Reading Comprehension Webinar Handout - salda.org.au
Transcript of Reading Comprehension Webinar Handout - salda.org.au
Presented 10 September 2020
Reading Comprehension Webinar Handout
Introduction
• Presented by Speech & Language Development
Australia (SALDA) – School Support Services (SSS)
team
• SSS team based out of Brisbane and Townsville
• The School Support Service is a multidisciplinary
service funded by the Department of Education
to provide additional support within schools
throughout QLD, to enhance learning outcomes
of students
Key Learning Objectives
• Attendees will expect to investigate:
o Oral language comprehension as the
foundation for reading comprehension
o Strategies to support students’ reading
comprehension
Oral Language Comprehension
• Oral language comprehension = receptive
language – the ability to receive and understand
oral language
• Language is further broken down into the
Components of Language:
o Form = the structure of language
o Content = the part of language that holds
meaning
o Use = how language is used in various
situations
Presented 10 September 2020
Link between Oral Language Comprehension &
Reading Comprehension
• Understand complex vocabulary
• Utilise higher order language skills, including:
o Inferencing
o Reasoning
o Predicting
o Evaluating
o Analysing
o Synthesising
• Understand complex sentence structures
• Understand way that the story is read – including
tone of voice in dialogue
Link between Oral Language Comprehension &
Reading Comprehension
• Before understanding the story, students first
have to access it
• Decode the text through using phonics and
phonological awareness skills
• Then have to apply all of the skills used for
comprehending oral language:
o Understanding vocabulary
o Inferring
o Understanding complex sentence
structure
Link between Oral Language Comprehension &
Reading Comprehension
• Overlap in skills between oral language
comprehension and reading comprehension
• Many adjustments, strategies and activities for
reading comprehension are based in supporting
oral language
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Language Disorder and Literacy
• ‘Reading comprehension requires all of the
component parts of the reading process to be
securely in place, each of which has been
supported by oral language in some way’ (Konza,
2014)
• Depth of vocabulary knowledge is predictive of
reading comprehension skills (Ouellette, 2006)
• Familiarity with complex sentence structures
[helps children] comprehend stories read aloud to
them and that they later read themselves (Konza,
2014)
• Understanding a variety of situations prepares
students for more successful comprehension at
later stages, including both listening and reading
(Lexia Learning, n.d.)
Teaching Reading Comprehension
• An evidence-based process for teaching
comprehension strategies is:
o Model and explain
o Guided practice with scaffolding
o Independent practice
o Application of strategy to multiple
contexts
Teaching Reading Comprehension
• Think, Pair, Share
o Think: Students to think about their
response independently
o Pair: Students to discuss their responses
with a peer
o Share: Students share their responses
during a whole class discussion
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Teaching Reading Comprehension
• Question-Answer Relationship (QAR)
o Right there: literal questions found in the
text
o Think and search: combine details from
multiple parts of the text to create a
comprehensive answer
o Author and you: based on information in
the text and own experiences/prior
knowledge (e.g., use clues in the text to
infer/predict)
o On my own: answer is not in the text;
students must use their background
knowledge
Adjustments to Support Reading Comprehension
• Blank’s Levels of Questioning
o Questioning hierarchy ranging from basic,
concrete questions to complex questions
about abstract information
o Level 1: Look at it
o Level 2: Talk about it
o Level 3: Think about it
o Level 4: Reasoning
Adjustments to Support Reading Comprehension
• Bloom’s Taxonomy
o Created for the purpose of categorising
educational goals
o Can target questions and activities at the
level that your student is currently
working at
o Complexity increases as the levels
progress upwards
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Adjustments to Support Reading Comprehension
• Breaking down complex questions
o Explain complex vocabulary
o Rephrase question with simpler
vocabulary
o Ask multiple simple questions to have the
student generate content
o Ask the complex question again
o Support the student to recall their
responses to the complex question
o Use visuals as prompts or graphic
organisers to help organise responses
Adjustments to Support Reading Comprehension
• Ask literal questions to guide student towards a
response for a complex, higher order language
question (e.g., “Who is sad?” “What is on the
ground?” “What happened to the ice-cream?”
“Why are they sad?”)
• Explicitly verbalise your own thought process
• Have students practice finding supporting
information in the text by giving them the
‘outcome/inference’ and then having them find all
the clues for it (e.g., ‘I think James is feeling sad.
Can you find what things in the text told me he is
sad?”)
• Simplify questioning language
Adjustments to Support Reading Comprehension
• Scaffolding such as providing a cloze activity
• Graphic organisers such as mind maps and KWL
charts
• Record answers either by video or anecdotally
• Provide multiple opportunities for students
respond
• Adapt activities and assessments based on a
students’ needs and capabilities
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Reading comprehension activities
• Pre-reading
• During reading
• Post-reading activities
Pre-reading Activities
• Build background knowledge
o Link to what is already known
o Correct any misconceptions
o Could introduce topic with informative
video
o Students could fill out the first two
columns in a KWL chart
Pre-reading Activities
• Pre-teach vocabulary and concepts
o Student could skim through the text and
highlight any ‘tricky words’
o Help student to read them and give
friendly definitions
o Could establish understanding of key
curriculum vocabulary through the use of:
▪ Semantic maps/word maps
▪ Four square templates, etc.
Pre-reading Activities
• Discuss text structure (e.g., narrative vs
expository) – help students to identify the most
important information for understanding the text
and can help them to organise the information
that they take in
• Explore the text: ‘book feature walk’ or ‘text
feature walk’
o Discuss title, pictures, chapter titles,
headings, captions, glossary, indices,
bolded words, etc.
o Make predictions
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o Make connections to own experiences
and prior knowledge
During Reading Activities
• Click and Clunk
o A self-monitoring strategy
o If a student understands a section of text,
they ‘click’ (using a sound, action or image)
o If a student is unsure of a section of text, they
‘clunk’ (using a sound, action or image)
During Reading Activities
• Annotations
o Can be used to support comprehension during
reading – includes underlining the main idea,
circling unknown words, a question mark can
be used as a prompt to visit that section of
text again and an exclamation mark can be
used to highlight important sections of the
text.
o A visual representation can be created to
support students to remember which
annotation to use to provide consistency.
Post-reading Activities
• Check predictions
o Were they valid?
o What was different?
o How did any differences affect the story?
• Retell story
o To teacher or peer
o Can be summary of key points, not word-
for-word retell
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Post-reading Activities
• Final column in KWL chart – ‘what I learned’ –
answers questions from ‘W’ column
• Organise content into appropriate structure
template
• Students may need to be explicitly taught how to
identify key information in sentences/paragraphs
to aid in note-taking
Examples of Reading Comprehension
Strategies/Approaches
• SCORE Poster
o Skim & Scan: similar to a book/text
feature walk. Prompts include skimming
one sentence per paragraph and the final
sentence – provides a quick summary of
the text
o Connect & Question: draws on
background knowledge and personal
connections, as well as knowledge of text
structures/genres. Students are
encouraged to predict and develop
questions to be answered by the text
o Organise your Thinking: reflect on the first
steps and set goals for reading the text
o Read, Reflect, Retell: encourages good
reading practices, ‘clicks/clunks’, prompts
students to summarise
o Expert: be the expert; respond to
comprehension questions, reflect on
predictions and any new information they
learned from the text
Presented 10 September 2020
Examples of Reading Comprehension
Strategies/Approaches
• Direct Reading Thinking Activity (DTRA)
- Direct: Direct and activate a student’s prior
knowledge through open-ended questions
- Reading: Read the text up to a certain point,
reflect on predictions, ask questions.
- Thinking: Reflect on questions, summarise
text
• Read-Ask-Paraphrase (RAP)
- Students read the text
- Students ask questions about the text
- Students paraphrase the text
• Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review (SQ3R)
- Survey: students skim the text
- Question: students ask questions based on
the headings in the text
- Read: students read the text being ‘active
readers’
- Recite: students recite the main idea and
sequence the text
- Review: students provide the main concepts
of the whole text in their own words
Examples of Reading Comprehension
Strategies/Approaches
• Reciprocal Reading
o The predictor will offer suggestions on what
might happen in the story
o The clarifier will help to address any concepts
or vocabulary that may need further
exploration or explaining
o The questioner will pose questions throughout
reading
o The summariser will focus on the main idea or
key points throughout the text.
• Throughout this process, the teacher will take the
role of modelling and guiding students through
these strategies, gradually releasing this
responsibility as the students develop these skills.
Presented 10 September 2020
Assistive Technology to Support Reading
Comprehension
• Read-aloud technology can remove the barrier of
decoding for students who struggle with that skill,
allowing them to access the content
• Some assistive technology options can specifically
support reading comprehension, e.g., through
supporting understanding of complex vocabulary
o e.g., definitions/dictionary features,
picture dictionaries, etc.
Professional Learning
• Available on SALDA website: salda.org.au
o Online Learning Modules
o Recorded webinars
o Upcoming webinars
o Range of handouts and resources
Final Notes
• Please complete the feedback survey
• Consider accessing the SALDA SSS Professional
Network on Facebook for more support
• Contact details listed on slide
Presented 10 September 2020
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