Creating Lifelong Learners

Angela Maiers presents this slideshow on reading comprehension.  I wish I had attended the actual workshop, however, the slideshow still raises several important points about reading.  My favorite among them is the part about how we offer ridiculous extrinsic incentives for reading that have little to do with fostering a genuine love of reading.  The slideshow also suggests some follow-up activities that lead to more in depth connection to literature.

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David Jakes presents this article on generating essential questions for discussion.  Hint:  They’re not yes or no questions.

(cross-posted in In Practice)

Reading comprehension tends to be an area in need of improvement in many schools with high concentrations of English Language Learners, Standard English Learners, and even some “high performing” schools admit that students can read but they don’t know what they’re reading. We tend to teach the same way we’ve been taught. However, there are new tools and research available today. If we’re still teaching how we were taught, it’s no wonder students are not understanding what they read. Here are four things I’ve been doing in a effort to increase reading comprehension…

1. Fill in background knowledge with visuals. To borrow a film making adage, “Show, don’t tell.” Find something visual, auditory, or some realia that grabs students’ interest and helps them to understand the story. If you’re reading about Martin Luther King, don’t just tell them what a great speaker he was. Show them a video, play them the speech…it’s too easy to find these and download them now not to do it.Pictures work too. You don’t have to make a powerpoint, just print out a picture! Mount it to construction paper, label it, and hold it up. If you’re reading about the city of Parmele, show them pictures of Parmele and locate it on a map. Reading about a guinea fowl?…show them a picture of a guinea fowl (or present a feather).Where do you find these pictures? As long as you’re just using the pictures in your classroom, use Google Image Search. If you need to repost the pictures, then try these royalty free image sites. Don’t just open the book and start reading.
   
2. Everybody reads, all the time. If you didn’t get the memo, popcorn reading is out (see: Goodbye Round Robin by Opitz and Rasinski). When one student reads, notice what the other students are doing. Most are probably not paying attention. If you have students read in a predictable group pattern, then they anticipate when they’re going to read, get ready, and then tune out again when their turn is finished You will see increased participation if everyone reads the story aloud at the same time.
3. Have students discuss…not with you, with each other. Typical teaching involves a teacher asking questions to which the teacher already has an answer in mind. The teacher calls on the first student who raises their hand, hears the right answer, and then rephrases it further.Everyone who isn’t that one student answering is bored or not listening and all the students get the message that there is one right answer. Then we wonder why students aren’t capable of higher level thinking. We don’t expect it or even allow it in most classrooms.Instead, ask authentic questions…ones that have no right answer, questions that really ask for an opinion or something that you really want to know an answer to. Lower level thinking questions are fine to begin with but don’t stay there forever. Give students a chance to pair share or talk in groups. Sometimes they can share out to the whole group but they don’t have to. Resist the urge to rephrase everything students say as if we know more than they do. We don’t always.The goal of having them discuss is to involve more students in the conversation and to ask them to think on their own in a safe environment but without the safety net of the teacher stepping in with “right answers” when things get tough.While students are talking, you walk around and monitor. Sometimes encouraging students to share what they’ve said in small groups with the whole class, sometimes asking follow-up questions to stimulate further conversation.Note: If you’ve never done this before, the first few times you do it will be hard…pulling teeth hard. Don’t give up, it gets better.
4. Explicitly teach comprehension strategies before and after beginning the lesson. Particularly if you are working from a reading anthology, the point of the reading is to practice using comprehension strategies, particularly ones which involve clarifying and lead to inference (these are the spots that tend to tie students up when they’re reading on their own).I teach students that they’re not going to like everything they’re going to be reading. Sometimes I even tell them (when we’re done reading and already discussed it) that I don’t like a particular selection. However, the point is that even a story we don’t like is an excuse to practice our reading strategies.By explicitly I mean you can’t just use the strategies and expect students to absorb them through osmosis. You need to emphasize the strategies you’re using by naming them and drawing attention to them.

I have recently redone the reading comprehension strategy cards and they’re available to download.

For those unfamiliar with the reading strategies, they are: predicting, making connections, summarizing, asking questions, clarifying, and visualizing.

The new cards are more visual and include definitions on the front and back as well as scaffolding (linguistic frames) for both teachers and students.

I have previously recommended having two sets of the reading strategy cards, one on the wall that you can refer to all the time and another that you sue to highlight the week’s featured strategies and pass out to students as you’re reading a selection for the first time. I’ve redesigned both as well as handy-dandy comprehension strategy bookmarks.

Download Reading Strategy Cards V.2

Also available in wall posters, bookmarks, and powerpoint editions
(see General Resources page)

I would like to acknowledge the work of Fontana Unified who designed the first version of the cards I was using. I also owe a big thank you to Michael Lovett and his team at Shenandoah Elementary for their work in creating sentence frames for each of the strategies which became a basis for my work. I also thank Susan Obuchi, Mary Ann Sullivan, and those two two kids in the hall who gave their feedback on my designs. Photo credit is given on the back of the cards. Royalty free images were used in each case.

One way to teach students to make inferences is to teach them that there are different kinds of questions. Questions where the answer is clearly in the text, questions when you must use your own head, and questions which ask you to connect to the text.

Francie Kugelman has created these charts which students can use to identify the types of questions as well as eliminating wrong answers on tests.

Please see the Comprehension Page (accessible from general Open Court Resources) to download the form. Scroll down to “Teaching Inference.”

LAUSD teachers, please join us on November 26th from 3:45-6:45 at Shenandoah Elementary in LAUSD, District 3 for our Comprehension Passport, Stairway to Comprehension. We will be focusing on unit openers, discussing the selection and recording new learning.

I will be there presenting a piece of the training in the K-1 group. Please introduce yourself if you’re there. Register in the Learning Zone or just show up.