Igniting Understanding through Reading Comprehension
Strategies Instructions
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Igniting Understanding through Reading Comprehension
Strategies Instructions

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
Skimming

Scanning
Asking Questions
Clarifying Vocabulary 

Visualising
Making Inferences/
Inferring
Making Connections
Determining Important
Ideas
Synthesising
Repairing Comprehension
What is reading comprehension?
MOVING FROM DECODING
TO COMPREHENDING
Simple View of
Reading
Reading
Comprehension
=
Decoding
+
Language
Comprehension
(aural)
But proficient
Whenreading
a baby
giraffe isisborn
comprehension
a it is
already six feet
“complex tall.
process
involving knowledge,
experience, thinking,
and teaching”
(Durkin, 1994, cited in Harvey & Goudvis, 2007, p. 14)
What are reading disabilities?
Types of Reading Disability
DYSLEXIA
MIXED RD
PROFICIENT READER
SPECIFIC COMPREHENSION
DEFICIT
How do reading disabilities develop?
(Spear-Swerling & Sternberg, 1996)
Spear-Swerling, L., & Sternberg, R. L. (1996). Roads to reading disability. In Off track: When poor readers become "learning disabled" (pp. 113-152). Boulder,
CO: Westview Press.
Roads to reading disability
Reading is not just
ACTIVE but INTERACTIVE
Reading is “an act of
composition”
“stimulate their own
thinking”
“Readers construct and
maintain understanding
by merging their thinking
with the text.
“ongoing inner
conversation with the
author… a dialogue of
sorts”
A book “…is a printed circuit for your own
life to flow through”.
“You’re imagining the words, the sounds of
the words, and you are thinking of the
various characters in terms of people
you’ve known – not in terms of the writer’s
experience, but your own”.
(E. L. Doctorow, in Plimpton, 1998, cited in Harvey & Goudvis, 2007, p. 13)
(Harvey & Goudvis, 2007, p.21)
Am I not already teaching reading comprehension?
“Comprehension
strategies are a means
to Common
an end,problem
not anwith
end
RC “instruction” in
in themselves.
schools
Teaching strategies for
Assessing vs. Teaching
strategies sake is
simply not the point.”
(Harvey & Goudvis, 2007, p. 14, emphasis added)c
AIMS of teaching
reading comprehension
strategies
To get readers to:
• think when they
read
• develop an
awareness of their
thinking
• use actively the
knowledge they
glean
What are reading comprehension strategies?
Reading Comprehension Strategies
Pearson, Dole, Duffy & Roehler (1992):
A repertoire of
strategies that
“active, thoughtful
readers use when
constructing
meaning from
text”
(Harvey & Goudvis, 2007, p. 17).
 Searching for Connections
(e.g. using schema - Dr Moira Sweetnam Evans)
 Asking Questions
 Drawing Inferences
 Determining Important Ideas
 Synthesising
 Monitoring & Repairing
Comprehension
Presley (1976) & Keene & Zimmerman
(1997) added:
 Sensory imaging/ Visualising
Other important skills:
 Skimming
How should I
teach RCS?
 Scanning
 Clarifying Vocabulary
BEST PRACTICE
Metacognitive
Approach:
teaching students
to be conscious of
their inner
conversation
Gradual
Release of
Responsibility
1. Introduce the
strategies explicitly
2. Model their use
3. Guide students to use
the strategies
4. Allow students to use
them on their own and
provide opportunities
to practice! (repeated reading)
STRATEGIES
LEARNING ACTIVITIES
 Skimming
 Memory party game
 Quick-fire quiz (beep)
 Sticky-notes
 Dictionary races
 Drawing pictures
 Matching meanings or
single-statement
competitions
 Scanning
 Asking Questions
 Clarifying Vocabulary
 Visualising
 Making Inferences/




Inferring
Making Connections
Determining Important
Ideas
Synthesising
Repairing Comprehension
 T-S T-T T-W Y-chart
 Acetate sheets (OHTs) &
w/b pens
 Character-limit summaries
(420characters.net)
 Repeated reading
Activities to help students become aware of reading strategies
• The woman swore as the piece of
lego punctured her heel.
• He slammed his fist on the table.
• Her face flushed red and she
hurriedly looked away.
• He tiptoed down the passage
stifling the need to laugh.
Inference
• Repeated reading
• School Journals
• Don’t shy away from challenging your students and use real texts
(e.g. http://canterbury.cyberplace.org.nz/peace/nukenviro.html#tests ; Reading of nuclear testing article)
• Literacy@Freyberg
• What can you do in your class in the next term/month?
Final thoughts
Strategies that Work: Teaching Comprehension for
Understanding and Engagement – Harvey & Goudvis,
2007. (book)
Teaching Reading Comprehension – Alison Davis
(book)
CSI: Comprehension Strategies Instruction (box)
RESOURCES