deep comprehension. We cannot summarize what we don’t understand.
Help students synthesize what they read to think more deeply about the content they are reading. When students apply new learning to themselves and the world around them, comprehension increases. Our brain prefers to link new knowledge to what we already know and have stored in our brains.
Use “thinking aloud” strategies to help your students “hear” your own thought processes and require your students to also “think aloud” when describing how they arrived at key understandings.
Teach students how to use “fix-up” strategies to monitor their own reading. Help students understand that all readers – even excellent readers – lose meaning on occasion. Help them understand and model what good readers do when meaning is lost. Encourage students to talk to one another about confusing parts of a text to develop clarity.

When students organize their thinking, ask questions and clarify misunderstandings, they can greatly increase their comprehension of the text they are reading. By weaving strong foundations under our students, we can make learning not only more accessible but also more interesting for our students.

Marzano, R.J., Pickering, D.J. & Pollock, J.E. (2001). Classroom Instruction That Works, Alexandria, VA, Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Anticipation Guides

KTankersley — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 04:41:00 +0000

Although they have been around for many years, Anticipation guides are still a great way to get kids interested in text before reading. Not only do Anticipation guides build student interest but they also activate a student’s background knowledge. This helps students get more out of reading and be more interested in the text you want them to read.

Reading Comprehension Tips

KTankersley — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 22:06:00 +0000

Want your students to understand and retain more of what they read? Far and away the best way to do this is to ask students to summarize a piece of text. After students have read a passage, ask them to write a paragraph of 4 or 5 sentences summarizing the most important points in the passage. If your students have trouble doing this at first, let them work with a partner or trio to write their summaries. This technique is great for any content area and will work wonders for not only comprehension but also remembering key points in a text.

Teaching Reading Comprehension

KTankersley — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:14:00 +0000

After children learn to decode text, the next most important skill for them to develop is the ability to comprehend what they read. One of the ways to check for understanding is to have children explain what has been happening in the section of text that they have read. When children can summarize the actions that have taken place, we can be reasonably assured that they have gotten meaning from what has been read. Once children can summarize what they have been reading well, the next step is to deepen their thinking by asking them to analyze or reflect on the text in more sophisticated ways. We can do this by asking children “why” or “how” questions about the characters or their actions which are not explicitly stated in the story. These questions require children to think more deeply about the text and make connections beyond the literal level. Some examples might be: “How is what happened to character x similar to something that has happened to you? or “Why do you think the father was angry at the store clerk in the story?” Engaging children in thinking about the text as they read builds fluency and enhances deep level processing.