QAR’s and Text Structure – EDRS 610 Conference Post: Week 9

Reading comprehension is automatic for successful readers, but teachers have to teach skills. Please illustrate how you will develop your students’ comprehension skills through using Question and Response Relationships, AND through working with Text Structure.

“Complete the reading; answer the questions at the end of the chapter. Quiz on the reading on Friday.” How often is this assignment given in to high school students? I know I’ve created similar tasks for students in the past. This assignment structure never works and the reason is this: reading assigned is not always reading understood (or even attempted). Students will hunt for the answers to the chapter review questions within the text in an effort to complete the assignment as quickly as possible. Sure, that won’t help the student prepare for the quiz, but the mind of a high school student is focused on today, not the end of the week. Some students, so overwhelmed by the task of reading anything because so little of what they read in school makes sense to them, will never even glance at the text. Students must be given a framework to ensure that they comprehend their reading so that the information they encounter will equal real learning.

There are a number of strategies available that can help ensure that students comprehend what they read. These include students keeping a reading journal or engaging in small group discussions about the material. However, the best way to help students comprehend his or her reading is through the use of rigorous questioning. There’s a quote by former Notre Dame Football coach Lou Holtz that I keep up on my classroom wall: “I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.” I keep the quote up to remind students that asking questions is not only okay in my classroom but encouraged, since it’s the best way to really learn. This notion of questions aiding learning is also relevant when discussing reading comprehension strategies. But just requiring students to respond to questions (like the assignment described in the first paragraph) is not enough. When students understand the types of questions being asked, and the type of thinking that is required to answer them, the use of questions becomes a much more effective strategy to increase comprehension.

One of the more effective question-based reading comprehension strategies is the Question-Answer Relationship model described in Ch. 7 of Alvermann. Using this strategy, the teacher prepares a set of questions to be completed while students complete the assigned reading. Beyond the questions themselves, the teacher provides a clue as to how these questions can be answered. For example, if a question is merely asking for factual recall that is spelled out in the text (i.e. What jobs did Theodore Roosevelt hold before he became president?), the question is listed as “Right There.” If a question requires a deeper understanding of the broader themes of the reading (i.e. What qualities and characteristics should an American president have in order to be successful?), the question is labeled as “On Your Own.” In this instance, students are instructed to call on not only the information they gathered from the reading, but their prior knowledge and real-world experiences. Students “can be taught about QARs and that this knowledge of where answers come from can actually improve students ability to answer questions” (Alvermann, 2013, p. 212).

There are some inherent limitations. First, deploying this strategy would require a great deal work on the part of the teacher. Further, while the simplicity of the QAR strategy is part of its appeal, knowledge often does not fit neatly into four or five categories. Despite these limitations, I think this can be an effective means of increasing comprehension. “When students are consciously aware of the different sources of information available to answer questions, they become more strategic in their reading and

thinking and their comprehension is improved (Alvermann, et. al., 2013, p. 214). In addition to a comprehension strategy, the QAR format could be adapted into a formative assessment, since it not only asks students questions to review content, but also asks students to describe their thinking when they were answering these questions.

Another way to help increase comprehension is by ensuring that students are aware of the different text structures that appear in most textbooks. Some of these structures, such as lists, descriptions and definitions are easily understood by most students. In fact, these types of text structures can be covered by the QAR strategy discussed above. The text structure that tends to give students the most trouble ask students to understand the relationships between causes and effects or problems and solutions. “Working with more complex text structures – such as compare and contrast, cause and effect, and problem-solution – appears to promote deeper levers of processing for students, including those with learning disabilities (Alvermann, et. al., 2013, p. 228).

Students must be taught about these structures in order to fully understand them. Simply asking students to compare and contrast is not an effective strategy unless students understand what that phrase means and how it can be done. “There is also evidence that students who are taught about text structures will use their knowledge to improve the structural coherences of their writing as well as to enhance their reading comprehension (Alvermann, et. al., 2013, p. 229). Teachers who read aloud and discuss their own thinking with students will find success. Helping students find, for example, important phrases like “different from,” “however,” and “while,” will help students recognize the relationships present in a piece of writing. Better understanding text structure, like better understanding the relationships between questions and answers, can help students become better readers.

References

Alvermann, D., Gillis, V., Phelps, S. (2013). Content area reading and literacy: Succeeding in today’s diverse classrooms. (7th ed.). Pearson. Boston.