Coyne et al. 2009. Direction instruction of comprehension. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 25, 221-245....

Coyne et al. 2009. Direction instruction of comprehension. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 25, 221-245.

Direct Instruction of Comprehension: Instructional Examples From Intervention Research on

Listening and Reading Comprehension

MICHAEL D. COYNEUniversity of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA

RICHARD P. ZIPOLI, JR.West Hartford Public Schools, West Hartford, Connecticut, USA

DAVID J. CHARDSouthern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, USA

MICHAEL FAGGELLA-LUBYUniversity of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut, USA

MAUREEN RUBYEastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, Connecticut, USA

LANA E. SANTOROSCOTT BAKER

Pacific Institutes for Research, Eugene, Oregon, USA


The Story Read Aloud Program

The development of the Story Read Aloud Program was supported by a federally funded research project to design and evaluate a framework for directly teaching comprehension of complex narrative and information texts to first-grade students in general education classrooms during read aloud time (Baker, Chard, & Edwards-Santoro, 2004).

The program has undergone 5 years of development and extensive testing to determine its feasibility of use and to begin examination of its efficacy.


Story Read Aloud Program: Principles

Students were challenged to develop more complex listening comprehension strategies than they would need to read and understand typical first-grade text, including listening for specific text elements in different types of books.

Explicit intertextual connections between the narrative and information texts selected for the read-alouds were identified by the research team and highlighted in the instructional materials.

A primary focus of the program was to facilitate dialogic interactions between teachers and students designed to deepen student comprehension.

Activities were structured to enhance students’ retells and summaries of texts.


ESS Strategies

ESS Routine instruction focuses on direct instruction of three reading strategies:

Student self-questioning of story grammar elements;

Story-structure analysis, in which students label plot diagrams;

Summarizing.ESS instruction is accompanied by a graphic organizer that reinforces each of the three strategies before, during, and after reading as well as provides a place to take notes on critical story elements.


Principles of Effective Direct Instruction

The five principles of effective direct instruction that informed the design of both the Story Read Aloud Program and the ESS Routine include:conspicuous strategies, mediated scaffolding,strategic integration, primed background knowledge, judicious review.


Examples of Strategy Use in SRAP and ESS

Story Read-Aloud Program

Embedded Story Structure Routine

Conspicuous strategies

Ex. 1 Ex. 2

Mediated scaffolding Ex. 3 Ex. 4

Strategic integration Ex. 5 Ex. 6

Primed background knowledge

Ex. 7 Ex. 8

Judicious review Ex. 9 Ex. 10


Conspicuous Strategy: Definition

Conspicuous strategies refers to the explicit teaching of important reading strategies in ways that make them unambiguous and available to all students.

Skilled readers approach text purposefully, apply strategies flexibly, monitor for understanding, and repair breakdowns in comprehension (Carnine, Silbert, & Kame’enui, 1997).


Ex. 1: Conspicuous Strategy in Read Aloud

Context: Conspicuous strategy used by proficient readers: establishing a purpose for reading.

Instruction: Students are reminded that determining whether one is reading an information book or a narrative book helps to understand what one is going to learn. Identify the book’s title and author.

Teacher: ‘‘The title of today’s book is Bats. The author, or person who wrote it, is Gail Gibbons.’’

Remind students about the importance of knowing the type of text found in a book before listening=reading. Then think aloud about the fact that this is an ‘‘information’’ book, and discuss how one can tell that this is an informational text even though it has drawings instead of photographs.


Ex. 2: Conspicuous Strategy in ESS

The teacher reads the first page of the short story and stops at a predetermined point to pause and reflect.

Teacher: ‘‘Okay, I’ve finished reading the first page of the story and now I am going to pause and reflect to see if I can pull out any important details of the story. We have learned to ask ourselves several questions when we pause and reflect that help us to find these important details. The first question is a ‘who’ question: Who is the main character in the story? As I look back over the first page of the story, I realize that Anna is really the only character that has been introduced. She is a varsity athlete, and it says that she is on the honor roll at her high school. I think that she is going to be the main character in the story. Oh, Anna is also in the title of the story. That is another clue that she is going to be the main character. Because I have an answer to my ‘who’ question, I am going to record it on my worksheet.’’


Ex. 3: Mediated Scaffolding in Read Aloud


Ex. 4: Mediated Scaffolding in ESS


Ex. 5: Strategic Integration Effective instruction explicitly and systematically teaches students to integrate and relate new information, concepts, and strategies. The strategic integration of new information and strategies with previous knowledge and skills facilitates the development of increasingly complex conceptual structures and problem-solving skills. This integration process also allows students to become more adaptable in applying rules and strategies across a variety of text structures and academic domains.


Ex. 5: Strategic Integration in Read Aloud

Before Reading: Preparing to read=making connections (text to text). Think aloud about some facts about bats that were presented in the ‘‘information’’ book lessons.

‘‘Because I know that this story is about a bat, another way to get ready is to try to remember some of the information we learned about bats from our other book. Some of the things that I remember are (a) bats are nocturnal—they sleep during the day and fly at night; (b) fruit bats eat fruit and nectar, not insects; and (c) bats hang upside down by their feet. What else do you remember about bats?’’



During Reading: Have students talk about what they think will happen when Stellaluna tries to land gracefully on a tree branch—based on what has happened so far in the story and on what they know about bats. Remind them of the expectations for Book Club activities, and monitor student interactions.

‘‘In your Book Clubs, take two minutes and talk about what you think is going to happen when Stellaluna tries to land gracefully on the branch. Think about what you know about bats from our other book. Each person gets a chance to say what they think will happen and why. Be prepared to share what your group thinks with the whole class.’’



Confirming Predictions: Remind students about identifying whether a prediction was correct. Specifically identify whether the predictions elicited previously were correct.

‘‘Once you’ve made a prediction, you want to see if it happens or not. You all made some predictions about what would happen when Stellaluna tried to land gracefully on the branch. The words say, ‘How embarrassing’ and in the drawings it looks like Stellaluna is falling off the branch, then barely hanging on, then lying on top of it. I don’t think she landed gracefully at all. Were your predictions right?’’



Monitoring/Clarifying: Think aloud about how Stellaluna learned that hanging by her feet was the right thing for her to do because she is a bat.

‘‘This is very interesting. The bat says that Stellaluna is upside down because she is hanging by her thumbs. When Stellaluna explains that Mother Bird told her it was wrong to hang by her feet, the bat says that hanging upside down by one’s feet might be wrong for a bird but it is not wrong for a bat. That makes sense doesn’t it? We learned that bats do hang upside down by their feet.’’


Ex. 6: Strategic Integration in ESS

On the second page of the ESS Organizer is a space for students to conduct a story-structure analysis, which is the second key strategy in the ESS Routine.

In this example, a teacher guides students in filling in a skeleton story-structure diagram. Specific events from the short story that were recorded as answers to the self-questions during the first phase of instruction are labeled on the ESS Organizer during this second phase of instruction.



‘‘So we have all agreed that the climax in this story occurs when Anna realizes that she has made a real friend in Martha. Another way to describe the climax in a story is as ‘the point of highest tension.’ Can someone tell me how the story-structure diagram might reflect this definition and help us to remember how to use it in the future?’’ ‘‘Well the climax is right at the top of the pointed part of the diagram, and the line kind of turns at that point and heads down. It heads down to the resolution. That means that the climax is at the highest point of the diagram like it is at the highest point of tension in the story.’’



The ESS instructional example demonstrates a twofold process of strategic integration by guiding secondary students to use the answers to self-questions in a new way, and then aiding the students in visually constructing the structure of the story. In this case, the teacher is helping the students to make the explicit connection between the climax of the story and how it is a turning point in the structure of the narrative.


Ex. 7: Primed Background Knowledge

Primed Background Knowledge Background knowledge is what the students ‘‘bring to the table’’ before engaging in instruction and what they use to make meaningful connections to new concepts, information, or strategies.

Priming, or activating, background knowledge helps students to relate new information and strategies to their prior knowledge and experiences.


Ex. 7: Primed Background Knowledge in Read Aloud

In this example, students’ exploration of background knowledge is scaffolded through the use of the KWL chart (What we Know, What we Want to know, What we Learned; Ogle, 1986).

Remind students that book type affects the purpose for reading, and think aloud about preparing to read an ‘‘information’’ book by identifying what you think you know about the topic and what you want to know about it.

Teacher: ‘‘Knowing the type of book helps you know what to think about before listening or reading and while you’re listening or reading. Because ‘information’ books have real facts or information about a topic, a good way to get ready to listen or read is by thinking about what you already know about the topic and what you might want to know about it. We can use our KWL chart to help us get ready for this book about bats.’’


Ex. 7: Primed Background Knowledge in Read Aloud

KWL Chart: Preparing to Read Take a few minutes to complete the ‘‘What We Think We Know’’ section of the KWL chart. Model one thing yourself, and then elicit responses from students.

T: ‘‘The first thing you can do to get ready for an information book is think of things you think you already know about the topic. I think that bats are mammals, so I’m going to write that on the part of the KWL chart called ‘What We Think We Know.’ Does anybody else think they know something about bats?’’


Ex. 8: Primed Background Knowledge in ESS

In the example below, a teacher has completed this type of brainstorming activity with her students and is now transitioning the students into the ESS Routine as a way to enhance student recall and understanding.

Teacher: ‘‘We have brainstormed on the chalkboard a very impressive list of details that you remember from the story. However it seems like this is a lot of information to remember, so we need to organize it in some way. One way that we might organize this list is by first focusing just on the important information in the story. This is what really good readers do: They identify the important information to remember and don’t fill up their minds with all the little details. . . .”


Ex. 8: Primed Background Knowledge in ESS (continued)

Teacher: “ . . . .Today we will be learning a routine that will help you to remember the important parts of narrative stories. The routine is called the Embedded Story Structure Routine. During the first phase of the routine, you will learn how to ask yourselves seven questions while you are reading a story. You will find that the answers to the seven questions will help you to remember the important parts of almost any short story that we are reading. The good news is that you might already know some of the questions! For example, can someone tell me what a ‘main character’ is?’’


Judicious Review

Judicious review refers to repeatedly presenting opportunities for learners to apply and develop new knowledge and skills (Kame’enui, Carnine, & Dixon, 2007). Carefully sequenced review supports learning by reinforcing knowledge and skills and allowing students to become more fluent with concepts and strategies. Review activities should address all of the components that support reading comprehension, including reading fluency, vocabulary knowledge, strategic processing, and familiarity with text features.


Ex. 9: Judicious Review in Read Aloud

Book Introduction: Preparing to Read (Purpose; Preview; Predict)Review the book’s title and author. Explain the purpose of rereading.

‘‘I’m going to read Stellaluna to you again today. Janell Cannon is the author. Reading something more than once can be useful. Lots of times you learn new things when you read something again. It also can help you remember the book better.’’

Guide students in identifying this as a ‘‘story’’ book and how they can tell.

‘‘Who can tell me whether this is a ‘story’ book or an ‘information’ book? What are some of the ways you can tell?’’


Ex. 9: Judicious Review in Read Aloud (continued)

Remind students why they want to know the type of book, and that because it is a ‘‘story’’ book, they will be thinking about who the story is about and what happens.

‘‘Remember, the reason you want to know what type of book you are listening to or reading is so that you can understand the book better. With a ‘story’ book, you want to listen for who the story is about and the important things that happen in the story.’’


Ex. 10: Judicious Review in ESS (continued)

Students use the third ESS strategy, a summary writing strategy, to generate a written summary of the short story on the back of the ESS Organizer based on their answers to the self-questions using a four-sentence formula that includes each of the eight critical elements of story structure.

In this example, the teacher is guiding the students through the first sentence of the formula, focusing on the main character and the central conflict of the story.


Ex. 10: Judicious Review in ESS (continued)

Teacher: ‘‘Now that we have finished our story-structure analysis diagram, we want to record the important parts of the story in our own words. We have learned a simple formula to help guide our review of the story and to make sure we don’t leave anything out. Can anyone remember the first sentence in our formula?’’

Student 1: ‘‘Isn’t it something like: ‘This is a story about how,’ and then we put in the name of the main character, ‘struggles with,’ and then we add the central conflict?’’

Teacher: ‘‘Yes, that is the correct structure for our first sentence. We can also add in a few character details to help describe the main character. Can someone help me to remember where I can find out who the main character of the story was and what was the central conflict?’’


Conclusions and Implications

Emerging research findings indicate that the Story Read Aloud Program and the ESS Routine can be used to provide effective instruction for students with varied achievement levels.

Direct instruction approaches can be used to support comprehension at different points of reading development.

Direct instruction principles can be used to assist students in applying and developing higher order cognitive strategies that support comprehension.



Future research should address how principles of direct instruction might be optimally integrated into the design of comprehension instruction. For example, the outside-in skills associated with comprehension allow children to diverge in their thinking, in contrast to the inside-out skills, where students are coached to converge in their responses (e.g., identifying the sound associated with the letter d).

However, research and educational practice suggest that it is difficult to teach students with learning difficulties to orchestrate their strategies in a way that allows them to flexibly connect text to their background knowledge and extend their thinking.



There is also a need for research on instructional methods that promote maintenance and generalization of reading comprehension strategies, particularly for students experiencing learning difficulties (Gersten et al., 2001). Thus, emphasis should be given to designing instructional approaches that improve students’ ability to link new information to prior knowledge, flexibly apply new information, and transfer comprehension strategies across varied text structures and content domains (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002).

Coyne et al. 2009. Direction instruction of comprehension. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 25, 221-245....

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