Good readers are extremely active as they read. They are aware of why they are reading a text, make predictions about the upcoming text, and associate ideas they are reading about to their own background knowledge (Pressley, 2000). These are just a few characteristics of an active reader.
See a landmark article by Michael Pressley titled, “Comprehension Instruction: What Makes Sense Now, What Might Make Sense Soon” http://www.readingonline.org/articles/handbook/pressley/index.html
What active comprehension strategies do you teach in your classroom? How do you choose which strategies to use?
Active Comprehension has 8 Comments
-
-
Subscribe to our Blog
June 13th, 2009 at 8:21 am
What active comprehension strategies do you teach in your classroom? How do you choose which strategies to use?
Michael Pressley’s article was interesting especially in light of the emphasis on using data to drive instruction. I have often heard voiced the idea that we should look at how the students scored on the strands of the FCAT and then teach the strands in which our students were experiencing difficulty. At first glance, this seems to be excellent advice.
However, it overlooks one important fact that Pressley emphasized in this article. Students need to be able to read the text. The FCAT data does not tell me whether they missed the question because they did not understand the skill that was tested, or whether they missed the question because they could not read the passage. So before making the assumption that we need to teach a specific strand, we need to first determine whether our students can read the material. If they can’t read the material, we must also address the phonics and vocabulary strands, not just the comprehension strand. He emphasized the interrelationship between the strands with this statement, “the students who had learned to recognize the words to the point of automaticity answered more comprehension questions than did students who experienced instruction emphasizing individual word meanings.” So this needs to be our starting point.
If the emphasis is on what comprehension skills should be included, I have found that three strategies: teaching students to generate questions, visualizing , and summarizing have helped my students better process and remember the text. However these skills are not used in isolation. All of these are used throughout the process of teaching my students to make connections, text to self, text to text, and text to world. These connections help them to organize and remember the information for future use.
June 17th, 2009 at 7:30 am
Melinda, I really enjoyed your thoughts on this posting. I think your three key strategies of visualization, generating questions, and summarizing are right on target on what many of our students need. In fact, I think students are often lacking these skills as they were never taught explicitly how to do them.
Lourdes
June 17th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
One of my first thoughts was FCAT and I see Melinda was in that vein also. We probably do still ask too many questions about the reading as many people are so geared into practice for FCAT. This is probably confusing to students in regard to using other strategies as they know this is the way they will be tested. From my classes, I see that the who,what,when,where, why seems to still be popular.
I also agree about using self-generated questions. I have witnessed the students improve in the classes where teachers really worked on that strategy. This is also one they can continue to use throughout their education. Students at my school really had a hard time deciding what is important in a passage or text also. We tried to work on highlighting and deciding on what information is crucial .
June 24th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Nancy, I agree with you on the need to assist students with gaining understanding of how to generate their own questions. In order for them to truly be active readers they must be active thinkers and take a dominant role in their learning and reading to learn.
Lourdes
July 2nd, 2009 at 3:42 pm
I couldn’t find fault with anything Mr. Pressley stated except for this statement that students are rarely asked to remember facts they’ve read in the real world and they are mostly asked to synthesize the information. I would disagree with that thought because I believe adults converse about facts they’ve read in the newspaper or have heard/read via technology quite often. Thus, it’s very important to remember facts they’ve read in order to share accurately with others. In a different post, I discussed how hard it is for my students to find “right there” answers to questions that were prompted from the text they just read and how difficult it is for them to do that, let alone, answer higher level questions that ask them to bring together lots of prior knowledge or more than one source.
I teach 6th grade Social Studies, after 9 years in the classrooms of grades K-4. I read “Strategies that Work” around my 5th year of teaching and it changed my life forever. I also read, “I Read it, But I Don’t Get it”, which is made for middle and high school teachers and shows how vital it is for teachers to use strategies that work in the classroom to help increase comprehension. Thus, my ideas are not new, they are simply taken from the above books and confirmed via all of my reading endorsement classes and of course the FOR-PD course.
I want active readers. Thus, I teach my students many different strategies throughout the school year. These are taught via direct instruction, lots of modeling, practicing together, and asking them to do it independently. I hope and encourage they use ALL of these strategies combined together as needed.
1. Before, During and After reading. We make predictions and ask questions about what the story might be about. We might use a KWLH chart to record things they already know about the topic. We discuss how to find out more information once the reading has been completed (more texts, internet, ask someone).
2. I encourage sticky notes and highlighters when available to jot down thoughts, identify unknown words, asking questions or to share an idea.
3. I teach them how to make connections (text to text, text to world and text to self) and how to share them, including writing these down on sticky notes or paper.
4. I use Thinking Maps while reading, such as a flow map or circle map to keep up with the story and encourage them to visualize what they are reading (pictures are always a plus), then onto Double Bubble Maps or Tree Maps when I want them to think about what they read; analyzing and synthesizing.
5. I encourage cooperative learning activities which allow different level students to work together, or students who might know more or less about the topic. I let them read the text to each other and have them practice asking questions they think about while reading.
6. We also look at all the aspects of texts that they will be exposed to; to help them find information in the text without just flipping through, page after page in the hope of finding the answer by luck.
I am sure I am forgetting many other things I do in the classroom to aid comprehension. Whatever is needed within the moment is what I try to grab out of my bag of teacher tricks
July 5th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
What active comprehension strategies do you teach in your classroom? How do you choose which strategies to use?
When I plan active comprehension strategies, I think about student motivation and engagement. It is important for my learners to work independently and in cooperative groups to maximize their understanding of the text. Making predictions, analyzing story grammar elements, and summarizing are a few of the comprehension strategies I focus on each week. One of my students’ favorite cooperative group activities is called, “Table Talk”. It is a simple strategy and can be used with fiction and non-fiction texts. I begin by dividing my students into cooperative groups. Next, they are given a large piece of paper in which they can develop semantic maps, outline story details, or record facts from the selection-their choice. As they are discussing and writing their ideas, I walk around and make suggestions, such as, “I see you listed some of the main characters. Perhaps you can add characteristics about each one.” Once they have completed the written part of this lesson, we share with the whole class. Comparisons and contrasts are noted as we share each group’s paper.
When I select comprehension strategies, I think about the type of text we are reading. (i.e. fiction or non-fiction) If we are reading a non-fiction text, I may have my students create KWLH charts and provide additional reading materials to supplement their learning about a specific topic. For example, every year we read a selection about Puffins. I’m always amazed during our pre-reading discussion at their prior knowledge before we launch into a guided reading experience. The students become quite excited when they conduct Internet research and update our KWLH charts during our post-reading activity.
These are just a few examples of the comprehension strategies I use to keep my students engaged and motivated during reading!
July 7th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Love the “Table Talk” idea, Karen.
What a great way to integrate a variety of strategies. I like the focus on engagement and collaboration!
Lourdes
July 19th, 2009 at 8:14 pm
To begin, I’d like to say that I really enjoyed this article. I printed it and shared it with one of my assistant principals. I was particularly interested in the study by Tan and Nicholson (1997). I have always been a strong proponent of fluency instruction and this study gave me affirmation. (A slight digression from the given topic…but a definite “aha” for me.)
The active comprehension strategies that I teach involve teaching students to connect to the text by building background knowledge before reading and think alouds that encourage students to connect to the text as they read. I like to help them connect personally to the text, text to text and text to the world. These connections can make a world of difference in my students’ comprehension and their ability to remember what they have read. Helping students construct mental images as they read is also an important aspect of my instruction. Teaching students to monitor their own reading is one of the most important strategies I can teach my students.
The specific comprehension strategies that I teach are based on student needs as determined by assessments. Of course the aforementioned strategies benefit all students, but additional strategies that are taught are also often driven by the author’s purpose. If students understand the author’s purpose it assists them in their understanding of the text and this often drives my instruction. Is the author trying to persuade us? Compare and contrast something? Explain a problem and solution?
As we all know, reading is a complex process that involves many skills taking place simultaneously. For some of us it is a natural process, for others guidance and explicit instruction is needed.