Reading Comprehension
California League of Schools
Structure and Meaning
Presented by Sue Kaiser and Leslie Miller
July 24,2011
Hacienda La Puente Unified School District
How did you learn to comprehend?
• We were taught to comprehend largely by teachers asking us
questions about the text or by answering questions that were
in the printed text.
• Old saying – “we parent the way we were parented” - guess
what? We teach the way that we were taught!
• In strategy driven comprehension, we teach children to pose
the questions. This develops meta-cognitive thinking,
independence and critical thinking skills.
Let’s test it with reading
comprehension strategies:
– Question – the students may ask, “I wonder why the witch is
green in the Wizard of Oz?” or “hmmm, why did Goldilocks feel
so comfortable entering the 3 little bears house?”
– Monitor – the students may ask, “Whoa! I am a little confused
about what is happening now in the text, do I need to reread, or
read ahead to understand what is happening?”
– How might a student develop questions with another strategy?
Teach the strategy, not the story!
• In strategic reading comprehension teaching, we begin each lesson
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with a careful analysis of the standards.
We then consider the story on the pacing guide, looking to see
what skills and strategies are to be taught during this portion
of time in the year.
We develop a “kid friendly” example to help students
understand the strategy
We end each lesson with a written question designed like a CST
question to further students’ knowledge of the tested language
and frame.
Focused comprehension lessons must target the thinking as it
occurs during reading. Teachers must talk about the thinking
processes involved during reading.
Houghton Mifflin
• The Houghton Mifflin curriculum contains 6 strategies and several
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skills
The strategies are all student questioning techniques which are
meta-cognitive in nature.
The skills are the tools for comprehension – many can be
represented graphically
Each selection has one strategy and one skill focus for the entire
selection.
H.M. suggests that you teach comprehension 90 – 110 minutes a
day – realizing that you probably don’t have time for that….45
minutes to an hour in a direct/explicit lesson is what is expected.
Structure of Reading Comprehension
• In the article “Why Kids Don’t Like School” the author
argues that humans are mammals.
• Mammals thrive on routines and procedures
• When teachers ask students to think on their own – they
don’t like it because it is not natural for mammals to do.
• Therefore, we must develop procedures and routine for the
thinking that we want students to do
Reading Comprehension is Thinking
 We are going to explore the framing of reading
comprehension – skills and strategies. These are the
procedures and routines.
 We will be sharing lesson frames that will allow us to better
teach students to comprehend and that will allow us to more
easily teach the thinking that is involved and overwhelming
for our students.
What does the research say?
 The current researchers and developers of language arts
curriculum and instruction agree on the following concepts:
 Comprehension strategies must be taught explicitly and
directly
 Children need to read in and out of a wide variety of text
 Children must couple reading and oral responses as they hone
their reading comprehension skill
Comprehension
Text Structure
6 Strategies
Skills
Expository
or
Narrative
Evaluate
Monitor/clarify
Phonics/decoding
Question
Summarize
Predict/Infer
Fantasy, realism, cause and effect, categorize/classify, problem solving, compare/contrast, predicting
outcomes, noting details, drawing conclusions, making generalizations, making inferences, story structure,
characters, setting, plot, author’s viewpoint, making judgments, sequence of events, fact and opinion
Major Comprehension Strategies
Preparational
Strategies
• Previewing
• Setting purpose and goals
• Predicting
Activating Prior Knowledge
Organizational
Strategies
• Comprehending the main idea
• Organizing details
• Following directions
Determining important details
Sequencing
Summarizing
Making inferences
Elaboration
Strategies
• Imagining
• Generating questions
• Evaluation
Metacognitive
Stategies
• Regulating
• Checking
• Repairing
Hoatzin
• A hoatzin has a clever way of escaping from its
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enemies.
It generally builds its home in a branch that
extends over a swamp or stream.
If an enemy approaches, the hoatzin plunges into
the water below.
Once the coast is clear, it uses its fingerlike claws
to climb back up the tree.
Hoatzin are born with claws on their wings but
lose the claws as they get older.
Bridge
What role did previous knowledge play in your
understanding of the hoatzin?
What we know
old
What we do not
know
new
What researchers say about the bridge
 R.C. Anderson, who contributed to the document Becoming a
Nation of Readers states:
 Our knowledge is packaged into schema
 Comprehension involves activating or constructing a schema
that helps us make sense of the elements of the text
Background Knowledge
 Students’ experiences provide one type of background
knowledge – specific experiential knowledge.
 Additional types of background knowledge that may help
students understand text:
 Relationship knowledge
 Knowledge of the world
 Knowledge of themselves – their own reactions and emotions
As you read Hoatzin, what did you
activate? What did you construct?
Activating
Constructing
Hoatzin
 What was your first prediction?
 What did a mental summary of the first 3 sentences reveal?
 How did your inference skills help you when you read about
the wings?
Lesson Frame
 Begin with the standard/objective
 Strategy/skill
 Thinking map/Graphic organizer
 Kid-friendly example
 Apply the strategy/skill to the story or reading piece
 Use the gradual release model
 Close with a CST look alike as you do the final checking for
understanding
Now, Let’s go an a little field trip!
 http://cis.lacoe.edu/reading
 Instructional resources
 Comprehension strategy lesson
 To see Amada La Fleur from Kwis Elementary School teach a reading
comprehension lesson
Reading Comprehension Lesson #2:
Drawing Conclusions
http://www.lacoe.edu/admin/forms/FLVPlayerWindow.cfm?
Server=rtmp://flashmedia.lacoe.edu/vod&Stream=Amand
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