Comprehension and the Common
Core: Can the Romance Survive
P. David Pearson
UC Berkeley
Goals for Today
• Review what is in and what underlies the CCSS
when it comes to comprehension
• Examine some emerging evidence about what
comprehension in the Common Core might look
like
– Publisher’s Criteria
– Brand new publication by the Aspen Institute:
• Close Reading in the Common Core
• Discuss some defensible positions to take on
curriculum and pedagogy
What sold me on the standards
What they said about reading
• Students who meet the Standards readily undertake the
close, attentive, reading that is at the heart of
understanding and enjoying complex works of literature.
They habitually perform the critical reading necessary to
pick carefully through the staggering amount of
information available today in print and digitally. They
actively seek the wide, deep, and thoughtful engagement
with high-quality literary and informational texts that builds
knowledge, enlarges experience, and broadens world
views. They reflexively demonstrate the cogent reasoning
and use of evidence essential to both private deliberation
and responsible citizenship in a democratic republic.
(CCSSO/NGA, 2010, p. 3)
What they said about teacher choice
• By emphasizing required achievements, the Standards
leave room for teachers, curriculum developers, and
states to determine how those goals should be reached
and what additional topics should be addressed. Thus,
the Standards do not mandate such things as a
particular writing process or the full range of
metacognitive strategies that students may need to
monitor and direct their thinking and learning.
Teachers are thus free to provide students with
whatever tools and knowledge their professional
judgment and experience identify as most helpful for
meeting the goals set out in the Standards.
(CCSSO/NGA, 2010, p. 4).
How we got to where we are…
• The historical pathway to Kintsch’s
Construction Integration Model
Reader
Reading
Comprehension
Text
Context
Most models of reading have tried to explain how
reader factors, text factors and context factors
interact when readers make meaning.
Bottom up and New Criticism: Text-centric
Reader
Text
Reading
Comprehension
Context
The bottom up cognitive models of the 60s were very
text centric, as was the “new criticism” model of
literature from the 40s and 50s (I.A. Richards)
Pedagogy for Bottom up and New Criticism: Textcentric
• Since the meaning is in the text, we need to go dig it
out…
• Leads to Questions that
– Interrogate the facts of the text
– Get to the “right” interpretation
• Writerly readings or textual readings
Schema and Reader Response: Reader-centric
Reader
Reading
Comprehension
Text
Context
The schema based cognitive models of the 70s and the
reader response models (Rosenblatt) of the 80s focused
more on reader factors--knowledge or interpretation
mattered most
Pedagogy for Reader-centric
• Since the meaning is largely in the reader,
we need to go dig it out…
• Spend a lot of time on
– Building background knowledge
– Inferences needed to build a coherent model
of meaning
– Readers’ impressions, expressions,
unbridled response
• Readerly readings
A few clarifications of schema theory…
• Variation along a continuum of top-down vs
bottom-up
– Kohlers (1967): Reading is only incidentially
textual
– Anderson (1977): specific words/ideas instantiate
general schemata: the text is the trigger to our
knowledge stores
• Not completely top down process
Critical literacy models: Context-centric
Reader
Reading
Comprehension
Text
Context
The sociocultural and critical literacy models of the
90s focused on the central role of context
(purpose, situation, discourse community)
Pedagogy for Critical literacy models
• Since the meaning is largely in the
context, we need to go dig it out…
• Questions that get at the social, political
and economic underbelly of the text
– Whose interests are served by this text?
– What is the author trying to get us to
believe?
– What features of the text contribute to the
interpretation that money is evil?
CI: Balance Reader and Text: little c for context
Reader
Reading
Comprehension
Text
Context
In Kintsch’s model, Reader and Text factors are
balanced, and context plays a “background” role-in purpose and motivation.
Pedagogical implications for CI
• Since the meaning is in this reader text
interface, we need to go dig it out…
• Query the accuracy of the text base.
– What is going on in this part here where it
says…
– What does it mean when it says…
– I was confused by this part…
• Ascertain the situation model.
– So what is going on here?
– What do you know that we didn’t know
before?
Kintchian Model
3
Knowledge Base
Text
1
Text Base
Experience
2
Situation Model
Says
Means
Inside the head
Out in the
world
NAEP
• Locate and Recall
• Interpret and Integrate
• Critique and Evaluate
Common Core
• Standards 1-3: Key ideas and details
• Standards 4-6: Craft and structure
• Standards 7-9: Integration of knowledge and
ideas
CCSS
• Key ideas and details
• Craft and structure
• Integration of
knowledge and ideas
• Range and level of text
complexity
NAEP
• Locate and Recall
• Interpret and Integrate
• Critique and Evaluate
• Complexity is specified
but implicit not explicit
Freebody and Luke’s 4 Resources
SAYS
• Reader as Decoder: Get the message:
• Reader as Meaning Maker: Integrate with
MEANS
knowledge:
• Reader as Text Analyst: What’s the real
message and how is it crafted
DOES
• Reader as Text Critic: What’s the subtext?
The hidden agenda:
Consistent with Cognitive Views of
Reading
• Kintsch’s Construction-Integration Model
Key IdeasDecoder
and Details What the text says
Locate
and Recall
• Build
a text base
Maker and Ideas
Integration ofMeaning
Knowledge
Integrate and Interpret
• Construct a “situation” model What the text means
Craft
and Structure
What the text does
Critique and Evaluate
User/Analyst/Critic
• Put the knowledge gained to work by applying it
to novel situations.
Kintsch
4 Resources
Text Base
Decoder
Situation Model
Meaning Maker
Put Knowledge to
Work
Text Analyst
NAEP
Locate and Recall
Says
Interpret and
Means
Integrate
Critique and
Does
Evaluate
CCSS
Key Ideas and
Details
Integration of
Knowledge and
Ideas
Craft and Structure
Kintchian Model
3
Knowledge Base
Text
1
Text Base
Reader as Decoder
2
Situation Model
Reader as Meaning Maker
Experience
Says
Means
Inside the head
Out in the
world
New and different
• Most important: A new model of the
comprehension process
– Text (what the author left on the page)
– Text base (the version a reader creates on a
veridical reading)
– Knowledge (what the reader brings from prior
experience)
– Model of meaning for a text
• Dubbed the Situation Model (mental model)
• A model that accounts for all the facts and
resources available in the current situation
What’s inside the Knowledge box?
• World knowledge (everyday stuff, including social and
cultural norms)
• Topical knowledge (dogs and canines)
• Disciplinary knowledge (how history or astronomy
works)
• Linguistic knowledge
–
–
–
–
–
Phonology
Lexical and morphological
Syntax
Genre
Pragmatics (how language works in the world): Discourse,
register, academic language, intention
– Orthography (how print relates to speech)
How does a reader build a text
base?
Excerpt from Chapter 8 of Hatchet
“Some of the quills were driven in deeper than others
and they tore when they came out. He breathed deeply
twice, let half of the breath out, and went back to
work. Jerk, pause, jerk — and three more times before
he lay back in the darkness, done. The pain filled his leg
now, and with it came new waves of self-pity. Sitting
alone in the dark, his leg aching, some mosquitoes
finding him again, he started crying. It was all too
much, just too much, and he couldn’t take it. Not the
way it was.
• The pain filled his leg now, and with it came
new waves of self-pity. Sitting alone in the
dark, his leg aching, some mosquitoes
finding him again, he started crying. It was
all too much, just too much, and he couldn’t
take it. Not the way it was.
“I can’t take it this way, alone with no fire and in the
dark, and next time it might be something worse,
maybe a bear, and it wouldn’t be just quills in the leg, it
would be worse. I can’t do this, he thought, again and
again. I can’t. Brian pulled himself up until he was
sitting upright back in the corner of the cave. He put his
head down on his arms across his knees, with stiffness
taking his left leg, and cried until he was cried out.”
Building a Text Base
• “Some of the quills were driven in (into what? His
leg) deeper than others (other what? Quills) and they
(the quills that were driven in deeper) tore when they
(the deeper-in quills) came out (of his leg). He
(Brian) breathed deeply twice, let half the breath out,
and went back to work (work on what? Don’t know
yet. Suspense. Expect to find out in next sentence).
Jerk, pause, jerk (the work is jerking quills out) —
and three more times (jerking quills out) he (Brian)
lay back in the darkness, done (all the quills jerked
out).
• The pain filled his (Brian’s) leg now, and
with it (the pain) came new waves (what
were the old waves?) of self-pity. (Brian)
Sitting alone in the dark, his (Brian’s) leg
aching, some mosquitoes finding him
(Brian) again, he (Brian) started crying. It
(the whole situation Brian was in) was all
too much, just too much, and he (Brian)
couldn’t take it (the situation). Not the way
it (the situation) was. (What way was the
situation? Don’t know yet. Suspense. Expect
to find out in the next paragraph.)
• “I (Brian) can’t take it (the situation) this way (what
way? Still don’t know. Suspense), alone with no fire
and in the dark (now we know “this way” means
“alone with no fire and in the dark”), and next time it
(the next situation) might be something worse (than
this situation), maybe a bear, and it (the problem that
will define the situation) wouldn’t be just quills in the
leg, it (the problem) would be worse (than quills in the
leg). I (Brian) can’t do this (deal with the problem
situation), he (Brian) thought, again and again. I
(Brian) can’t “do this (deal with the problem
situation).” Brian pulled himself (Brian) up until he
(Brian) was sitting upright back in the corner of the
cave. He (Brian) put his (Brian’s) head down on his
(Brian’s) arms across his (Brian’s) knees, with
stiffness taking his (Brian’s) left leg, and cried until he
(Brian) was cried out.”
Some key moves in building a text
base…
• Processing words and attaching meaning to them
• Using syntax to solidify key relations among ideas
– Microstructure
– Macrostructure
• Resolving reference--things that stand for other things
(mainly pronouns and nouns)
• Using logical connectives (before, after, because, so,
then, when, while, but) to figure out the relations among
ideas
• Inferring omitted connectives (e.g., figuring out that A is
the cause of B) based on PK about the world
• Posing questions for short term resolution
• Identifying ambiguities for later resolution (wait and
see)
So how about building a situation
model?
• The knowledge-comprehension relationship
• We use our knowledge to build a situation
model for a text
• The information in the situation model is now
available to become part of our long term
memory and store of knowledge
• To assist in processing the next bit.
Situation Model for Hatchet Passage
The blurb from the jacket of Hatchet gives a
preview of the book:
Thirteen-year old Brian Robeson is on his way to visit his
father when the single engine plane in which he is flying
crashes. Suddenly, Brian finds himself alone in the
Canadian wilderness with nothing but his clothing, a
tattered windbreaker and the hatchet his mother has
given him as a present — and the dreadful secret that
has been tearing him apart since his parents’ divorce.
But now Brian has no time for anger, self-pity or despair
— it will take all his know-how and determination, and
more courage than he knew he possessed, to survive.
What a reader knows by Chapter 8
Brian is stranded in the Canadian wilderness with a
hatchet and his wits as his only tools for survival. He already
has overcome several obstacles, including surviving the plane
crash, building a small shelter and finding food.
In chapter eight, Brian awakens in the night to realize that
there is an animal in his shelter. He throws his hatchet at the
animal but misses. The hatchet makes sparks when it hits the
wall of the cave. Brian then feels a pain in his leg. He sees the
creature scuttle out of his shelter. Brian figures out that the
animal was a porcupine because there are quills in his leg.
Some prior knowledge that a 5th grader
might bring
•
•
•
•
What sparks look like
How it feels to be scared by an animal
How big porcupines are
To survive you have to have food, water and
shelter
• To survive you have to be strong
An actual retelling of key parts of chapter 8
from Sam, a 5th grade reader
• The same text for which we just examined
the text base…
Why is this model of iteratively constructing and
integrating so important?
• The mental (situation) model is central to knowledge
construction
• Building a mental model transforms new ideas and
information into a form that can be added to memory,
where they endure as knowledge that can be
retrieved in the future. Unless readers build a mental
model, the information they derive from the text is
not likely to connect to their stored knowledge. The
new information will be forgotten or lost.
• Key role of knowledge:
– Knowledge involved in even the most literal of processing
– Knowledge begets comprehension begets knowledge…
– Knowledge is available immediately: dynamic store…
How can we help students build solid text bases
and rich and accurate situation models?
• Do a good job of teaching subject matter in
social studies, science, mathematics, and
literature
• Don’t let reading remain our curricular bully!
How can we help students build rich and
accurate mental models?
• Assist students in selecting appropriate knowledge
frameworks to guide their construction process
• Do everything possible to build as many connections
as possible with other texts, experiences, knowledge
domains
– Do lots of “what does this remind you of?”
– What is this like? How is it different from what it’s like?
How can we help students build rich and
accurate mental models?
• A different model of guided reading
• Stop every once in a while and give the kids a
chance to construct/revise their current
mental model
– Research study:
• interview protocol proved to be very “instructive”
Begin with very general probes before
getting specific
• So what’s going on in this part?
• What do we know now that we didn’t know
before?
• What’s new?
• What was the author trying to get us to
understand here?
• Well!…say something!
Invite and support clarifications of
tricky parts
• Anyone want to share something that was
tricky or confusing?
• How about this part here…where it says…?
• I got confused by… What do you think about
this part? What was the author trying to get
us to think.
Follow up general probes and invitations for
clarification with specific probes.
• So which of these things happened first? Why is
that important?
• In this paragraph, they use a lot of pronouns.
Let’s check out our understanding of who or what
they refer to..
• Typical discussion questions are OK too--just to
make sure are the tricky parts get clarified.
– View questions as a scaffold for understanding the big
picture not as a quiz.
The general model for guided reading
• A set for “stock-taking”
• More specific probes to scaffold the
construction of the text base and situation
model
• Results in a pretty good summary of the
selection--story, article, etc.
Developing Text Bases and Mental
Models
• Ensure that students have a full “tool” box (set
of strategies) to haul out when things don’t
just happen automatically…for
– Connecting the known to the new
– Connecting texts and parts of texts
– Working toward coherence among potentially
unconnected ideas
– Recognizing and resolving ambiguities.
MONITORING FOR MEANING…
• For a model of meaning to survive, it must
– Be consistent with the current text base (square
with the “facts of the case” thus far revealed)
– Be consistent with the current knowledge base
(square with what a reader knows to be true
about the world)
The Vulnerabilities
• Clumsiness with motivation
– A nod to interest and an assumption that readers
are motivated
• Gloss over critical reading
– Assumes a liberal humanist “critical thinking”
perspective, not a post-modern critical theoretical
stance
Kintchian Model
3
Knowledge Base
Text
1
Text Base
Reader as Decoder
2
Situation Model
Reader as Meaning Maker
Experience
Says
Means
Inside the head
Out in the
world
These consistencies provide…
• Credibility
• Stretch
• Research “patina”
And now… for something completely
different
Text dependency of questions
• Regarding the nature of texts: “A significant
percentage of tasks and questions are text
dependent…Rigorous text-dependent questions
require students to demonstrate that they not
only can follow the details of what is explicitly
stated but also are able to make valid claims that
square with all the evidence in the text. Textdependent questions do not require information
or evidence from outside the text or texts; they
establish what follows and what does not follow
from the text itself.” (page 6)
Stay close to the text
• Staying close to the text. “Materials make the
text the focus of instruction by avoiding
features that distract from the text. Teachers’
guides or students’ editions of curriculum
materials should highlight the reading
selections…Given the focus of the Common
Core State Standards, publishers should be
extremely sparing in offering activities that are
not text based.”
My concern
• We will operationally define text dependent
as literal, factual questions
• Lots of other questions are also text-reliant
• Compare
– What were two reasons pioneers moved west?
– What does the author believe about the causes of
westward expansion in the United States?
– How valid is the claim that author X writes from
an ideology of manifest destiny?
A short history lesson
• Pearson and Johnson, 1978, Teaching Reading
Comprehension.
• Question-answer relationships
– Text explicit (both the Q and A come from the text and
the relationship between Q and A is explicitly
signalled).
– Text implicit (both the Q and A come from the text but
the relationship has to be inferred)
– Script implicit (Q from text, A from prior knowledge
script, relationship has to be inferred)
– TEXT is implicated in all three QARs.
Text before all else
“The Common Core State Standards call for
students to demonstrate a careful
understanding of what they read before
engaging their opinions, appraisals, or
interpretations. Aligned materials should
therefore require students to demonstrate that
they have followed the details and logic of an
author’s argument before they are asked to
evaluate the thesis or compare the thesis to
others.” (page 9)
My concern
• We will view literal comprehension as a
prerequisite to inferential or critical
comprehension.
• Compare
– Read X, Read Y, then ask for a comparison on criterion
Z
– Conduct a comparative reading of X and Y on how
they stand on Z.
• Sometimes the comparison or critique question
better rationalizes the close reading
Close reading
• The Common Core State Standards place a
high priority on the close, sustained reading of
complex text, beginning with Reading
Standard 1. Such reading emphasizes the
particular over the general and strives to focus
on what lies within the four corners of the
text.
• Close Reading of text involves an investigation of a
short piece of text, with multiple readings done over
multiple instructional lessons.
• Through text-based questions and discussion, students
are guided to deeply analyze and appreciate various
aspects of the text, such as
–
–
–
–
key vocabulary and how its meaning is shaped by context;
attention to form, tone, imagery and/or rhetorical devices;
the significance of word choice and syntax; and
the discovery of different levels of meaning as passages
are read multiple times.
Steps in t he new Aspen Institute,
Brown & Kappes report
1. Selection of a brief, high-quality, complex
text.
2. Individual reading of the text.
3. Group reading aloud.
4. Text-based questions and discussion that
focus on discrete elements of the text.
5. Discussion among students.
6. Writing about the text.
My concern
• Lots of things lie within the four corners of the
text—some general and some specific.
• Ignores other readings of close reading
• The text drags prior knowledge along even if
you don’t want it to.
• Ideas that don’t connect don’t last long
enough to allow learning (assimilation or
acccommodation) to occur
– They drop out of memory pretty fast
Monitoring
• How do we know that our understanding is good
enough?
• Two standards…
– Does is jive with the model of meaning I have built for the
text thus far in the reading?
– Does is square with what I know to be true about the
world?
• What are these?
– Text base and knowledge base combne to create the
situation model
– The situation model determines what I put into long term
memory
Minimizing the role of prior
kjnowledge
• Can we do it?
• Should we do it?
Suspense
• If John had known just how awful it would turn
out to be, he would not have been so anxious to
open the door to the room he had been told held
the treasure that would change his life. If he
suspected that the giant tarantula who guarded
the treasure was bigger than an elephant, uglier
than a troll, and deadlier than a cobra, he might
never have turned that knob. But slowly,
methodically, and purposely, he shoved, nudged,
and wiggled it till it started to open an inch at a
time.
• It was furry and warm to the touch. Its eyes
lay in deep sockets above a protruding snout
that was itself dwarfed by the two buck teeth
that hung suspended from that protuberance.
• And when the rest of the kids in room 225
laughed at it,
• Amy picked up her drawing of her favorite
mastadon and huffed out into the hall.
So what about Prior Knowledge
• Maybe we have overindulged
– Too much Know, not enough Want to Learn and
Learn
– Too much time on the picture walk
– Too much story swapping about our experiences
with roadrunners
• Let’s right the wrongs
• Need a mid course correction not a pendulum
swing
But asking kids to hold their prior
knowledge at bay…
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Is like
Asking dogs not to bark or
Leaves not to fall.
It’s in the nature of things
Dogs bark.
Leaves fall.
Readers use their prior knowledge to render text
sensible and figure out what to retain for later.
So what’s a body to do?
• Embrace the construct of close reading
– But make sure that it applies to several purposes
for reading
• Reading to get the flow of ideas in the piece
• Reading to compare (with another text or body of
experience or knowledge
• Reading to critique
– how good is the argument or the craft or
– what is his bias/slant/perspective)
• All of these approaches interrogate the text as an
eviidentiary base.
More a body can do…
• Stay closer to the standards than to the
interpretations of the standards we have seen
thus far.
• Pay more attention to the anchor standards
than to the grade level instantiations of them.
• Why?
– I’m not convinced that they got the sequencing
right.
Table 1. Progression of Standard 3 for Literary and Informational Texts Across Grades K-5
Grad
e
Literary
Informational
K
With prompting and support, describe the connection
between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of
information in a text.
With prompting and support, describe the connection
between two individuals, events, ideas, or pieces of
information in a text.
1
Describe characters, settings, and major events in a
story, using key details.
Describe the connection between two individuals,
events, ideas, or pieces of information in a text.
2
Describe how characters in a story respond to major
events and challenges
Describe the connection between a series of historical
events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in
technical procedures in a text.
3
Describe characters in a story (e.g., their traits,
motivations, or feelings) and explain how their actions
contribute to the sequence of events
Describe the relationship between a series of historical
events, scientific ideas or concepts, or steps in
technical procedures in a text, using language that
pertains to time, sequence, and cause/effect.
4
Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story Explain events, procedures, ideas, or concepts in a
or drama, drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a historical, scientific, or technical text, including what
character’s thoughts, words, or actions)
happened and why, based on specific information in
the text.
5
Compare and contrast two or more characters, settings, Explain the relationships or interactions between two
or events in a story or drama, drawing on specific details or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a
in the text (e.g., how characters interact).
historical, scientific, or technical text based on
specific information in the text.
Transitional Moves…
• Change the level of support: The removal of scaffolding in
moving from K-1 for both L and I texts.
• Change the number of entities involved in the process. In
moving L3-L4, the number of entities increases—from
characters in L3 to characters, settings or events in L4.
• Change the type of entities: In moving from I1-I2 there is a
change from general to discipline-specific entities. In moving
from I4-I5, the change is from explaining entities to explaining
relationships and interactions.
• Increase the cognitive demand of the process: There is a
change from description to explanation in moving from L2-L3
and from I3 to I4; also moving from explanation to
comparison in L4-L5.
• Add evidentiary requirements: This is the move represented
in I3-I4.
What’s the basis of progressions?
•
•
•
•
Research?
Tradtiion?
Professional consenssus?
Best guesses?
Direct Evidence
• The degree to which research is reflected in
these progressions is a function of
– Whether the models they examined were
research-based
– Whether the mental models of the
authors/reviewers were research-based
• Classic consensus process.
• Doesn’t distinguish it from most other
standards efforts.
Issues left inadequately examined in
this presentation…
• Text complexity:
– Yes, but…
– Where are the scaffolds to help kids meet the
challenge
• Teacher prerogative
– A promise broken in the Publishers’ Criteria
– The more specific the level of specification, the
fewer degrees of freedom teachers have
Inadequate examination
• Vocabulary
– Between Reading Standard #4 and Language
Standards #4-#6, we can continue to emphasize all
of the good stuff we have learned to do in
vocabulary development
– Conceptually based vocabulary development
• Where do words fit in the big “schema” things?
– Contextually driven vocabulary development
• Between word and within word contexts
Words are Concepts
Shelter
Water
Food
Light
Habitat
If we wish to
maintain a terrarium
in our classrooms, we
should establish
conditions that are
consistent with the
organisms’ natural
habitats.
Habitat
Desert
Forest
Shoreline
Recognition
Definition
Relationships
Morphology
Habitat: the
place Habit
where an
organism gets
Habituate
the food,
water,
light, and
shelter that it
needs to survive
Context
A habitat has
everything an animal
needs to survive.
The grassland habitat is
windy with few trees.
Application
Synthesis
All living things exist
within habitats and
have adaptations that
allow them to survive
in those habitats. No
one habitat can
support all living
habitats.

Inadequate examination
• What do we do about strategy instruction?
• In one sense, the CCSS are moot on the topic:
– Thus, the Standards do not mandate such things as a
particular writing process or the full range of
metacognitive strategies that students may need to
monitor and direct their thinking and learning. (p. 4)
• Silence PLUS the post standards emphasis on
close reading and the primacy of the text and
text-based questions this inference:
– Champion talk over explicit instruction as a way of
enhancing comprehension and metacognitive strategy
instruction
What to do about strategies?
• We need to take the explicit and implicit
critiques of strategy instruction seriously.
– McKeown, Beck, & Blake (RRQ, 2008)
– Wilkinson & Sun, HRR-4 (2011)
Current alternatives: Current Critique
• Not sure when it starts… circa 2002-now
• Strategies have become rigid and reified
• Like phonics skills, rigid (i.e., curricularized)
strategy instruction has become
– An end unto itself,
– Rather than
– A means to an end…
Possible remedies…
• Post explicit strategies approach
– Questioning the author
– Rich talk about text
• Encounter opportunities to apply strategies on
the fly
• Make understanding the text at hand the real goal
• Avoid decontextualized enactment of strategies
• Invoke them to solve particular problems with
text.
My hope for the strategies
• Something in between explicit lessons,
opportunistic teaching, and mini-lessons (ala
Whole Language)
• Examples should ALWAYS be authentic
• Lots of group problem solving with genuinely
puzzling examples
• Don’t know how to do this yet, but we need to
help students distinguish between
– Nike Reading
• Just do it!
– Sherlock Holmes Reading
• Deliberate puzzle resolution
• Reading Like a Detective
Hopes for the future
• I’m hangin’ in there for the near term.
• They are still the best game in town
• They are moving in the right direction in terms
of reading theory and research
• Hoping they prove to be a living document
– Regularly revised with advances in
• our knowledge of reading
• research on their “consequences”