All You Need To Teach Comprehension 10+

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Exploring Comprehension C o m p r e h e n si o n is proble m solv i n g Many students can read words, but they struggle to comprehend. They may be skilled at decoding words, but lack strategies and thinking processes which enable them to understand texts. Ensuring that all students understand what they read and view is critical to their ongoing success at school and beyond. Teaching for comprehension occurs every time we read or view a text. To comprehend, we take to the text our beliefs, perceptions, experiences and ability to problem solve. Without these, the text’s meaning or message may be lost. To comprehend, we must make links to and from the text to our experiences and ask ourselves questions about what we are reading or viewing. Comprehending is an ongoing process of assimilating new information into our existing understandings. I use the term ‘teaching for comprehension’ rather than ‘teaching comprehension’, because comprehension is a cognitive process involving the personal thoughts, ideas and experiences of a reader, and a repertoire of strategies or problem solving options which help him or her to understand and move beyond the author’s message. It is not a series of isolated skills to be learned and mastered. With every text read or viewed, a reader adds to his or her personal thoughts, ideas and experiences. Texts therefore contribute to shaping the people we become, and continuing to extend knowledge is an essential part of the comprehension process. As our experiences change, our understandings also change. For example, I first read To Kill a Mockingbird at high school, and at the time it helped me decontextualise the world; it introduced things beyond my own experience and helped shape my perceptions of the world. Thirty years later I read it again. This time I had my experiences and memories that continue to shape and reshape my understandings of life. I pondered Harper Lee’s powerful words and knew that the meaning of these words and this text would stay with me always. I imagined what it would have been like to bear witness to these events, placing myself as best I could in all the characters’ shoes. I wondered about their lives, their feelings and how I would feel and act in their situations. As I did this, I was better able to interpret their actions and views. Adjusting my thinking throughout this text was vital to my comprehension. With this in mind, we must consider the diversity of learners within classrooms. Some students bring to a text a rich array of experiences, language, books and general knowledge. They have many experiences upon which to draw and many sources to connect to and from the text. Others do not have the same bank of experiences to anchor their knowledge. We must provide the anchors all students need for problem solving to occur. T each i n g for co m p r e h e n si o n Comprehension is a complex process for teachers of reading. We can all read a text and take away a literal interpretation of the author’s message, but deeper comprehension occurs when the reader moves beyond this level of understanding to assimilate the text into his or her own thinking. Only then can higher levels of comprehension occur, and texts become more memorable and more meaningful to the reader. We must teach students to think about their thinking; to strategise the best way to understand what is read and viewed. Students must learn to activate prior knowledge before reading, as recalling what you already know provides an anchor for new information. On imaginary texts, recalling similar themes, plots, text types and characters provides something familiar to anchor new experiences. On non-literary texts, recalling information about the topic, text type and theme provides an anchor for new information. Re-reading is also an important part of comprehending texts and building fluency and success. We must teach for a range of problem solving strategies, using them flexibly and together on all texts for deep and successful comprehension. Comprehension strategies should never be used in isolation, as no one strategy on its own will enable a reader to fully understand a text. 5
P r e d i ct Comprehension Strategies The comprehension strategies or ways to think about texts are to: @ Predict @ Connect @ Infer @ Question @ Visualise @ Determine main idea The tricky part can be strategising which way of thinking about the text will best promote comprehension. The problem solving process requires readers to ask themselves questions like: How could I think about this to understand it better? How can I look at this another way to understand it better? How do I need to change my thinking to understand it better? @ Synthesise @ Self-monitor Because comprehending is an active process, it occurs before, during and after reading. Students must understand that comprehending begins before the actual reading of words and continues after reading as they continue to think about the message of the text. During reading the mind is actively predicting and modifying, visualising, making connections, asking questions, making inferences, locating important ideas or information, synthesising what is read with prior knowledge and checking when understanding is lost or unclear. The summary tables below can be used as a guide to the strategies. Use the prompts and terminology listed here so you and your students have a common language to think and talk about reading. The mini-posters (BLMs 9 to 16) could be used as lesson starters or as further prompts or reminders to students if displayed around the classroom. There is also an assessment rubic for each strategy (BLMs 1 to 8). Each one has space to add criteria of your own. Because the rubic is structured as a continuum, you can see where your students are headed and select goals or learning experiences for that list of criteria. Strategy description Teacher prompts Student thinks @ Occurs when readers make predictions before, during and after reading, based on what they know and what they have read. @ Proficient readers confirm and reject predictions as they read, and modify their predictions based on new information from the text. What do you think this will be about? What do you expect this section of the book will be about? What do you expect to learn from this? What does the title, heading or picture suggest this might be about? What do you think will happen next? Since . . . happened, what do you expect will happen next? What do you think is likely to happen? What is likely to happen based on what has already occurred and what you know? What do I think this is about? The cover makes me think this will be about . . . After looking through the text, I think I’ll learn about . . . After looking through the text, I think the story is about . . . 6
Page 1 and 2: AGES 10+ Comprehension Comprehensio
Page 3 and 4: This edition published in 2021 by M
Page 5: All the Teaching Tips You Need 4
Page 9 and 10: Q u est i o n Strategy description
Page 11 and 12: S e lf-mon ito r Strategy descripti
Page 13 and 14: H ow to ru n a bo o k clu b You nee
Page 15 and 16: Rubric BLM 1 Assessment Rubric: Pre
Page 17 and 18: Rubric BLM 3 Assessment Rubric: Inf
Page 19 and 20: Rubric BLM 5 Assessment Rubric: Vis
Page 21 and 22: Rubric BLM 7 Assessment Rubric: Syn
Page 23 and 24: Mini-Poster BLM 9 Predict What migh
Page 25 and 26: Mini-Poster BLM 11 Infer What is th
Page 27 and 28: Mini-Poster BLM 13 Visualise I make
Page 29 and 30: Mini-Poster BLM 15 Synthesise I lea
Page 31 and 32: Book Club Roles BLM 17 ✄ Predicto
Page 33 and 34: Book Club Roles BLM 19 ✄ Creator
Page 35 and 36: Book Club Roles BLM 21 ✄ Intervie
Page 37 and 38: Lesson Bank Preparing for Cyclones
Page 39 and 40: Lesson Bank Virtual Cafe Comprehens
Page 41 and 42: Lesson Bank Fright Comprehension fo
Page 43 and 44: Lesson Bank Almost Swallowed by a S
Page 45 and 46: Lesson Bank The Missing Ticket Comp
Page 47 and 48: Lesson Bank Landmines 46 Comprehens
Page 49 and 50: Lesson Bank Gruesome Rhymes. Jack a
Page 51 and 52: Lesson Bank The Greatest Eruption o
Page 53 and 54: All the Worksheets and Task Cards Y
Page 55 and 56: Worksheet BLM 31 Name Date Reading
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Worksheet BLM 33 Name Fact Date or
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Worksheet BLM 35 Name Key Concepts
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Worksheet BLM 37 Name Date Talking
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Worksheet BLM 39 Name Date Supporti
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Worksheet BLM 41 Name Date Note Tak
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Worksheet BLM 43 Name Date Making C
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Worksheet BLM 45 Name Cause and Eff
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Worksheet BLM 47 Name Fact Finder D
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Worksheet BLM 49 xx Name Date All i
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Comprehension Task Card 3 Web Desig
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Comprehension Task Card 7 Get Creat
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Comprehension Task Card 11 Make a N
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Comprehension Task Card 15 Check Yo
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