The following is posted on behalf of Molly Elkins. 

 

Gail J. Price

Multimedia Specialist

National Center for Family Literacy

325 W. Main Street, Suite 300

Louisville, KY 40202

gprice at famlit.org

502 584-1133, ext. 112

 

 

Join us for the 17th Annual National Conference on Family Literacy!
"Literacy Grows Families and Communities"
March 30, 31, & April 1, 2008-Louisville, KY
Register online at www.famlit.org/conference

 

________________________________

From: Molly Elkins [mailto:melkins at dclibraries.org] 
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 2:05 PM
To: 'The Family Literacy Discussion List'
Subject: RE: [FamilyLiteracy 1009] Re:Comprehension Monitoring
Strategies Discussion

 

In our classrooms we used to use what we called metacognitive thinking
strategies, in other words, thinking about thinking. The goal of our
activity was to make readers aware of the conversation they were having
in their head while they were reading (or perhaps to encourage them to
have the conversation in their head at all). These were the strategies: 

Visualizing 

Questioning 

Paraphrasing

Evaluating 

Summarizing 

Predicting

Connecting text to self 

Connecting text to world 

Connecting text to text

 

First, as teachers, we would model our thinking as we read aloud. Then
for fun, we would put a little sticky note in the text (since we
couldn't make marginalia in the text). Next, we would read aloud a text
with the class, and encourage students to model their thinking as well.
Finally, learners could fill the texts with their own little sticky
notes. 

 

Molly Elkins
Literacy Specialist
Douglas County Libraries
Phillip S. Miller Library
  100 S. Wilcox Street
  Castle Rock CO 80104
  Map
<http://www.mapquest.com/maps/map.adp?country=US&addtohistory=&formtype=
address&searchtype=address&cat=&address=100%20S%20Wilcox%20St&city=Castl
e%20Rock&state=CO&zipcode=80104%2d1911&search=Get%2bMap> 
Phone: (303)791-READ 

Fax: (303) 688-7655
Email: melkins at dclibraries.org
Web: www.DouglasCountyLibraries.org
<http://www.douglascountylibraries.org/> 

________________________________

From: familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of jalsails at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 12:52 PM
To: familyliteracy at nifl.gov
Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 1009] Re:
ComprehensionMonitoringStrategiesDiscussionBegins Today

 

Susan,

According to our research (using the CORI during 10 minute observations)
in elementary school classrooms, 3rd grade teachers who do address
comprehension are four times (on the average) more likely to direct
students to practice comprehension strategies than to model it. 

I agree with you that it's hard to explicitly model comprehension
strategies with large groups of adults who have diverse reading
abilities. It's a stellar strategy for tutoring and working with small
groups of beginning (adult) readers.

Jeri Levesque, Ed.D.
Evaluator, LIFT
St. Louis, MO

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Susan McShane <smcshane at famlit.org>
To: The Family Literacy Discussion List <familyliteracy at nifl.gov>
Sent: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 1:18 pm
Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 1008] Re:
ComprehensionMonitoringStrategiesDiscussionBegins Today

That's interesting Jeri. One of the things we've found we really have to
hit hard is the need for explicit instruction. Most often in adult
education settings, that's not done, and it can be hard to manage in a
multi-level group, especially when people are also studying math and
writing, etc. The researchers I worked with in writing the book
suggested that a teacher could introduce a strategy to the whole group
and then have them practice with different materials at their own
reading levels. I agree it's a good idea, but I think it's easier said
than done in some classrooms and programs.

 

What do you think, Jeri? And can we hear from others about their
experiences in managing comprehension-monitoring instruction? And how
about that idea of modeling your own strategies by reading and thinking
aloud? 

 

________________________________

From: familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov
<mailto:familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov?> ] On Behalf Of
jalsails at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 1:35 PM
To: familyliteracy at nifl.gov
Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 1005] Re:
ComprehensionMonitoringStrategiesDiscussionBegins Today

 

Susan,

Good point about teachers explicitly modeling their comprehension
strategies while reading with students. We use an instrument called the
Classroom Observation of Reading Instruction (CORI) <Levesque & Drew> to
document direct and explicit instruction across the five essential
reading constructs. For comprehension instruction (Teacher
models/demonstrates), during a ten minute observation we track the
number of times a teacher describes and names a specific comprehension
strategy and expounds on its value. The strategies we tract are

*	Prereading comprehension strategies
*	Describing comprehension strategies

*	retelling
*	sequencing
*	drawing conclusions
*	predicting
*	text connection (self, world, other text)
*	summarizing

*	generating/answering own question
*	re-reading for meaning
*	confirming/rejecting predictions

*	work with story grammar or expository structure

The parallel column of the CORI tracks: Teacher Directs Students to
Practice: literal recall of text, using context clues (pictures, format
etc) and all the other ones above.

Jeri Levesque, Ed.D.
Evaluator, LIFT
St. Louis, MO

 

 

-----Original Message-----
From: Susan McShane <smcshane at famlit.org>
To: The Family Literacy Discussion List <familyliteracy at nifl.gov>
Sent: Thu, 7 Feb 2008 11:02 am
Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 1004] Re: Comprehension Monitoring Strategies
Discussion Begins Today

Thank you, Aaron, for sharing those experiences. Stopping and
restating/summarizing is among the research-based monitoring strategies.
Asking yourself questions is another. Has anyone else used these
approaches? 

 

________________________________

From: familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov
<mailto:familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov?> ] On Behalf Of Kohring, Aaron
M
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 11:04 AM
To: The Family Literacy Discussion List
Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 1002]
Re:ComprehensionMonitoringStrategiesDiscussionBegins Today

 

Susan,

 

I have experienced what you mention working with some students in the
past- where we discovered their decoding/word analysis skills (for the
level of text we were using) had improved to the point where their oral
fluency was good.  But they had very little comprehension of what they
had just read.  So we introduced & taught students to use a
comprehension strategy- summarization, for example- and asked them to
stop after a few sentences or a paragraph and summarize what they had
read.  Later, we'd add another strategy- such as a graphic organizer-
and practice using that as a comprehension strategy.

 

Another great activity was to extend the question generating/answering
strategies for comprehension and have students do this themselves in
pairs or groups.

Aaron

 

 

Aaron Kohring

Research Associate

UT Center for Literacy Studies

600 Henley St, Ste 312

Knoxville, TN 37996-4135

Ph: 865-974-4258

Main: 865-974-4109

Fax: 865-974-3857

akohring at utk.edu

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gail J. Price

Multimedia Specialist

National Center for Family Literacy

325 W. Main Street, Suite 300

Louisville, KY 40202

gprice at famlit.org

502 584-1133, ext. 112

 

 

Join us for the 17th Annual National Conference on Family Literacy!
"Literacy Grows Families and Communities"
March 30, 31, & April 1, 2008-Louisville, KY
Register online at www.famlit.org/conference

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.nifl.gov/pipermail/familyliteracy/attachments/20080227/20f4507e/attachment.html