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READING COMPREHENSION
Reading is an essential skill for all students. Teaching reading requires both teaching decoding of words and also teaching comprehension. Comprehension is critically important to the development of children’s reading skills and therefore their ability to obtain an education (National Reading Panel & National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, 2000). Comprehension means that readers think about what they are reading and what they are learning. In other words, successful readers think about the story while they are reading (Gear, 2016). This enhanced understanding means that readers go beyond the literal meaning of story or text and find the message in the text, form a new opinion, or develop a deeper understanding of issues. If students are to become thoughtful, insightful readers, they must extend their thinking beyond a superficial understanding of the text (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). The reader’s interaction with text gives purpose and importance to their reading. Getting readers to think when they read, to develop an awareness of their thinking, and to use strategies that help them comprehend should be primary goals of comprehension instruction (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000).
A key aspect of comprehension instruction includes teaching specific comprehension strategies. Comprehension strategies are specific procedures that guide students to become aware of how well they are comprehending as they attempt to read and write (NRP & NICHHD, 2000). Reading strategies reveal the way readers manage their interaction with written text and find the path to text comprehension (Glickman & Anderson, 2012). Proficient reading involves much more than utilizing individual strategies; it involves a constant, ongoing adaptation of many cognitive processes (NRP & NICHHD, 2000). Our goal in teaching comprehension strategies is to move readers to a greater awareness of how to think while reading. In order to do this, teachers must have a solid understanding of the strategies they are teaching, how they use the strategies in their own reading, and the knowledge of the many instructional strategies they can use to achieve their goals.
The National Reading Panel identified seven main comprehension strategies: asking questions, visualizing, inferring, determining importance, summarizing, monitoring comprehension, and making connections. Reading expert, Adrienne Gear, simplifies these strategies into five concise strategies that I use in my classroom, and therefore, this project will focus on: making connections, asking questions, visualizing, inferring, and synthesizing.
BEST WAYS TO TEACH COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES
The goal while teaching reading strategies is to have the students use these strategies automatically. Because independence is the goal and that does not occur immediately, using the gradual release of responsibility approach is generally seen as the best method in teaching reading strategies (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000)(Duke & Pearson, 2002). There are four main components in this gradual release of responsibility approach: teacher modeling, guided practice, independent practice, and application of the strategy in real reading situations. The gradual release of responsibility is a balanced approach that includes both explicit instruction in specific comprehension strategies and a great deal of time and opportunity for actual reading, writing, and discussion of text (Duke & Pearson, 2002). Explicit and formal instruction on these strategies is believed to lead to an improvement in text understanding and information use (NRP & NICHHD, 2000). Teacher modeling, in terms of teaching reading strategies, would include both an explicit description of the strategy and when and how it should be used, as well as teacher modeling the strategy in action. This project looks to align Indigenous picture books to be used by teachers while explicitly teaching the reading strategy and modeling the strategy in use, the first stage in the approach.
Teaching reading comprehension strategies improves students’ overall comprehension of text. We explicitly teach reading comprehension strategies so that readers can use them to construct meaning (Glickman & Anderson, 2012) and this is an important part of helping students improve their comprehension. Explicit reading instruction means that we show learners how we think when we read (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000) as it is not enough for students to simply understand a strategy, they must also know when, why, and how to use it. By modeling our thinking aloud, where the teacher makes his or her thoughts audible and says what you are thinking while you are reading, the teacher is demonstrating not only the comprehension strategy but also when and when not to apply them. This modeling of the teacher’s meta-cognitive processes and strategies help the readers develop their own awareness and monitoring of their own comprehension processes.
Strategies do not occur in isolation. Together they interweave and enhance understanding (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). When we are inferring, we ask questions and make connections with our own experiences. When we visualize, we make inferences but with pictures not words. All the strategies work together to help construct meaning and good readers use multiple strategies constantly. Throughout the teaching process of one strategy, other strategies should be referenced, modeled, and encouraged.
THE USE and CHOICE OF PICTURE BOOKS
Although we encourage students to read a wide variety of texts, picture books offer certain advantages when explicitly teaching reading comprehension strategies. Interest is essential to comprehension (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000). The goal of all picture books is to help readers become more engaged in and attentive of any text (Ciecierski, Nageldinger, Bintz, & Moore, 2017). Picture books are shorter than a novel and often feature illustrations on every page. The content can be quite sophisticated and can offer an engaging way to approach certain topics. Together, the vivid and interesting pictures, rich language, and their compelling stories, often with meaningful themes, are appealing to all ages and more likely to hold our attention and engage us. All these features help the reader remember and retain information (Al Khaiyali, 2014).
Aligning a well-suited text with a specific strategy being learned is an important role for teachers. When students are first learning a comprehension strategy, they should encounter texts that do not make heavy demands in other respects such as background knowledge, vocabulary load, or decoding (Duke & Pearson, 2002).
When choosing a book, the teacher should consider:
The students: their interests, ages, culture, and learning needs. “Awareness of our students’ backgrounds and experiences is essential if we are to select books for our students that, as librarian Fran Jenner says, ‘touch their souls’” (Harvey & Goudvis, 2000).
The purpose: we need to be clear about which strategy is being taught and what features should the book have to clearly show the strategy in use.
The quality of the book: the book should be well-written, well-illustrated, not too time-consuming, and engaging.
Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours.
John Lock