MODULE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF MACROSKILLS

Topic 5: Comprehension

Story Grammar: A Structural Approach to Facilitate Comprehension

This reading comprehension strategy was designed to provide students with a strategic
plan for selecting important aspects of story information for further study by asking
themselves the five “wh” questions.

Stage 1: Develop and Activate Background Knowledge

Prior to teaching the strategy, it is necessary to evaluate the student‟s background

knowledge. Using this in a classroom where the teacher is familiar with the students and
their reading abilities will provide a lot of this information. Formal or informal
assessments can be used to determine what skills the students possess and what skills
they lack; doing a task analysis will provide the information for identifying the skills
necessary to successfully complete the strategy.

Stage 2: Discuss the Strategy

This stage is the first stage in „initiating‟ the strategy. In this stage it is important to be up
front and open with the students about what you are doing and why it is to their benefit
to learn the strategy. It is important to stress the relevance of reading. Brainstorm with
the students any possible situations where reading stories accurately is important.
“When would it be important for you to read a story accurately?”
 For a test
 For an assignment
 Making an informed decision
 Learning more about something or someone of interest to you
 Enjoyment
 To gain information for enrichment
 Be able to answer comprehension
questions and get work completed
so you don‟t miss recess
 Get work done quicker and better
so you don‟t have homework

Stage 3: Model the Strategy

A wall chart will serve as a guide during

the modeling process. Cue cards will also
be provided so that each student will have
their own personal reminder of the
strategy prompts. The teacher will need to
use a “think aloud“ to demonstrate the use
of the strategy. The teacher will use a
graphic organizer (see figure 1) when

Page 1
 MODULE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF MACROSKILLS

modeling the process to show the students how to organize the information they marked
with their sticky tabs.

Stage 4: Support the Strategy

Memorizing the strategy is extremely important! We want the students to focus on the
task and not on the steps of the strategy. The activities themselves are not important.
The important part is whether or not they facilitate memorization. To begin students may
use their prompt cards to assist them in committing the strategy to memory.

Memorization Activities
1) Pair up and recite the stages with a partner, explaining what needs to be answered or
what each question is asking for.
2) Students will make their own cue cards with the strategy steps on them. The teacher
will make sure that all steps are complete and accurate.
3) Memory Circle – Students form a circle around one person. The person in the middle
calls out the “wh” word part of the prompt, and points to someone who has 5 seconds to
accurately state the rest of the question. If they don‟t get done within the 5 seconds then
they go to the middle.
4) Students will be prompted during various times of the day to recite different questions
in the strategy, and will be rewarded for correct responses.

Stage 5: Support the Strategy

In this stage scaffolding is important. With scaffolding it is possible for a gradual transfer
of strategy performance from teacher to student. This is possibly the most critical part of
the process; students need to be given adequate time and support to master the
strategy.

With teacher direction students will, as a class, read a story and answer the questions
using the story grammar strategy. The teacher will continue to model the use of the
strategy, sticky tabs, and graphic organizer. During this time the teacher can encourage
student participation by asking for input at appropriate times so that they begin to use
the strategy on their own.

Students will initially be put into pairs assigned by the teacher. This will allow them to
consult with others while reading and using the strategy. Students will be paired
according to their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their ability to work together.

To know more about Story Grammar please click the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1jhUkwfmto

Page 2
 MODULE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF MACROSKILLS

Cloze Procedure Technique for the Improvement of Reading Comprehension

Cloze procedure is a technique in which words are deleted

from a passage according to a word-count formula or various
other criteria. The passage is presented to students, who
insert words as they read to complete and construct meaning
from the text. This procedure can be used as a diagnostic
reading assessment technique

Purpose of Cloze Procedure

It is used:
 to identify students' knowledge and understanding of the reading process
 to determine which cueing systems readers effectively employ to construct
meaning from print
 to assess the extent of students' vocabularies and knowledge of a subject
 to encourage students to monitor for meaning while reading
 to encourage students to think critically and analytically about text and content

To prepare materials for Cloze exercises, any of the following techniques may be
used:
1. Select a self-contained passage of a length appropriate for the grade level of the
students being assessed. Use materials easily read by the students.
2. Leave the first and last sentences and all punctuation intact.
3. Carefully select the words for omission using a word-count formula, such as every
fifth word or other criteria. To assess students' knowledge of the topic or their abilities to
use semantic cues, delete content words which carry meaning, such as nouns, main
verbs, adjectives and adverbs. To assess students' use of syntactic cues, delete some
conjunctions, prepositions and auxiliary words.
4. When preparing the final draft of the passage, make all blanks of equal length to
avoid including visual clues about the lengths
of omitted words.
5. Have the students read the entire passage
before they fill in the blanks.
6. Encourage the students to fill each blank if
possible.
7. Although there should be no time limit for
this exercise, the time necessary for
completion should be noted.
8. Suggest that students reread the completed
passage.

To know more about the Cloze Procedure Techniques please click the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hnxQw1GPXBs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHyOssnhlmk

Page 3
 MODULE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF MACROSKILLS

Improving Comprehension through Semantic Webbing

Freedman and Reynolds (1980) define semantic webbing or mapping as a process of

organizing and integrating information that underlies many theories of conceptual
thinking. As a technique it is an effective way for teachers to organize and integrate with
the teacher‟s help. The resulting visual display – or semantic web – represents the
categories and relationships constructed from the story content and from the student‟s
related knowledge and theories about the world.

What are the components of a basic model?

There are four: The core question, the web strands, the strand supports, and the strand
ties.
 The core question is the focus of the web and the purpose of the inquiry. It is
chosen by the teacher. All information and ideas generated for the web by the
students are related to the core question. For example: Who are the characters
in the story “The Adarna Bird”? (Abelardo et. al., 1978).
 Web strands are the answers which students given to the core question. In our
example above, there are seven strands, one for each character in the story –
the king, the queen, the three princes Don Pedro, Don Diego, and Don Juan, the
old cripple, and the adarna bird.
 Strand supports are facts, inferences, and generalizations that students take
from the story to give clarity and validity to the strands and to differentiate one
from the other. Again, using “The Adarna Bird”, we find that the important strand
supports for the king are: a good ruler, was very sick, and had a strange malady
which could be cured only by the sweet songs of the adarna bird.
 Strand ties are the relationships that strands have for each other. In the same
selection two strand ties important for the meaning of the story are that the king
and queen are both rulers of the kingdom and that they are the parents of three
princes – Don Pedro, Don Diego, and Don Juan. A strand tie is also a means of
characterization, i.e., it shows that the two elder brothers are proud, selfish, cruel,
and rude whereas the youngest is exactly the opposite.

What are the basic steps in the semantic webbing process?

 Set a purpose for reading which encourages the students to use a specific
reading thinking strategy. Also decide what part of the story they will read.
Prepare a table of selected reading-thinking strategies (RTS) that you want to
develop and the reading units (RU) that may be used with each strategy.
 Formulate a core question based in the reading-thinking strategy and the reading
unit.
 Elicit from the students possible answers to the core question.
 Build the web strand with the students‟ support.
 Guide the students in relating the strands.
 Apply the web: to set purposes for further reading of the same story, for
constructing other webs for the same story or for other stories, or for bringing to
life through art, drama, or role playing other activities that relate web concepts to
other knowledge and experiences

Page 4
 MODULE TEACHING AND ASSESSMENT OF MACROSKILLS

Reading-Thinking Strategies:
 Skimming for main ideas
 Scanning for details
 Using the table of contents
 Finding meanings in the glossary
 Describing characters
 Discovering meanings through context clues
 Giving synonyms and antonyms
 Determining sequence
 Showing cause-and-effect relationships
 Summarizing
 Outlining

To know more about Semantic Reading please click the link below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OGg8A2zfWKg

https://cehs.unl.edu/documents/secd/csi/sgrammar.pdf
https://diosa859.wordpress.com/2016/04/05/improving-comprehension-
through-semantic-webbing/
https://www.chino.k12.ca.us/cms/lib8/CA01902308/Centricity/Domain/22
43/Cloze%20Procedure.pdf

Page 5