Reading

Comprehension
Strategies
Anna McGee
anna.mcgee@stokes.k12.nc.us
Mollie McDowell
mollie.mcdowell@stokes.k12.nc.us
Share Session

Share some ways that you,

Instruct
Encourage
Support

Reading Comprehension Strategies in your classroom?

Every instructional minute is a
precious pearl
- Shelley Harwayne
Self - Evaluate ELA Instruction
Stop and Ponder
Questions to Ponder: Creating a Literacy of Thoughtfulness

1. Is every minute used as wisely as possible to get the greatest gain for the
learner?

2. Is there a careful balance in instruction for word knowledge and

comprehension?

3. Are comprehension strategies being modeled every day in every content area?

4. Are assessments focused on comprehension strategies as well as content

learned?

5. Would you describe your classroom as a place where thoughtful literacy is the
focus?
Scarboroughs Rope
Critical Elements in Reading Instruction

These elements are to be taught through an integrated,

balanced approach, and not in isolation.
Walls that TEACH

NOT areas to be decorated

ARE tools for learning
Should tell a story of strategy use, reflective thinking
Best if created with students

Might display:

List of processes used by readers and writers

Quotations from master writers
Inspirational work samples that encourage students to reach higher
Lists of questions reading partners can ask one another
Walls that TEACH
At the heart of deep comprehension is a teacher
who engages in explicit modeling and coaching.
Assignment are given after students observe the
teacher actively applying the target learning

- Linda Hoyt
Scaffold & Support
Scaffold & Support Accountable Conversations

SHOW students what accountable conversations look like and sound like
Create thinking partners
Create anchor charts together to establish procedures
Stems to start a discussion

I wonder
I noticed..
I liked
I feel
I can infer
My favorite part was
An important point was
I realized
I think
The selection made me think of
If I could change something, I would
That authors purpose may be.
Ratios
Fiction vs. Nonfiction

Primary Students: Upper Elementary:

50% fiction 30% fiction

50% nonfiction 70% nonfiction
2 fiction to 2 non-fiction to
1 non-fiction 1 fiction
(Begin @ MOY
2nd grade)
Alphaboxes
Helpful tool for organizing important ideas from a text. An activity that
occurs before, during, and after reading.
Sketch to Stretch
Role of the Teacher: Demonstrate the process- be a partner-MODEL-
Encourager- Stimulate conversation
Steps:

1. Model with a read aloud

2. Pause often to create simple line drawings with
labels to capture learning
3. As the teacher sketches, think aloud about key
ideas and how the pictures youre drawing help
you remember them.
4. Students sketch
5. After sketching, students share and explain their
drawings in small groups
6. Then students WRITE! :)
Two-Word Strategy

Non-threatening way to help students experience inferential reasoning

and beyond the text thinking.
1. Read a thought provoking selection to students
2. After reading, have students be silent and two only two words that reflect their thinking about the
passage
3. Turn and talk with a partner
4. Create a class lists together
Two Word Strategy in Action...
Read the following and list two words that reflect your thinking about the
passage:
Have you ever had a teacher who inspired you to work harder or pursue a particular
goal? Were you inspired to become an educator by one of your own great teachers?

Inspiring students is integral to ensuring their success and encouraging them to fulfil their
potential. Students who are inspired by their teachers can accomplish amazing things, and that
motivation almost always stays with them. Inspiration can also take many forms, from helping a
pupil through the academic year and their short-term goals, to guiding them towards their
future career. Years after graduation, many working professionals will still cite a particular
teacher as the one who fostered their love of what they currently do and attribute their
accomplishments to that educator.
Maybe
Provide students with a statement that is controversial. Their task is to
come up with a list of pros and cons for why the statement may be true or
false.

Example:
Little Red Riding Hoods mother shouldnt have sent her to grandmothers house by herself.

Controversial Statement:

Agree Disagree

Maybe Strategy in Action...

TURN AND TALK

Controversial Statement:
Cinderellas fairy Godmother should have given her more time to enjoy her
beautiful dress and fancy carriage.

Agree Disagree

Three Circle Map
Students write or draw in each circle to show what they
remember about key elements of the story.
Beginning- What happened 1st? Ending- What happened last?

Middle- What was it mostly about?

I Remember Strategy:

Step 1: Model- Remind students they are to listen

carefully to the reading and their goal is to remember
information they find especially interesting or believe to
be important. Remind students to listen/remember/
wait/respond with I remember.

Step 2: Guided Practice- Read aloud, students begin to

share I remember moments with thinking partners.

Step 3: Independent Practice- Partners read silently, then

give each other a thumbs up each time they reach a
stopping point and are ready to share their I remember
reflections.
Comprehension Strategies for Test Taking

Writing Test Style Questions

Brainstorm a question rooted in the

standard or genre
Come up with the right answer
Place 3 almost right distractors to trick
the reader
Students watch the whole process several
times and begin to understand the
relationship between questions and
answers and see more clearly the
game-like pattern they they must unravel
NC DPI ELA Livebinder
Close Read
Close reading is an instructional routine in which students critically examine a text,
especially through repeated readings. Close reading invites students to examine
the deep structures of a piece of text, or, as Alder and Van Doren (1940/1972)
described it, to x-ray the book [for] the skeleton hidden between the covers (p.
75). These deep structures include the way the text is organized, the precision of its
vocabulary to advance concepts, and its key details, arguments, and inferential
meanings. Importantly, these deep structures must also include consideration of the
authors purpose, how these ideas connect to other texts, and the ways the reader
can consolidate this information to formulate opinions. The primary objective of a
close reading is to afford students with the opportunity to assimilate new textual
information with their existing background knowledge and prior experiences to
expand their schema. The challenge is in not becoming so focused on background
knowledge and prior experiences such that we end up spending little time on the
textual information. Activation alone, although important, doesnt expand knowledge.
A second purpose of a close reading is to build the necessary habits of readers when
they engage with a complex piece of text. These include building stamina and
persistence when confronted by a reading that isnt easily consumed.
------Fisher & Frey, 2012
Key Features of Close Reading
Short Passages
Complex Text - readworks.org or newsela.org or
readinga-z.com
Worthy of students time - Interest/Engaging
Limit Frontloading
Repeated Reading - Different Purposes
Chunks the text in meaningful ways
Text-Dependent Questions - Plan Intentional Questions (This
will avoid surface questions.)
Annotation
Reading with pencil in hand!
Teaching text structures
Think, pair, share or Turn and Talk (Social Interaction)
Gradual release of responsibility I Do, We Do, You Do!
Suggestion for close readings.
Another suggestion for close
readings..
A few more suggestion for close
reading...
Annotation for Close Reading
Move over FICTION
Making the shift from NONFICTION to INFORMATIONAL TEXT

Allows you to activate their natural curiosity about our world!

Deepen vocabulary knowledge
allows you to front load with vocabulary
Keep logs to balance read alouds
Comprehension..
Oral and Written: Walking Hand and Hand.
Writing to learn is writing for comprehension and
provides students with an opportunity to recall, clarify,
and question what they have read, and it provides
them with a venue to voice questions or curiosities
that still remain (Knipper & Duggan, 2006). In a
meta-analysis conducted by Bangert-Drowns, Hurley,
and Wilkinson (2004), it was found that writing to
learn increased both content learning and overall
student achievement in elementary classrooms and
increased students metacognition.
What are the best ways to
improve comprehension?
Lets do a brain dump!
We will create an anchor chart together to capture our
thinking.
Share every best practice you have used to improve
comprehension?
(Try your best to not be exclusive in your thinking. Like I
do this for oral. Or I do this for written.)
What the Research Says..
Sharing an excerpt from research report from Carnegie
Corporation, Steven Graham and Michael Hebert, 2010.

Read Assigned Section from Writing to Read: Evidence for

How Writing Can Improve Reading
Discuss with your group the effectiveness of the practice for
improving comprehension.
What practices were used.
Effective? Ineffective?
How will this impact your practices?
Pick someone to represent your group and share.
Which practice is the most
effective?
Which practice?

Why is it the most effective?

What does that mean for your instructional practices?

 Combining writing with reading
enhances comprehension, because the
two are reciprocal processes. Considering
a topic under study and then writing about
it requires deeper processing than reading
alone entails (p. 151).
 So how do we do this in practical
and engaging ways?
Write through all content areas Taking notes
Graphic organizers Create book jackets
Charts Write letter to character/author
List Write from the characters point of view
Describe Create cartoon or graphic novel of reading
Justify Retell w/ words or illustrations
Book reviews Anticipation Guides
Summaries Doodle as you read
Prompts News Media - Commercial
Interviews Quote Collector
Reading Response Journals Newspaper/Blog/Twitter/Instagram/Facebook...
Sticky Notes Bumper Sticker/Slogans
Social-Interactive A day/week in the life of.
Maps Fact collector
Timeline SOCIAL INTERACTION
Revised Blooms Taxonomy
 When we write about what weve read, we
reflect on and solidify our learning. We are
challenged to review and synthesize our
understanding and consider how our new
learning relates to our prior knowledge.

-Reflect, Revisit, Retell, Hoyt

21st Century Learners
Written Comprehension