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The National Reading Panel: Comprehension · The Reading Instruction Show

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  This is the reading instruction show. Again,
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  we are looking at the National Reading Panel,
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  the big five, and this last one is on comprehension.
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  Comprehension, research -based strategies to
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  address comprehension. First of all, it's the
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  understanding that we read for two purposes,
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  and two purposes only. to enjoy good stories
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  and to understand text. There are two parts to
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  comprehension. Part one is developing cognitive
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  processes related to narrative text. Comprehension
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  involves thinking. Cognition, to improve comprehension,
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  you improve thinking. We teach the process to
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  develop the skill, and here are some of the cognitive
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  processes related to effective comprehension.
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  Let me demonstrate, if you will. The goal is
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  to develop automaticity of these cognitive processes
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  so that you do them automatically. These are
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  thinking processes, and thinking processes are
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  cognitive operations with steps. High -level
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  thinking is not automatic, but with teaching
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  with direct and explicit instruction, we can
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  develop automaticity. Now the first thing to
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  know is that efficient readers approach narrative
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  and expository texts different, stories versus
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  information texts, and we must teach our students
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  that, starting in grades four or three or earlier.
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  Boys and girls, we do not read a textbook the
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  same way as we read a Harry Potter book. So,
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  effective teachers design different types of
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  activities and lessons for narrative and expository
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  texts. Now, comprehension worksheets do relatively
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  little to help students comprehend texts. They're
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  often Remembering worksheets. You read a story,
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  you give them a comprehension worksheet, and
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  they fill in the blanks. It's usually a remembering
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  worksheet or a go look it up worksheet. However,
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  good comprehension instruction is a pre -post
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  or pre -during post. Comprehension worksheets
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  can be effective if you go through the questions
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  as a pre -reading activity on the sheet. They
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  read, so then they're reading with purposeful
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  intent, and they fill them out as they are reading.
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  And with any types of thinking instruction, we
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  want to use graphic organizers to organize and
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  teach the steps. For example, to teach children
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  how to predict. A prediction is based on information
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  clues. So you go through this prediction, you
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  give them a story preview, and you say, what
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  do you think will happen when, and you have a
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  specific prediction question here. What do you
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  think will happen when the Martians abduct Billy
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  Bean? So they have the question, so they're reading
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  with purposeful intent. They gather clues and
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  put the page number as their reading, and they
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  make their prediction there. That's a graphic
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  organizer. You do that many times. Now, the purpose
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  isn't to be able to do a graphic organizer. The
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  purpose is to make automatically these processes
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  where you are making predictions and looking
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  for clues. Same thing with an inference. Students
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  read with purposeful intent again. You provide
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  an inference question. inference question is
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  something that can be answered, but not the clues.
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  The answer is not in the text. So you give the
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  inference question, what kind of person was Billy
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  Bean, or I think Billy Bean was, is going to
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  be abducted by aliens, I think, and clues there,
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  and then their inference. Cause and effect. Again,
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  a read with purposeful intent. Cause is what
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  happened, effect is what happens next. Cause
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  is what makes it happen, effect is what makes
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  it happen next. You do just the causes, and they
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  read to find the effects. Just the effects, what
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  made it happen, cause makes it happen, effects
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  is what happened next. The effects, and eventually
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  they can do both cause and effect. And again,
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  teach these steps explicitly. Study skill strategies,
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  these are related to expository text or information
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  text. These are skills consciously applied by
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  students. Starting in grades four, keep it simple,
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  a basic five -step note -taking process. Some
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  of these study skill strategies like Cornell
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  note -taking and some of them are too complicated.
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  Simple, write the title on the top of the page,
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  write the name of the heading, underline it,
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  select only the most important ideas from each
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  paragraph, record the idea, short abbreviated
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  sentences, record supporting ideas below, all
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  right? And then you give examples. Read a dot
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  and note, read a paragraph, put a dot next to
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  important ideas, finish the chapter, take notes
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  using outlines and headings. pencil dots so that
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  they can do this in textbooks. These are seven
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  of them that I've developed. They're in my book,
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  and I would recommend putting a poster up there
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  with some of these study skill strategies.