Good Morning!

1. Good Morning! • Patti Rahn • Lighthouse Christian Academy, Manahawkin, NJ • Philadelphia Biblical University – School of Education – Literacy • LBI for 42 years • Loves of my life – KoKo, YumYum, and MistyBlue Imacutie • Love to travel • 6/7/12 – China! • patti.rahn@verizon.net • http://www.jamesrahn.com/ecs.htm • This is where I will post this PowerPoint. Visit his site and you can download it. • If your teach middle or high school math, this site is for you! • Under Personal Site, visit the pet’s page for their baby pictures!

2. Expository Comprehension Strategies Why . . . teach them What . . . are they How . . . to teach them

3. What is a strategy? • Cognitive strategies are systematic plans that students consciously use to monitor and improve comprehension. • These strategies allow students to gain control of the comprehension process.

4. Strategic Readers • Strategic readers • Actively interact with the text. • Connect information in the text with preexisting knowledge. • Know a number of strategies and when to use them. • Stop to reflect on what they have read.

5. Successful, strategic, readers . . . • Preview the text to identify unknown vocabulary, headings, subheadings and the structure of the it. • Make predictions about the information or story that they are reading. • Ask themselves questions. • Draw inferences from the text. • Monitor their own comprehension and clarify misunderstandings. • Synthesize new information and use it to create new thinking.

6. Strategies vs. Activities • An activity is a method that a teacher uses, directs, and prepares that is used to help students interact with materials. • Activities are vital teaching tools. • The only problem is that students need a teacher to prepare the activity so they can interact with the material. • Using strategies is a method where students know how to comprehend text on their own without a teacher's direction. • Comprehension skill: Activating prior knowledge Anticipation Guide = activity KWL = strategy

7. Prior Knowledge Topic Survey Anticipation/Reaction Guide • Instructions: Respond to each statement twice: once before the lesson and again after reading it. • Write A if you agree with the statement • Write B if you disagree with the statement

8. KWL Chart

9. THIEVES: THIEVES is a pre-reading strategy that sets the purpose for readingusing an easily remembered acronym. Students learn how to “steal” information from the Title, Headings, Introduction, Every first sentence, Visuals/Vocabulary, End-of-chapter questions, and Summary before reading the entire text selection. Using THIEVES helps readers to identify important concepts, establish a context for reading, and predict what ideas might be contained in a text passage.

10. Thieves Article • http://bcudl.pbworks.com/f/THIEVES.doc (Go to this site for the Thieves Article) • See handouts • The Elements of THIEVES • THIEVES Practice • Be sure to make bookmarks for your children. (pages 13-14)

11. SPRC: Survey, Predict, Read, Confirm • STEP ONE: Before starting to read, survey the assignment. Read the headings. Study the diagrams and pictures. Look at questions at the beginning and of the assignment. Look at the bolded vocabulary words – figure out the definition. • STEP TWO: Based on your survey, write down what you predict a section will be about. • STEP THREE:Read that section. • STEP FOUR: Either confirm your prediction or if your prediction wasn’t right, write down what you did learn. • Repeat STEPS TWO, THREE and FOUR.

12. Patterns of Organization • When writers start to plan how they are going to organize their information so that it will be easy for the reader to understand, they choose one of the 8 organizational patterns as the to way to present their information. • These organizational patterns are: • Spatial order • Order of importance • Cause/effect • Generalization • Time Order • Compare/contrast • Classification • Combined/Multiple Patterns

13. Recognizing the Organizational Pattern • See handout: Types of Organizational Patterns (and How to Find Them) • During the survey of the assignment, students should identify the major organization pattern. • As the assignment is read, knowing the organizational pattern will aid greatly in understanding and retaining the information. • Students should also be taught the “signal words” that identify each pattern. • I call these “little, but deadly words”. If you don’t read them carefully you will miss the important information.

14. Your daughter is 35 years old and single and you don’t have any grandchildren. The prayer of your heart (as you keep telling her) is that she would find the right man. • She comes home and says . . . • I met the greatest guy. He went to Harvard University and he owns a company that sells computer supplies worldwide. He owns houses on LBI and NYC. He drives a Mercedes. He is really a great guy, although he is a convicted felon! • SO . . . The moral of the story is “The little words are really important – they are little, but deadly!”

15. PowerPoint with example paragraphs – 5 patterns • Text Structure Lesson Powerpoint • http://www.ereadingworksheets.com/e-reading-worksheets/all-reading-worksheets-list/ (Go to this site for the Texture Structure Lesson Powerpoint)

16. Semantic Webbing: Divergent • Semantic Webbing builds a side-by-side graphical representation of students' knowledge and perspectives about the key themes of a reading selection before and after the reading experience. Semantic Webs achieve three goals: • "Reviving" or "reactivating" students' prior knowledge and experience, "Reviving" or "reactivating" students' prior knowledge and experience, • Helping students organize both their prior knowledge and new information confronted in reading, and • Allowing students to discover relationships between their prior and new knowledge.

17. Video example • Video Clip • http://www.justreadnow.com/strategies/webbing.htm (Go to this site for the video clip at the bottom of the page and other information.) • Before reading • After reading • Similar to KWL and SPRC – predict, read, confirm • The finished webbing can easily be turned into a writing experience.

18. Gradual Release of Responsibility Model How to Teach Strategies

19. Gradual Release: How to teach strategies The Gradual Release of Responsibility is a research-based instructional model developed by Pearson and Gallagher (1993). In this optimal learning model, the responsibility for task completion shifts gradually over time from the teacher to the student. See chart See handout: What does the Gradual Release of Responsibility Model Look Like?

20. Oct 25 Comprehension PDF(gradual release page 4) • http://resources.curriculum.org/secretariat/files/Oct25comprehension.pdf (Go to this link for the full document.) • This site summarizes, and expands, the information on strategies: why teach them, what they are, and how to teach them. • It is written for K-2 but the ideas are applicable to all grades.

21. What did you learn about helping your child to independently use comprehension strategies? • Why . . . teach them • What . . . are they • How . . . to teach them