Improving Reading Comprehension

1. Improving Reading Comprehension Expository Text Presentation by Sarah Gaines, Psy.S., NCSP

2. Goals and Outcomes • Understand expository text and why students struggle to comprehend it. • Learn how to begin the expository text discussion with your students. • Learn strategies to aid student comprehension of expository text.

3. What is Expository Text? Overwhelmed yet? Guess what, so are many of our students.

4. Why is Expository Text Difficult? • New and challenging vocabulary • Words are often outside the realm of a student’s everyday knowledge • Many students do not have personal experience with the topics • Text structures are numerous

5. “…before I could teach children how to use the features of nonfiction in purposeful ways, I had to teach them what nonfiction was.” (p. 142) ~Debbie Miller

6. Begin with a Nonfiction Text Set Providing many examples with diverse topics will help students understand the variety inherent in nonfiction.

7. Progress to Text Features • Use a Venn diagram or other graphic organizer to discuss the features of fiction versus nonfiction. • Talk about what things fiction and nonfiction text have in common. • Knowing what distinguishes nonfiction from fiction helps readers know what to expect. • Start the conversation with fiction. It is the type of text which students are most familiar.

8. Text Features Fiction • Setting • Characters • Problem • Beginning, middle, and an end • Events • Resolution • Pictures • Story • Theme • Main Ideas • Specific Topics • Facts • Teach Something • Information • Photographs • Captions, Headings • Diagrams • Index • Table of Contents Nonfiction

9. Big Differences Fiction • The reader makes predictions about the kinds of things he or she expects will happen. • The reader must read from the front to the back. • The reader makes predictions about the kinds of things he or she expects to learn. • The reader may read in any order. Nonfiction

10. Proficiency with Expository Text: Four Essential Elements (Miller & Veatch, 2010)

11. A Word on Strategy Instruction • Strategies must be explicitly taught over a long period of time. • Students should receive many examples and demonstration of each strategy. • Students need opportunities to practice the strategies using many texts. • Strategies should be presented one at a time.

12. “High 5!” Strategies • Activating Background Knowledge • Questioning • Analyzing Text Structure • Creating Mental Images • Summarizing (Dymock & Nicholson, 2010)

13. Activating Background Knowledge • Readers comprehend better when they are able to activate prior knowledge and make connections to background knowledge. • Teachers can improve student comprehension through starting point activities. • Ex: The class is learning about Paris, France. • Pull out a map • Talk about the language spoken in the country • Discover facts about the population

14. Questioning • “Meaning arrives because we are purposefully engaged in thinking while we read.” ~ Cris Tovani (2004) • One way to improve comprehension of expository text, and purposefully engage in thinking while reading, is to teach students to generate and answer questions before and during reading.

15. Questioning • As a start, here are 3 types of questions you can teach your students to ask: • Right There: something factual • “What are the facts?” • Think and Search: something to figure out • “What does the writer want me to figure out?” • Beyond the Text: something unsaid • “What else should I know? Should I check with background research?”

16. Analyzing Text Structure • Unlike narrative text, expository text has several structures. • Knowledge of one expository text structure does not transfer to another structure. • Students, especially those at the elementary school level most often encounter descriptive and sequential structures.

17. Analyzing Text Structure: Descriptive • List • The simplest descriptive pattern. • Order is not important. • Web • Attributes of an object are discussed. • There is a common link among the attributes. • Matrix • Describes more than one thing. • Compares and contrasts two or more topics.

18. Analyzing Text Structure: Sequential • String • Step by step description of events • Ex: a sequence for baking cookies • Cause-Effect • Two (or more) ideas/events interact • One is the cause, the other is an effect • Problem-Solution • The writer states a problem or poses a question • A solution or answer is in the text • Sequence is important: first a problem, then the solutions

19. Text Structures and Common Clue Words Although it is not foolproof, knowing some key words and phrases can aid a student’s thinking as he or she considers the type of expository text.

20. Text Structure: Conventions (Miller, 2002, p. 149)

21. Text Structure Conventions: What do you notice? Heading Special, separated text Numbered items Bold text

22. What do you notice? Caption Figure, Picture

23. Creating Mental Images • Readers comprehend better if they can create and use a mental structure while they process the text. • This strategy goes hand in hand with the previous strategy, analyzing text structure. • Knowing the text structure can help students visualize a diagram specific to that text structure to organize their thinking. • A creative analogy to use with students: think of yourself as an architect, you need to see all the little ribs and bones!

24. Creating Mental Images • Example for a descriptive, compare and contrast text: • Topic: Sharks

25. Summarizing • The ability to summarize a text enhances comprehension. • Summarizing means the ability to sift through irrelevant details, combine similar ideas, condense main ideas, and connect major themes in a concise manner. • Again, knowing the text structure strategy helps students here as well.

26. Summarizing in 5 Steps • Read the text. • Identify the text structure the writer has used. • Make a diagram of the structure. • Discard redundant information. Leave only the key ideas. • Circle only the critical ideas that you need for the summary. (Dymock & Nicholson, 2010)

27. Linguistic Challenges (Fang, 2008)

28. Helping Students Face the Linguistic Challenges • Exposure: Allow for authentic experiences with expository language by having a variety of texts in the classroom including trade books, magazines, newspapers, journals, textbooks. (Fang, 2008)

29. Helping Students Face the Linguistic Challenges • Noun Deconstruction: Teach students how to analyze lengthy phrases into functional pieces. • Ex: “A seven-weekmurder trial that focused new attention on the suspect’s dealings…” • Noun Expansion: Teach students how to expand simple nouns into lengthy noun phrases. • Ex: This student likes reading.  This bright student likes reading.  This remarkably bright student likes reading. How long? How many? Which one? (Fang, 2008)

30. Helping Students Face the Linguistic Challenges • Sentence Transformation: Teach students how to transform their own sentences into expository structures in their own writing or speaking. • Ex: “When the rainforest are destroyed…” becomes “The destruction of the rain forests…” • Paraphrase: Teach students how to translate the text into everyday language. • Ex: “A time span of 50 years is insignificant compared to the billions of years that life has existed on earth.” becomes “Fifty years is a small amount of time when you think about how long life has been on earth.” (Fang, 2008)

31. Helping Students Face the Linguistic Challenges • Syntactic Autonomy: Teach students how to recognize the multiple layers of semantic links and dependency relationships. You can delve into complex linguistic features or address it more simply depending on the students’ level. • Ex: “It had already been known that DNA was the molecule of which genes are madewhen two young scientists, James Watson and Francis Crick, took on the challenge of figuring out its structure.” EX: The words that and when indicate the start of two subordinate clauses. In other words, this clause means they knew genes were made of DNA. (Fang, 2008)

32. Summing It Up • Expository text can be difficult for students. • Knowing the text structure can aid in the reader’s understanding of the material. • While there are many strategies to choose from, keep in mind that strategy instruction is best when explained, modeled, practiced, and introduced one at a time.

33. References Dymock, S. (2005). Teaching expository text structure awareness. The Reading Teacher, 59(2), 177-181. doi:10.1598/RT.59.2.7 Dymock, S., & Nicholson, T. (2010). “High 5!” strategies to enhance comprehension of expository text. The Reading Teacher, 64(3), 166-178. doi:10.1598/RT.64.3.2 Fang, Z. (2008). Going beyond the fab five: Helping students cope with the unique linguistic challenges of expository reading in intermediate grades. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 51(6), 476-487. doi:10.1598/JAAL.51.6.4 Jitendra, A. K., Burgess, C., & Gajria, M. (2011). Cognitive strategy instruction for improving expository text comprehension of students with learning disabilities: The quality of the evidence. Council for Exceptional Children, 77(2), 135-159. McLaughlin, M. (2012). Reading comprehension: What every teacher needs to know. The Reading Teacher, 66(7), 432-440. doi:10.1002/TRTR.01064

34. References Miller, M., & Veatch, N. (2010). Teaching literacy in context: Choosing and using instructional strategies. The Reading Teacher, 64(3), 154-165. doi:10.1598/RT.64.3.1 Shanahan, T., Callison, K., Carriere, C., Duke, N. K., Pearson, P. D., Schatschneider, C., & Torgesen, J. (2010). Improving reading comprehension in kindergarten through 3rd grade: A practice guide (NCEE 2010-4038). Washington, DC: National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. Retrieved from whatworks.ed.gov/publications/practiceguides. Tovani, C. (2004). Do I really have to teach reading? Content comprehension, grades 6-12. Portland, Maine: Stenhouse Publishers.