Learning from Comprehension Research-
Critical Understandings to Guide our Practices
Chapter 2 by Nell K. Duke and Julia Moorhead Reynolds
In the selected reading section of your syllabus packet, please read chapter two and reflect on the following key questions:
1. Of the seven critical understandings, which do you see reflected in things you are already doing/have done in your classroom? Which need more attention?
2. What do you do/have done in your classroom with vocabulary instruction? What could you do to enhance word consciousness in your classroom?
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#1 In reviewing the seven critical understandings, I see that I address the issue of unfamiliar words by "word banking" vocabulary with the students. I often preteach concepts discussing and visualizing vocabulary prior to the core teacher discussing the topics. My resource students also work on the direction in which print is read by doing an exersize that actually dates back to the old Evelyn Wood reading techniques. This also covers peripheral vision exersizes. I cover the graphophonic knowledge by teaching a "sound to symbol" program which is Orton-Gillingham based. I believe I think outloud well with my students modeling reading actively but I would like to work on my students doing this in front of me - reading and thinking outloud. I can not plan my discussions in advance as article suggests due to the nature of my work. My teaching is directed by what the core teachers are teaching and discussing. Therefore, I do not generate questions as referred to in the article, "Learning from Comprehensive Research". I model more than one strategy at a time, especially on the middle school and intermediate level where there is much content to cover and textbooks are "meatier". I hope I am showing my students the importance of being an authentic reader by having them "tell me back" a story of what we previously visualized on paper. Since I test learning styles and teach multisensory, I believe I address the CORI method. Since the core teachers assign hands on assignments - as the resource teacher, I follow through with this work with the students.
In conclusion, there is much to think about when modeling effective reading strategies. I need to continue what is positive and work on those areas that I oversee.
#2 Some vocabulary instruction that I do in my classroom, I have mentioned in #1 - word banking, visualizing, preteaching... I also post vocabulary wrods, put the words on my Christmas tree and kids see them with definitions on the other side of the word. Some students have told me that they can recall meanings of the words by recalling where the word was located on the tree - very kinistictic students!!
I could increase word consciousness in my classroom by increasing kinestetic activities. I have many learners that would benefit from this. Additionally, I would like to post, for myself, page 48 of "Comprehension Instruction: Reading strategies" as a check list for assessment of how I am guiding the reading of my students. All of these are ways of enhancing word instruction in my classroom.
Of the seven critical understandings, I already have helped my students to be active readers by discussing the text and predicting, revising, comparing and integrate their prior knowledge.Students are encouraced to read a lot either with a group or individually and at home. But I think I can encourage them to read more newspapers or magazines. We do a little of this, but we really focus on trade books. I also try to integrate what we are studying in science and social studies with our reading, but I don't do this with math. I know there are many picture books that have math concepts within the stories. I also can use learning logs more before and after reading. Again, this is something I do, but I can see the value of doing it more consistantly.
I also stress the link between vocabulary and comprehension and we look at the origin of words and synonyms in order to enhance word consciousness.
I think the kids in my classroom do a great deal of reading. We are always talking about books and authors. My goal is to get my kids passionate about reading. The kids have independent reading time every single day. I make that a number one priority. I know that I have made a difference when I hear kids recommending books to each other. I've even run into a few kids over the summer, and they always want to tell me what they have been reading. I think that is really exciting.
I like the idea of the Collaborative Strategic Reading. I think this would work well when reading nonfiction. I also like the idea of the Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction. I've done a little bit of this in my class. I think I need to do more explicit instruction of the strategies when we use this procedure. I would like to use this in both science and social studies.
Vocab. Instruction: I teach content specific vocabulary when we are working in science, math, or social studies. This helps when the kids read the words in context.
I would like to spend more time with "Word Play." When the opportunity arises, we try to break apart words and use some inductive reasoning to figure out the meaning of the words. We look at prefixes, suffixes and base words. One of my favorite websites is dictionary.com. We are always looking up words. Last year, we started looking at word origins, and we had a lot of fun with that. I even let the kids know that I still come across words that I do not know. I try to share examples of my thinking when I come across those words. We practice using context clues, word parts, and making connections with other words that we already know.
After reading this article, I was pleased to find that I do include for the most part many of the strategies or close variations they suggest work well in building comprehension, although I didn't use the acronym for such strategy.
An example would be (CORI): one of my text choices for my small reading group is a book on the lifecycle of a sea turtle. Because only a few children are reading the book they are responsible for pair reading the book and creating a life cycle poster with an annotated description of each illustration. Before reading the book I model how to find the topic sentences and the details that support it. After pair reading we meet as a small group and reread the selection using the same strategy with the children modeling it. At the conclusion, each pair shares their work with the entire class. The audience's participation is to follow with questions they may have about the presentation.
What I feel needs more attention is creating more authentic experiences to develop comprehension. I want to involve students in reading other materials besides books. One step I've taken is ordering student copies of National Geographic magazines as one way to incorporate more authentic reading opportunities. I'm also creating a new classroom job as reader. This job comes with the responsibility of reading messages and directions I post on the board. Last year I had laryngitis and still taught. I found myself writing out directions on the board and had students read them to the class. I found that having something new written on the board after transitions helped to get them quietly seated and eager to get started.
After doing research for my masters I discovered how much vocabulary impacted student's writing and reading abilities. So to strenthen this area I implented some new strategies.Last year I began using Word of the Day. With this I have a word posted on the board. First, I have a student try and say the word. Then I read a sentence using the word and have a student tell me what they think the word means. They also have to explain how or what in the sentence helped them understand the word. Then I read aloud examples that relate to the word. This is always a loud yes or no activity. For those students who need more challenge we try to decide what type of word it is based on how it is used in the sentence, verb, noun, or adjective. We have also looked for chunks to help us read words, or have broken the word into syllables.
As I read aloud and find a word that is interesting to me I resay it aloud in a different voice. Then I have the children resay to add some fun.
Students also have a section in their writing logs where they write down interesting words they read. We then share these words with the class.
Another activity I do with words is changing it into a kinestetic movement. An example would be to dribble the letters of the word and shoot a basket when I pronounce the word. I often let the children choose the movement they want to use.
As a class we also create vocabulary posters. Sometimes it shows different ways to say a word. For example: said, I will have children read to find other words that mean said in their books. When they are working at this they take on the role of Word Detectives. We also make posters with root words and the other words they make. An example would be port: words that contain port are added to the poster. The children are encouraged to find words at home as well in the books they or I read at school. Ant is a bood book that illustrates this concept.
The seven critical understandings were very comforting to read because they were largely a confirmation of many of the things that I do with my class. When teaching strategies, we regularly talk about that this is just what good readers do. With things like literature circles we discuss the texts we read using higher level questions and making connections. I try to regularly provide authentic experiences for the kids with reading for information or writing letters to buddies. We also read a large volume of material together.
Even with the large volume of reading we do, it’s an area I’d pick as still needing more attention. It’s the one of the seven that’s perhaps the easiest for parents to understand and help with at home. Yet, we all know what a struggle it is for us or the parents of our struggling readers to get them to read more at home.
Our reading anthology contains a set of vocabulary words that we are bound to teach, as the students are tested throughout the year on many of them. These are words that come out of the current selection and are usually words that are critical in understanding the whole story or particular scenes in the story. With these required words, we try to make the discussion of the words more interesting. The students have to write down definitions in their notebooks, but we stress writing meaningful definitions TO THEM to try to make it a more worthwhile exercise. We also play charades with words with students working independently or collectively to act out a word and pictionary with students drawing illustrations that we then share using the opaque projector. Finally, we make a big deal of using the words (correctly) in speech and writing. I make a conscious effort to use the words we’ve had and pointing out to the kids when someone else has used a word. “Hey, good use of a vocab word!” As the year progresses, it becomes a bit of a classroom game, to use and point out each other’s usage of vocab words. We talk about “owning” the word. You “own” the word if you use it regularly (more than once).
Another thing I am conscious of doing with my students is to deliberately use new, big, interesting words with them. For example: When working on vocabulary, I might tell them that I want them to really understand what a word means, not just be able to regurgitate some meaningless meaning back to me.
1. I really feel we touch on each of the seven critical understandings pretty well.
I teach in a Read 180 classroom, so we feel we teach comprehension and related skills together pretty well. The software includes comprehension work as well as word study and fluency.
We are very conscious of the "volume" concept and are continually promoting the basic idea that "the more you read, the better you read." Because we have so much leveled text provided for us, we can hold our kids to this standard pretty well because even our lowest kids can generally find materials to read. I will say that we have not been able to get many of our kids to read much out of class, so that is an area we need to improve.
We certainly feel we use multiple strategy instruction by utilizing the Strategies That Work model. We model and teach all the strategies hard early in the year and then use them interchangeably as we go through the year.
Because of the Strategies That Work model, we also feel we do a good job explicitly teaching comprehension strategies. To use this model, we must clearly model and teach these strategies to the kids.
I would like to put a greater emphasis on being more explicit about what good readers do. I do this to an extent, but I think I could do a better job of using "think-alouds" to be more explicit about good reading practices.
I also think I could improve our discussion of text. While we do a lot of large-group discussion that I direct, I feel I need to turn over more of the responsibility for leading discussions to the kids I have use Lit. Circles in the past). Not only does this involve more kids thinking and discussing,it will promote even more authentic questions and discussions.
Finally, while we have a lot of high-interest fiction and non-fiction in our classroom, I would like to start using the text and making better connections with other classes and the outside world.
2. Our vocabulary instruction occurs in a number of ways in our classroom. The Read 180 software includes vocabulary work in the comprehension section. This most often includes using context clues and inferencing to determine meanings of selected words. We also teach vocabulary in a large-group setting with our read-alouds. This involves pre-teaching selected words from the text and then discussing them when we encounter them in text. To take it a step further, kids then work with these words in small group by using the words in a number of different contexts to get a sense of the word beyond just a definition. For example, the kids have to use examples of the word and also draw a picture representing the concept. We also ask kids to keep a "personal dictionary" for their independent reading in which they write down unknown words (at least one a day) and then take these words through the same process as the read-aloud words. We also do lots of word play/games with the words to deepen understanding but also to promote a sense that learning new words is fun and worthwhile. A favorite of the kids is acting out the words for the class.
Since I do not teach or instruct children in reading I am going to write about my experience with my son who is seven. He demonstrates a lot of the critical understandings with his reading. I am lucky in the fact that he is a great reader and loves to read. This summer he has definitely demonstrated volume reading; he reads a book in a day or two and reads everyday for at least 30 minutes. He likes to share his favorite parts as well as voice his ideas on how the author could write the book differently. He is very selective in his reading (critical understanding #1) and loves books that he can mentally and emotionally engage in. I try and scan the books he reads and ask him question to check his grasp of the material. It is fun to ask him question about what he thinks the characters are thinking or what is going to happen by the end of the story. His teacher last year really developed his ability to apply his background knowledge to the story and making predictions about the stories he reads. One area he needs to work on is being more open to a variety of books. Because he is able to visualize the story and connect with it emotionally so well, he almost gets "too involved" in the stories. He is also at the age where he still takes many things literally. I tried having him read a new series of books this summer, The Baileys Schoolhouse Kids, and he would have nightmares about the characters. So we often struggle in the library to find age appropriate books at his reading level because he reads a grade ahead of his peers.
My mother was an English major so I grew up with strict vocabulary and grammar rules. Sadly for my children, they get the same quotes my Mom would give us. I am a vocabulary nut and love to use a variety of words. Webster’s word of the day is my favorite and I check it every morning before I start my workday. I find it sad that many schools have gotten rid of vocabulary and spelling as it is a huge disservice to the children. This is the main reason I feel my stepdaughters cannot write or spell. Their school thought spelling was archaic and did not teach or grade spelling from K-6. I had teachers in my school look at one of her reports she wrote last year that was filled with spelling and grammar mistakes and they thought my first grader had written it. She, by the way, received an A+. I was furious and met with the principal and teacher about her grade and the quality of work. Needless to say she will be attending another school next year. In my at-risk groups at school I will provided word banks for my students to use in their writing assignments. They typically have to use a certain number of word bank words in their stories to expand their writing skills. This is often times a challenge, but I think it forces them to use words they would not typically use in their written or verbal language skills.
Of the seven critical understandings, “the importance of volume reading” is an understanding that you can see reflected in my classroom on a regular basis. I have my students reading almost every class period. They read a wide variety of materials from fiction to nonfiction. Within a couple of weeks in my class, students know that reading is of the most importance; there is no escaping it. I frequently bring in newspaper clippings or excerpts from books that have moved me to great emotions. I share books with students and frequently recommend books to students who I know would love a certain book.
Another critical understanding that one can see in my classroom is “the potential in discussion of the text.” I model a think aloud every time we read together in class. I also have planned discussion questions in advance to make sure that I have a good mix of higher and lower level thinking questions.
The critical understanding that I feel needs more attention in my classroom is the effectiveness of explicit instruction in comprehension. Although I model the strategies and guide my students when they use them, I have never explicitly taught my students the names and differences of the reading strategies. If I taught them this information, they would be able to use these strategies more independently, which is the ultimate goal in reading.
I have a particular routine for my vocabulary instruction. I use a vocabulary workbook to teach a group of fifteen words every other week. This doesn’t sound too fun, but I do everything I can to make it meaningful and fun. First, I hand out a list of fifteen sentences with each sentence having one of the vocabulary words in it underlined. My students read the sentences and use context clues to guess the meaning of the word and part of speech. When they are finished, we go over the words as a class. At this time, they can write the correct synonym or definition for the word if they were incorrect. Second, I hand out a photocopied vocabulary workbook lesson. This includes the words and their definitions and five different exercises using the vocabulary words. The exercises are fill-in the blank, matching, antonyms, synonyms and riddles. Third, I assign a writing or art activity. The students can either use all fifteen words in a short story or they can illustrate all of them. Fourth, to get ready for the vocabulary quiz, we play a game with the words, like vocab football, charades, elimination, or speed vocab. Finally, my students take a multiple choice quiz.
I also teach vocabulary before we begin reading a piece of literature. We read the word in the sentence, look for context clues, and read the definition at the bottom of the page. These words I have designated a head of time as being difficult for my students.
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