Reading Comprehension Strategies

Reading Comprehension Strategies Bilingual/ESL Department Dr. Romeo Romero 2010-2011

Agenda • Strategies to Enhance Reading Comprehension • Super Six Reading Strategies

English Proficiency and Literacy Development ELLs at all levels of English proficiency and literacy development will benefit from improved comprehension skills, which allow them to: • Read more accurately • Follow a text or story more closely • Identify important events and concepts in a text • Master new concepts in their content-area classes • Complete assignments and assessments • Feel motivated to read in school and for pleasure

Strategies to Enhance Reading Comprehension • Build Background Knowledge • Teach Vocabulary Explicitly • Check Comprehension

Building Background English language learners have great difficulty jumping into new texts without any background support. Students should know at least something about the topic before reading. • What do students bring to the table? • What do they know? • What don’t they know?

Building Background • Create interest in the subject by using pictures, real objects, maps or personal experiences. • Relate materials to students’ lives whenever possible. • Establish a purpose for reading ) Today we are going to read to find out: what are the examples of freedom/liberty in our country?) Let’s remember that liberty means freedom. The people of France gave us the Statue of Liberty…”

Building Background Knowledge • Take students on a “Tour of the Text” and discuss how these sections can be helpful • Table of contents • Glossary • Explain how the text is organized • Bold print • Chapter headings • Chapter summaries • Use a “picture-walk” • Pictures • Illustrations, • Side bars

Building Background Knowledge • Seek opportunities to make associations between students’ experiences and new content. • Allow students the opportunities for a quick brainstorm about what they know about a topic before presenting their ideas to the whole class. • Look for references that may need to be explicitly explained.

Build Background • Use outlines to scaffold comprehension- Provide a brief, simple outline of a reading assignment or an oral discussion in advance of a new lesson. This will help ELLs pick out the important information as they listen or read. • Activity (chapter outline)

Building Background • Build students’ expectations, clarify their thoughts and prom0te deep engagement ( making predictions)as they read through the text • I think that… will happen next • Maybe….will …. • I think that….happened because…..

Activities I. Connecting students’ knowledge to text II. “Tour of the Text” III. Outlining

Vocabulary ELL students are constantly learning new vocabulary, but the more a teacher can do to explicitly teach important vocabulary and to demonstrate vocabulary learning skills, the more the ELL student will benefit. Pre-teaching vocabulary will allow students to identify words and then to place them in context and remember them.

Vocabulary • Choose from 7 to 10 words subject-matter words per week • Use Robert Marzano’s 6 Step Process for Building Academic Vocabulary • Conduct a Picture-walk for vocabulary- once student know a new word’s definition, ask them to connect the new word to the pictures they see in the text. • Role play, show real objects, do quick drawings on the white board, use gestures, point to pictures and use hands-on activities. • Help students recognize when to use words • Help students decode and spell that word • Provide several examples.

Vocabulary • Choose vocabulary that your students need to know in order to support their reading development and content-area learning. • Include signal and directional words such as “because” and “explain.” • Help students understand multiple meanings (such as the word “party”) • Provide opportunities for students to break down words into parts to understand it-”dis” meaning “not”, “able” meaning “can” or “having ability” and “ed” describing something. The student should be able to see from the context that “disabled” means, “not having the ability.” • Teach students to actively engage with vocabulary- have students underline, highlight, make notes, list unknown vocabulary words and play games to learn new words. Provide opportunities for multiple exposure.

Vocabulary • Make sure they know instructional words used every day, such as “describe”, “start at the top of the page”, “read to the bottom of page 6”, “use the steps in your guide.” • Use cognates- many of our English words are derived from latin words, such as democracia /democracy, cell/cellula, and gobierno/government • While discussing the text, make the text visible to all students and point to the parts of the text, to the sentences and words you are discussing

Activity • Identify, define and practice expanding vocabulary for students • Review of Marzano’s Six Step Process for Building Academic Vocabulary • Game Jeopardy $1000,000 Pyramid Pyramid Bingo Pictionary Create a skit Charades Pantomime

Reading Comprehension • Comprehension is the reason for reading, but it can be the most difficult skill to master-especially for English language learners (ELLs). ELLs often have problems learning science, math, or social studies concepts, for example, because they cannot comprehend the textbooks for these subjects.

Check Comprehension Frequently 1. Use informal comprehension checks- to test students’ ability to sequence materials, for example, print sentences from a section of the text on paper strips, mix the steps and have students put them in order. 2. Use comprehension strategies • Rereading • Visualizing • Asking for help when not understanding • Looking forward in the text to resolve a problem in comprehending

Check Comprehension Frequently 3. Use student-friendly questions- during reading and after reading, test students’ comprehension with carefully crafted questions, using simple sentences and key vocabulary from the text. These questions can be at the: Literal level- Why do the leaves turn red and yellow in the fall? Interpretive level- Why do you think it needs water? Applied level- How much water are you going to give it? Why?

Check Comprehension Frequently 4. No matter what the proficiency level of the student, ask questions that require higher-level thinking (analyze, interpret, explain what they have read) • What ideas can you add to…? • Do you agree? Why or why not? • What might happen if….? • How do you think she felt….?

Check Comprehension Frequently 5. Allow ELLs to organize information and ideas efficiently without using a lot of language. Different types include Venn diagram, KWL charts, story maps, cause and effect charts, timelines and the 8 kinds of Thinking Maps • Use graphic organizers • Use thinking maps

Check Comprehension Frequently 6. Ask students to use the following strategies to summarize what they have read (orally, in writing or both): • Retell what you read, but keep it short • Include only important information • Leave out less important details • Use key words from the text • Provide sentence stems ( This paragraph is about…; In this article the author is saying that ….)

Check Comprehension Frequently 7. Provide students lots of different ways to “show what they know.” Students can demonstrate understanding as they are beginning to develop their reading and writing skills in English • Drawings • Graphs • Oral Interviews • Posters, • Portfolios

Check Comprehension Frequently • Assign reading partners: pair ELLs with fluent readers. After reading, ask them to summarize and discuss what they read and learned. • In cooperative groups, after silent reading of every paragraph/passage of the text let the groups summarize the gist of the paragraph/passage . • While students are working in groups, pairs and individually, circulate around the room. Provide scaffolding by asking appropriate questions that help students proceed with the task.

Activity • Develop an informal comprehension check • Develop higher-order thinking questions • Summarize

The Explicit Teaching of Reading The National Reading Panel (2000) found that comprehension strategy instruction, as opposed to comprehension skill practice (identifying main idea, cause-effect, fact-opinion) was important for students’ reading growth. The features of explicit teaching include: • Relevance- students are made aware of the purpose of the skill or strategy • Definition- Students are informed as to how to apply the skills by modeling its use, discussing its range of utility and illustrating what it is not • Guided Proactive-Students are given feedback on their own use of the strategy or skills • Self regulation- students are given opportunities to try out either strategy for themselves and develop ways to monitor their own use of the strategy or skill • Gradual release of responsibility- the teacher initially models and directs the students learning, as the lesson progresses, the teacher gradually gives more responsibility to the student • Application- Students are given the opportunity to try their skills and strategies in independent learning situations, including nonschool tasks.

Teacher Preparation • Survey the text for difficulty keeping in mind the levels of English language learners in your classroom; • Determine your standard or objectives; • Select the concepts to teach; • Eliminate unnecessary information that will be too difficult for ELL students of low English proficiency; • Choose key specific vocabulary to pre-teach; develop assessments to test that content • Identify vocabulary words that you think might be difficult for ELLs and write friendly definitions, drawings for each • Use highly illustrated books of various levels of difficulty teaching your content. • Adjust assignments to the students’ levels of English proficiency.

Let’s Remember…. 1. It may be challenging to get ELLs’ comprehension skills where you want them to be, but the extra effort it takes will be well worth it as you put them on the path to becoming successful readers. 2. Remember that if you model the how and what to do, the students will follow your lead and eventually become successful readers.

Thank you! “I’m glad that I found my ‘home run” book (The Boxcar Children) at an early age. I don’t’ really remember much of the story line, but I do know that it lead to many more home run books and a lifetime enjoyment of reading. It is my wish that every child finds a “home run” book, develops the love of reading and learning, and leaps beyond the “fourth grade slump” to become an academic success.” Stephen Krashen Educational Researcher

Super Six Reading Strategies • Teacher’s self checklist

Reading Comprehension Strategies