Week 3
• The TLC: Supported reading
• Reading comprehension
School of Education
Learning goals
By the end of this week, you will:
• Understand the role of ‘supported reading’ in Stage 2 and throughout the T&L cycle
• Be aware of various strategies to support students’ comprehension and apply some to practice
• Understand that there is no ‘magic bullet’ for reading comprehension and that teachers need to
deliberately combine strategies and approaches.
English CS | Week 3
2
School of Education
Success criteria
You will know you have been successful if you can:
• Understand that supported reading occurs not only in stage 2 of the t/l cycle but to meet diverse learner
needs throughout a unit of work
• Collaboratively develop some activities/approaches appropriate for the supported reading stage of the
teaching and learning cycle
• Appreciate that there is no ‘one size fits all’ approach to supporting reading comprehension and that a
deliberate combination of strategies is needed.
English CS | Week 3
3
School of Education
Stage 2 of the TLC: Supported reading
• Closely related to field building because it extends students’ knowledge of the
- Curriculum topic
- Text type (genre) e.g., narrative, expository.
• Texts must be carefully selected for relevance (to curriculum topic – does it backmap to the necessary
knowledge, understanding and skills?) and quality (should be high quality, challenging, and accessible with
support).
• Goal is to build reading skills as well as understanding of the topic, e.g.,
• If the unit focuses on a novel, read, analyse and deconstruct it in ways that backmap to the task
• If the unit focuses on media issues, read, analyse and deconstruct relevant media texts in ways that
backmap to the task
• Aim for a variety of teacher-led, shared, guided, collaborative and independent, with a general shift to greater
student independence over time. HOWEVER teachers must be responsive to diverse student needs, which
do not always follow a tidy gradual shift to independence.
• Supported reading should relate to the curriculum field/topic so that shared understanding can be built and
students have the necessary content to produce their ultimate assessment task.
English CS | Week 3
5
Field building
Supported reading
• Did you understand this cartoon immediately?
• Which elements did you need to think about?
• What prior knowledge did you draw on to
understand the cartoon?
Field building
• Did you understand this cartoon immediately?
• Which elements did you need to think about?
• What prior knowledge did you draw on to
understand the cartoon?
Supported reading
School of Education
Was one easier to understand than the other? Why?
English CS | Week 3
8
Field building
Supported reading
“… prior knowledge is the strongest reading
comprehension predictor” (Tarchi, 2015).
• Student’s previous life experiences (cultural
knowledge, background, beliefs)
• Student’s knowledge of the content of the text
(knowledge, beliefs, understandings about the
topic)
• Student’s knowledge of the structure of the text
(text types, language features, authorial purpose)
Field
building
Supported
reading
Some strategies!
Supported reading and reading comprehension
REMEMBER: Expert teachers deliberately combine various
strategies to meet the needs of diverse students
School of Education
Questioning
• Questions are an essential tool when scaffolding and supporting reading.
• Model the kinds of questions you want your students to ask:
- Why do you think that? What clues did you use from the text?
- What strategies did you use to help understand this?
- What does the author want you to think? What words / phrases indicate this?
- Can you explain why this happened?
- What other opinions might people hold about this? Are these justifiable or more justifiable than others?
- How does the layout of the text help you make sense of the topic?
- How do you know the facts are correct? Why might the author include some facts and not others?
English CS | Week 3
Davis, 2016
11
School of Education
Three level guides
Level
Examples of question starters
Level 1(literal – right there)
Reader finds the answer in the text by e.g.,
• Identifying the main idea of a paragraph or story
• Recalling details that support the main idea
• Organising the sequence in which events occured
What happened . . . ? How many . . . ? How did . . . ?
Who . . . ? What is . . . ? Which . . . ?
Level 2 (interpretive – reading between the lines)
Reader interprets the information to find answers by e.g.,
• Predicting endings and anticipating consequences
• Stating reasons for events
• Making generalisations
Why did . . . ? What was . . . ? What do you think about . .
. ? Can you explain…? How was this similar to . . . ?
Level 3 (applied – reading beyond the lines)
Reader makes links between the text and own
experience/knowledge through open-ended questions
that e.g., Generalise, compare, judge, recommend,
decide, create alternative endings.
How would you…? Do you agree . . . ? What would have
happened if . . . ? How might . . . ? What effect does . . .
? If you were . . . What would you . . . ?
English CS | Week 3
https://www.kent.edu/writingcommons/three-level-comprehensionguide-active-reading
12
School of Education
Over to you
In your small groups,
1. Take turns to read this story aloud, using a
thinkaloud approach.
•
Access on Blackboard
2. Write one – two questions for each of the three
levels.
English CS | Week 3
13
School of Education
Hillock’s (1980) questioning hierarchy
Level
Ask questions about:
1. Basic stated information
•
•
Literal, prominent and repeated information.
Who what when where
2. Key details
•
•
Details that are important to plot
Distinguishing between important and irrelevant
information
3. Stated relationships
•
Locating and repeating a relationship stated in the text
e.g., cause and effect
4. Simple implied relationships
•
Single inferences by dealing with denotative and
connotative clues and drawing on prior knowledge
5. Complex implied relationships
•
•
Discerning patterns among a variety of inferences
Drawing conclusions based on appropriate evidence /
patterns
6. Author’s generalisation
•
Generalisations about the nature of the human
condition inferred from the text
7. Structural generalisation
•
How parts of the text function together to create
effects
English CS | Week 3
Fitzpatrick, 2008
14
School of Education
Activity
• Individually, read Stop the Sun by Gary Paulson (on Blackboard).
• In pairs / threes / small groups, develop at least one question for each level of Hillock’s questioning
hierarchy.
• Record your questions in your tutorial group’s Google doc on Blackboard
• TIP: It may be helpful to draw on your understanding of the four main models of English (frames) from
Week 1 (personal, structural, cultural, critical) when developing your questions.
English CS | Week 3
15
School of Education
Reciprocal teaching
• Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional
activity in which students become the teacher in
small group reading sessions. Teachers model,
then help students learn to guide group
discussions using four strategies:
• predicting
• clarifying
• question generating
• summarising.
• Once students have learned the strategies, they
take turns assuming the role of teacher in
leading a dialogue about what has been read.
English CS | Week 3
See Davis (2016) pp. 190 – 198.
16
School of Education
Explicitly engage with inference
• Inference is “the ability to use two or more
pieces of information from a text in order to
arrive at a third piece of information that is
implicit” (Kispal, 2008, p. 2).
• “… the ability to draw inferences predetermines
reading skills: that is, poor inferencing causes
poor comprehension and not vice versa” (Kispal,
2008, p. 2).
English CS | Week 3
17
School of Education
The critical importance of inference skills for comprehension
• Reading for inference involves: making predictions, drawing conclusions, using context clues, activating
background knowledge, filling gaps, creating interpretations, visualising meaning, and dealing with
ambiguity.
• Sometimes we call this ‘reading between the lines’. We do this constantly when reading, viewing,
listening and even when interacting socially. Meaning is continually created and reconstructed in the
reading process because readers must be active, curious, use background knowledge and textual clues
in order to ‘lift the words up and go beneath them’ (Bintz et al., 2012, p. 17).
• Read about using literature to teach inference in Bintz (2012).
• See also Kispal (2008) pp. 3 – 5.
English CS | Week 3
18
School of Education
Inference activity
The manager, the accountant, the teller, and the
auditor at our local bank are Ms Smith, Mrs Brown,
Mr Jones, and Mr Foster, not necessarily in that
order:
First, put circles in the squares to eliminate
choices. Then, put an X when you find a match.
• Mrs Brown is taller than the auditor or the teller.
• The manager lunches alone
• Mr Jones plays bridge with Ms Smith.
• The tallest of the four plays basketball. Mr Foster
lunches with the auditor and teller. Ms Smith is
older than the auditor.
• Mrs Brown plays no sports.
Use inference to identify which job each person
performs! The chart (right) is a tool to assist you.
(Adapted from Pennell, 2002)
English CS | Week 3
19
School of Education
Make an inference
• What can we infer about the little girl’s character
/ personality?
• What clues did you use?
• How do good readers make inferences?
• Word/text clues
• Picture clues
• Define unknown words
• Look for emotion (feelings)
• Use what they already know
• Look for explanations for events
• ASK themselves questions!
English CS | Week 3
20
School of Education
To be effective at inferencing, students need to:
• be an active reader who wants to make sense of the text
• monitor comprehension and repair misunderstandings
• have a rich vocabulary
• have a competent working memory
• Inferencing skills are also facilitated by:
How could you
cater for learners
who don’t possess
these skills /
qualities?
• having a wide background knowledge
• sharing the same cultural background as that assumed by the text.
English CS | Week 3
21
School of Education
Scaffolding inference
Character
Quote from text
Terry
“starting to fill out with
muscle but still a little
awkward”
“on the edge of being a
good athlete, which
meant a lot to him”
“When something
bothered him, he liked to
stay with it until he
understood it, and he
understood no part of
this.”
What it tells us
• Modelling through
thinkalouds
• Questions
• Annotating / highlighting
• Inference organiser
(Beginning Teacher’s
Companion p. 88)
• Retrieval chart
“some part of Terry was
embarrassed”
English CS | Week 3
22
School of Education
Using combined reading strategies to access meaning/s
In groups of four/tables, complete the comprehension activities associated with the short story, Indian Camp
by Ernest Hemingway (available on Blackboard>Learning Resources>Week 3)
English CS | Week 3
23
School of Education
Connect to last week (private consolidation activity)
• Open up the unit overview templates you filled out the BKF stage for last week
• Now focus on the next phase of the T/L cycle – what are one or two supported reading activities you
could do with your students in this phase of the cycle?
• What supported reading activities might be appropriate for the task you are backmapping to for AT1?
English CS | Week 3
24
School of Education
What have you added to your toolkit this week?
• Common supported reading practices
• Modelled reading (thinkalouds) / Shared / Guided / Collaborative /
Independent reading
• Before / during / after reading strategies
• Hillock’s questioning hierarchy
• Using text frames
• Repeated paired reading
• Reciprocal teaching
• Inference scaffolds e.g., T-chart
• Others …?
English CS | Week 3
25