National Institute for Literacy
 

[FamilyLiteracy 1050] Re: Comprehension Monitoring StrategiesDiscussion

Charlotte Learning Center charlit at pure.net
Thu Feb 28 13:05:59 EST 2008


When instructors list under comprehension strategies "work with story
grammar or expository structure", I am interested to know more in detail. I
am doing a seminar on using story and test structure and would love to hear
from practitioners.

Mora Doherty

Charlotte Learning Center





_____

From: familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov
[mailto:familyliteracy-bounces at nifl.gov] On Behalf Of Gail Price
Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2008 3:24 PM
To: The Family Literacy Discussion List
Subject: [FamilyLiteracy 1049] Re:Comprehension Monitoring
StrategiesDiscussion



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=addr
ess&searchtype=address&cat=&address=100%20S%20Wilcox%20St&city=Castle%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



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