Enhancing students’ literacy comprehension in the primary and secondary contexts
John Munro
What is literacy knowledge ? Literacy refers to the knowledge and skills we use to convert
written information to knowledge.
What do you do to interpret a text ? To help students improve their comprehension you need a
clear idea of what good readers do when they read. Read the text with the purpose of re-telling it.
As you read, reflect on what you do.
However, there is one sense in which the origin of right is relevant to philosophical science. This is
the free will. The free will is the basis and origin of right in the sense that mind or spirit generally
objectifies itself in a system of right (human social and political institutions) that gives expression
to freedom, which Hegel says is both the substance and goal of right.
This ethical life in the state consists in the unity of the universal and the subjective will. The
universal will is contained in the Idea of freedom as its essence, but when considered apart from the
subjective will can be thought of only abstractly or indeterminately.
List some key things you needed to do to read the texts.
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Distinguish between comprehending and comprehension It is useful to identify two steps
involved in understanding a text:
Step 1 : build an interpretation of the text
Step 2 : use, apply and interrogate the interpretation
Read and comprehend text- get the text ‘into
your head’. You build a representation of the
text in your head, using what you know.
Read and interpret your representation of the text – you
question it, analyse it. In a situation such as NAPLAN
comprehension, you use the comprehension tasks or
questions to look back at you interpretation of the text and
analyse/question it in the ways the tasks suggest.
You use comprehending actions to do this
You use comprehension actions.
As readers read a text, they try to build a representation or a model of it in their heads. Any written
text codes various types of ideas. Readers understand a text by making their own model of what it
says. This is their understanding of it.
What is the difference between comprehending and comprehension ? Readers use a range of
actions to comprehend text and to learn from it. These actions enable us to understand it in a range
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1 of ways. These are ‘comprehending strategies’ we apply to aspects of the text to build an overall
interpretation of it.
To help students improve how they show comprehension of a text, we need to use teaching that
targets both aspects. It is not enough to give students comprehension tasks. We need to teach them
how to interpret the text first. If students build an impoverished, incomplete or immature
interpretation of the text, their comprehension will be lower. Importance of vocabulary for comprehension
One of the comprehending actions we noted above was being able to work out what words, both
known and unfamiliar, might mean in a particular text.
What does vocabulary knowledge look like ? When we talk about vocabulary during reading, we
are talking about what the reader knows about
•
how words are said
•
how words are written and spelt; this includes the reader’s ability to read words,
•
what words mean
•
how word meanings are linked.
At the grade 3-4 level, for example, we may expect students to
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
read accurately and automatically unfamiliar 2-syllable words that have familiar syllabic
patterns.
read accurately and automatically some 1- syllable very frequent exception words such as
laugh and eight.
read unfamiliar 2-syllable words with unfamiliar and less regular syllables by using syllable
decoding and analogy with known words.
use simple morphographic patterns in words to read them, for example, a 1-syllable noun
+‘s’ added or verb +‘ed’.
explain what adding ‘s’ to a noun or ‘ed’ to an action means.
We may also expect them to show the following phonological knowledge : to
1.
2.
segment spoken 2- and 3- syllable words into phonemes and say the sounds around the
unstressed vowel in a 2-syllable word, for example, “Which sound comes after the
(unstressed vowel) in “remain” or “pocket”.
add syllables to 1- and 2- syllable words, hear “stay” or “act”, add “tion” to each and say
the word.
We may need to teach explicitly for all of these aspects.
Why is a person’s vocabulary for comprehension ? The relationship between reading
comprehension and vocabulary is strong : they are correlated in the range .6-.7.
Main difficulty of lowest achievers: poor word reading accuracy and vocabulary Page of 24
2 NAPLAN comprehension score
Which student will understand the text and learn more about the topic ?
We are going to read about the rules of indoor soccer / living in ancient Egypt. What do you think of /see in your mind when you hear this ? 4 ideas 40 ideas What do we do to work out the meanings of words in a text we read ? Use the following text to
work out the meaning of bacciferous and baft.
The trees in the orchard were bacciferous. Their branches were weighed down with their heavy loads. The
berry pickers worked without stopping. As they picked the berries, they put them in baskets made of baft. The
baft scratched and cut their bare arms. If only the farmer had given them containers made of softer fabric.
Keep track of the actions you use to work out the meanings of new words you meet as they read.
You might
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
underline or write down the new word or term and try to say it to yourself.
tell yourself what the word does in the sentence; bacciferous tells you what the trees in the
orchard are like.
visualize the sentence/s that have the new word and other ideas; you put as much of the
sentence as you can into the image.
note any pictures or visual features that go with new word.
look at the letter patterns in the word, guess at what each part might mean by linking them
with words you know. For bacciferous, ‘bacci’ could be linked with ‘berries’ and
‘ferous’ part is also in vociferous.
try to put other words or phrases in place of it and see which one/s fit best. For bacciferous
you try” the trees had lots of berries” .
consolidate your guess: I think bacciferous means having lots of berries. you visualize the
trees in the orchard heavy with berries and the pickers working hard
check your guess with a dictionary definition.
Students need to learn to do these meaning-making actions one at a time, to practise using them.
You also need to learn how to apply them to more complex text.
Teach students to tell themselves how to work out the new vocabulary, for example, themselves
Could it / does it mean … ? and to tell themselves what to do, for example, You say to yourself
what you think it means, or I need to try possible synonyms and see how they fit, and You may
need to fine tune your first meaning. Say now what you think the meaning is now.
Our self teaching capacity. We teach ourselves both how to say and read words and to work out
what they mean. We have a ‘letter cluster generator’ for learning new letter clusters and linking them
with the sound patterns and a ‘meaning making motor’ that we use to generate new word meanings.
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3 We use these when we read unfamiliar words. We may need to teach our students how to use these
two ‘self teaching’ capacities as part of them learning effective reading actions.
You may need to fine tune your first meaning. Say now what you think the meaning is now.
When I read a text I
The set of actions readers use to interpret a text and represent it ‘in their heads’.
work out the topic; what is the text about tell myself the words and phrases and work out
how to say new words and what they mean. review every so often what the text has said
and summarise it. work what each sentence says; we say them in
other ways or visualize them. link the sentence meanings into an network of ideas. guess why the writer wrote the text and
wants us to believe manage and direct our reading activity; we
use our existing knowledge
• plan how we will read
• decide the questions the text might answer
• monitor our reading, take corrective action,
decide when to re-read, self-correct,
•
review or consolidate what we have read
•
organize the knowledge we have gained to
match our purposes for reading. •
what words mean, how they are said, awareness
of sounds in words
•
how ideas are linked into sentences, grammar.
•
how ideas are linked into themes
•
how a topic is said in a text, description
•
how the social context affects how ideas are
attitudes
and values
of theas
The set of comprehending actions : The types of actionscommunicated,
a reader maythetell
themselves
to use
writer
towards
the
ideas
in
the
text.
they read a NAPLAN 5 2010 text are as follows: When I read a text I
I need to work out the topic; what is
the text could be about early. I need to guess why the writer wrote the
text and wants us to believe As I read I tell myself the words and
phrases and work out how to say
new words and what they mean. I will link the sentence meanings into
paragraph or discourse meanings. As I read I work what each
sentence says; I say them in other
ways or visualize them. I will review every so often what the
text has said and summarize it I will manage and direct my reading
activity
I will use my existing knowledge
The comprehending strategies or skills. The comprehending strategies or skills are
organised in three phases, based on what the readers need to do early in reading a text, while
reading it and towards the end of reading a session.
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4 Orienting strategies: early in the reading activity readers:
1.
Work out or decide the likely topic of a text and use this to organise their
understanding as they read.
2.
Use its genre to infer its purpose for which it was written; they predict the ideas it
might mention and suggest questions it might answer.
3.
Form a reading plan; they say the reading actions they will use as they read.
During or while reading they:
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
Read part of the text at a time, aloud or silently.
Comprehend sentences, use strategies such as paraphrasing and visualizing
Identify or work out the meanings of words in the context.
Form paragraph meanings: link sentence meanings and get main idea by summarising.
Say questions answered by sentences and paragraphs in the text.
Form a discourse meaning by linking the main ideas in each paragraph or section with
their understanding of the topic and identify emerging writer’s perspective and voice.
Infer and predict from the text read so far what might be said.
Respond emotionally to the activity of reading and engage with it.
Periodically while reading they:
12.
13.
14.
Review and consolidate what they have read so far.
Review the actions they use while reading.
Review their emotional response to a text and to themselves as readers.
These reading strategies, described by the indicators of progress are used with increasingly
complex texts as students progress from Prep to Year 10.
The comprehension outcomes. By applying the comprehending actions, students interpret
the texts. These are shown in the types of comprehension the readers can display having read
a text. They are called the ‘reading outcomes’ for the texts and include:
1.
2.
3.
4.
Comprehend the text literally; they locate, select, link and record information from texts,
retell what they have read in their words and include key ideas; (2) answer questions that
relate to information stated explicitly; (3) locate directly stated information … and interpret
labeled diagrams; (4) do the actions described in sentences,.; (5) arrange sentence cards to
tell a story; and (6) complete simple cloze activities.
Comprehend inferentially; (1) infer possible antecedent motives and characteristics; (2)
answer questions to infer cause and effect across paragraphs; (3) read between the lines and
infer the nature of possible changes; (4) answer questions that ask readers to infer What
would happen if...? by changing ideas in the text; and (5) identify and synthesize the
descriptions of characters and events across several paragraphs, suggest why the characters
and events are described in particular ways and suggest what might be alternative ways of
describing them.
Synthesize ideas in the text.
Evaluate the text in various ways.
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5 5.
6.
7.
Infer the author’s purpose for writing a text in various ways. suggest the author’s purpose
for writing the text and it achieved its purpose, for example, did a text help you to
understand why X did Y?
Evaluate and analyze the text in various ways, how well the text achieved its purpose.
Identify and analyse the use of language in the text, for example, how language is used in
different ways by different writers to represent characters, people and events in different
ways, for example, by comparing two reports about the same topic.
A systematic framework for teaching comprehending and comprehension
High Reliability Literacy Teaching Procedures A set of teaching procedures can you build into
your teaching to get this. These are a set of explicit procedures that teach readers to
1.
2.
get their knowledge ready for reading: they are taught to decide the likely topic and purpose
of the text and use this to link the text with what they know and select what they believe is
relevant knowledge. This helps them to ‘make sense’ of what they read. read and comprehend the text. Teach them to
•
•
•
read text aloud so that they encode it in their thinking spaces.
comprehend each sentence by paraphrasing and visualizing it.
comprehend the written words : recall the meanings of known words and to work out what
unfamiliar words mean, suggest synonyms for them and work out how to say them.
predict what might be said next comprehend a string of sentence meanings linking sentences, suggesting questions answered
by sentences, inferring from sentences, ‘thinking ahead’.
link the text with questions it answers
summarize a paragraph and a set of paragraph, say the question/s that each answers.
review, consolidate and automatize key text knowledge and content knowledge.
3.
Teach them to consolidate or review their understanding of what they have read.
4.
Teach them to think about the text in various ways; to identify new knowledge they gained,
link it with what they knew, automatise aspects of it to use it fluently and to respond with a
positive attitude to it.
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•
•
•
•
You can organise these teaching procedures into a systematic, integrated framework of three phases
of reading activity:
GKR
teaching readers to ‘get
their knowledge ready’ for
reading • stimulate relevant experiential knowledge • stimulate relevant language • bridge to the text Page of 24
While comprehending
teaching readers how to comprehend
portions of the text by acting on it, to
integrate as they read and to predict • read sentence aloud • work on new vocabulary • paraphrase + visualize sentences • questions answered by text • summarize each paragraph 6 Review and automatize teaching readers to consolidate or review what they have read, link it with what they know, and to respond with a positive attitude to it • summarize the main ideas • review new vocabulary, ideas and link with what you know • reflect on, question, apply, infer from new ideas • automatize key ideas The three phases provide a framework for organizing the teaching and learning activities in a
systematic, explicit and coherent way.
What to teach ? Teach the comprehending strategies as actions students tell themselves to use as
they read. This teaches them how to work through a reading activity in a systematic way,
gradually constructing an understanding of it as they go. A template of comprehending strategies
(Munro, 2002) are shown in the following.
Getting ready or orienting phase
Phase
Student activity : students
Focus on possible topic of the text. Guide students to
link text with what they know by using the title, the
cover, pictures in the text or blurb.
What do I think the text is about? What pictures do I
make in my mind when I hear the title/look at the
cover….. What might happen ?
Link ideas in text with what the reader already knows,
use mapping, networking.
What ideas could it mention ? If it is about …..
what else might it say ?
Focus on how the ideas (such as pictures, key words
they have identified) might be said
How can I say these ideas in sentences ?
Focus on questions it might answer:
What are some who / what/ how/ why/ when/ where
questions I could ask about it ?
Focus on possible words that might be in the text.
What words might be in the text ? How would they
be spelt ? What synonyms might be used ?
Focus on possible reasons or purposes for writing it.?
What are ways of thinking about this topic ? Why
might the author have written this text ? How might
its purpose affect how it is written
Readers say how they will read, the actions (strategies)
they will use.?
"What will I do as I read/ if I come to a part that I
don’t understand
Focus on reader’s self efficacy as a reader
Am I ready to read? What more do I need to know
before I begin to read ?
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The types of self talk about literacy learning
strategies you can teach
7 Sentence level strategies for literal comprehension:
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•
•
•
break text into bits, decide where to pause.
listen to themselves as they read, paraphrase text.
visualize what was read.
monitor meaning of each sentence, re-read
Where will I pause and ask : What has it told me ?
What are other ways of saying this sentence ? How
can I tell myself what it says ?
What would I see /hear/do /feel if I were in context ?
While-reading phase
What picture can I make of the sentence ?
Does it make sense/fit in?
Discourse level reading strategies to summarize,
monitor, infer, evaluate comprehension of text:
•
•
•
•
•
What do I know now? How does this fit with the
topic ?
review and consolidate,
underline, note down useful information
infer, Relate then to what they expected
think ahead, predict, anticipate.
evaluate dispositional techniques.
What has happened so far?
Why did that happen?
What might be said happen next ?
How has the text so far tried to influence my view ?
Word reading strategies to work out new words
•
•
How can I say the word ? What will I do ?
use context of word + initial few sounds, word
analysis and re-read
work out the meanings of unfamiliar words.
What does the word do in the sentence ? What does
it tell me about ? What picture do I make of sentence
? What is another word I could say ?
Link positive emotion response with the text How I liked the text? Were ideas useful / interesting? How could it have grabbed me better ? Review understanding of text in various ways.
What did the text tell me?
but if …. ?
Review the purpose of the text and how well it
achieved its purpose.
Why was text written ? Did it say what I expected ?
How well did it achieve its purpose ?
How can the text be interpreted from different points
of view or perspectives ?
What was the writer’s purpose in writing this text?
What techniques ar used to influence the reader ?
Review and evaluate the reading strategies used,
particularly the strategies being learnt at the time.
What reading actions did I use to help me
understand the text ?
Store in memory what has been learnt
What new ideas have I learnt? How do they fit with
what I know already ?
Identify the new language and literacy knowledge that
has been learnt
What new ways of saying things have I learnt ?
What new words were in the text ?
phase review reading Automatise and practise reading aloud and silently
similar text to achieve increased fluency.
How to teach it.
Plan for teaching each strategy: Three aspects –
Teaching to scaffold students to use the comprehending strategies
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8 The text didn’t say this
GKR 1 Imagine you are in the
context of the text. What would
you see /hear?
GKR 2 What questions might
the text answer for you ? What
words might come up in the text
? Spell them, synonyms ?
Automatize the key ideas we
have learnt. Link with related
ideas we have learnt earlier,
Review + consolidate What are the
main ideas / vocabulary we have
learnt today ? Other ways of saying
them / images ? questions might the
text answer for you ? words might
come up in the text ? Spell
them, synonyms ? to a woman
Summarize
What isEgypt.
the mainWhat
idea in
living in ancient
the
paragraph
? What
picture
would
you see
/hear
? does it
tell you to make in your mind ?
Any text
GKR 3 Look at how the information is
organized on the page. What do the
pictures /diagrams show you ? Say the title
in other ways ? What is each paragraph
about ? What will you do to help you read
? read?questions might the text answer for
you ? What words might come up in the
text ? Spell them, synonyms ? to a woman
Read
aloud Read
a sentence
living
in ancient
Egypt.
What would
aloud.
Listen
to
yourself
as you
you see /hear ?
read it. Tell yourself what it says
Comprehend sentence What are other ways
of saying the sentence ? What picture does it
tell you to make in your mind ?
What questions do these Vocabulary What do you think ….. means
sentences answer for us
? Work out what it could mean from the
sentence. What are some other words you
about the topic?
could use ?
Contrast the strategy teaching approach with the content only teaching approach
Teacher A
Read the section about Women in
ancient Egypt. Then answer the
questions and we’ll correct your
work.
Teacher B
We’ll read together the section about Women
in ancient Egypt. As we go I’ll ask you to
think about what says. Then we’ll answer the
questions and we’ll correct your work.
Which teacher
1.
takes account of individual differences in what students know at beginning of the lesson ?
2.
takes account of individual differences in how students think and learn during the lesson ?
3.
helps students feel more confident of what they are learning ?
Teaching students to use strategies independently Teaching – learning plan for any strategy :
Students
experience doing
the strategy; it is
cued and
scaffolded by the
teaching. They
have their thinking
guided /directed
by the teacher.
Students experience doing the
strategy and say what they did;
they say the strategy in words
after doing it : “Before I began
to read I …? They say how it
helped them. They have their
thinking guided and say what
they did to think. They keep a
list of Things I do when I read.
Students say the
strategy they will use
before they do it
Students practise and
apply the strategy
independently.
“Before I begin to read
I will …?
They discuss when
and why they can use
the strategy. Students
automatize use of the
strategy and link it
with other strategies
They use their
language to guide their
thinking.
How can you teach students to use paraphrasing independently ?
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9 The steps in teaching students to use the paraphrasing strategy is shown in the following sequence:
Guided to paraphrase
Paraphrase and say what they did
Students experience
doing paraphrasing.
The teaching cues and
scaffolds them to say
in other ways simple
sentences they hear
and read. They have
their thinking guided
Students are cued to paraphrase and
say what they did: “After I read the
sentence I said it in other ways.
They als say how it helped them.
“Saying the sentence in other ways
helped me understand it’. They
can add paraphrasing to their list of
Things I do when I read.
Say they will
paraphrase
Transfer, apply
paraphrasing
Students say they
Students apply the
will paraphrase
strategy
before they begin to
independently to
read : “After I have
• More complex
read a sentence I
sentences
will …? They use
their self talk to
• Two or more
guide their
sentences at once
thinking.
Getting ready or orienting stage
What does GKR procedure means for student learning activity ? What students need to do. Phases of getting knowledge ready: What you know about topic in
experiences, images
What you know about topic in
words, sentences
Bridge to text
To teach the three phases, guide students to use what they know to
What do these pictures remind you of ?
What do you see in your mind when
you hear …?
Say your images in sentences
What questions might it answer ?
What words might be in the text?
Readers form an image of what know
about the topic of the text Blurb ? Say title in other ways.
Look at the text. Topic sentences?
What will you do as you read ?
Readers say in sentences what they
know about the topic
Bridging to the text the
reader will read How you scaffold GKR strategy. How you would embed GKR in content you will teach.
Forming an image of what readers
know about the topic of the text Saying in sentences what the reader
knows about the topic Bridging to the text the reader will read Activities, dialogue to teach students to link experiences with the
topic, recall related imagery: Activities, dialogue to teach students to recall relevant verbal
knowledge:
Activities, dialogue to teach students to bridge to text:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Visualize or recall experiences;
create an image of what the text
might say, using what you know.
Imagine you were there. What
would you see / hear ?
What pictures do you make in
your mind about it ?
Put imagery into sentences
Imagine the images changing
Talk about what pictures show
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• Say / describe the images in
sentences
• Suggest key words that could
be in text. Suggest synonyms
for them
• Say the questions the text might
answer and suggest answers
Read key words from the text,
suggest synonyms for them,
use them in sentences
10 • Look at the text you will read.
What are key features, such as
subheadings, illustrations, etc. ?
• Paraphrase the title
• Read topic sentences and suggest
what paragraph might say
• Ask the readers to say what they
will do as they read
• Discuss diagrams that accompany
the text
• What is the writer’s likely purpose?
What activities can you use.
Below are useful teaching activities for each step. You can use one at a time. This gives students
time to become familiar with how to apply it and to see how the activity helps them to learn.
Forming an impression of the topic of the text What do you think the text will tell you ? Introduce the topic of the text or the issue or problem it targets. You can describe the topic or give students relevant pictures and
say “These are ideas / events in the text “. Students imagine what it might say. Ask : •
•
•
•
What might the text be about? What might be the main ideas in this text ? What might happen ?
What questions might be answered? What words might be in this text? What do these mean to you ? Give the same 10 topic words from the text to groups of students. Ask each group to • visualize the topic : Make a picture in your mind that contains all of them. What is the topic ? • describe what the words remind them of • suggest questions that the words might cause them to ask. Model and discuss • how you can visualize a set of ideas from a text to decide its possible topic. • how you decide the topic; guess and go through the book with them, looking at cues such as pictures and encourage them to guess what these are suggesting about the plot or theme Saying in sentences what the reader knows Students talk about their visual images of the topic in sentences.. What questions might it answer? Give the readers a title. They suggest questions the text might answer. They can begin by asking the '4W and 1H' questions and can then move into more in-­‐depth, probing questions. Show the questions on a concept map. Think, pair, share. Have each student spend 1-­‐2 minutes listing down what they think might be said about a topic or an open ended question. They then work in a pair and integrate their ideas. Each pair then combines with a second pair and the four students work together to select the 5 most likely ideas from their combined lists. Ask me about the topic. Students have mock interview activities in which one student interviews another about the topic, for example, one student does a radio interview with another student who tries to get a bank loan when it is harder. You write the article . Give students headlines and have them write possible articles to follow. They can work on this in group activities Page of 24
11 Bridging to the text the reader will read Why might the text have been written?
Students focus on possible reasons or purposes for writing the text, for example, a
factual text may have been written to tell them how to do something, to teach new
ideas.
What do you think it will tell you ? Students scan the text and decide its theme; look at the title, headings, sub-­‐headings, diagrams, and captions. They can ask:
What do the illustrations / the title/ the contents page / list of sub headings tell me ? What do I think the text is about? What might happen? What might the main ideas in this text be? What questions might be answered? What new words might be in this text? How will I read the text ? Readers say how they will read, the actions (strategies) they
will use to help them understand the text?
What don't I know about this topic ? Students list questions and queries they have about the topic and what they believe they don't know. How can you teach students to use GKR independently and automatically.
The key self talk they learn before they begin to read is to ask themselves
•
What do I think the text is about ? How will I work it out ?
•
What does the title/ subheadings / key words / illustrations tell me?
•
What type of text is it ?
•
What questions might it answer ?
•
"Do I need to change my mind ?
Comprehend each sentence while reading
Teach students to comprehend sentences by
•
•
•
Segmenting them into events by using verbs; note the number of events in the sentence
Paraphrasing by using the verb in each event; say each part ‘in their own words’
Visualizing; build an image of it.
Steps in teaching to paraphrase. Begin with simple sentences. Key actions they learn
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Note the topic of the text.
Note the number of events in the sentence by using verbs;
Work on each event by breaking it into parts using the verb in each event. They say each
part ‘in their own words’, use synonyms for each word or phrase
Link the re-worded parts together and check that the new sentence has the same meaning as
the starting sentence and that it fits with the earlier sentences.
visualize the new sentence; build an image of it.
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12 Give students feedback on the accuracy of their paraphrasing. If an attempt is incorrect, ask
students to suggest the parts that are correct and those that need to be changed. They can
recommend how they might change it.
Begin with comparatively simple sentences.
Types of activities you can use to teach paraphrasing
1
During reading aloud : Students paraphrase spoken sentences. What is another way of
saying it. They listen to one, two and then more sentences and say each sentence another
way by changing as many words as possible while keeping the meaning the same.
2
Students can hear or read alternative paraphrasing attempts and select the most accurate,
paraphrase. They match each sentence in the right hand column below with the one that
says the same message in the left hand column.
Like many animals, the giant panda needs a special
environment to survive.
You find the arrow bamboo in country that is
below 3500 metres high or that has farms.
Its natural habitat is bamboo forest found in China.
It lives best naturally in bamboo forests in China
Whilst there are many varieties of bamboo, the panda will
eat only four types.
The giant panda has to have certain natural
conditions to live.
Their basic diet is arrow bamboo.
The one they like to eat most is arrow bamboo.
The arrow bamboo will not grow in areas that are above 3500 It eats only four of the several types of bamboo.
metres or in river valleys and plains that have been farmed.
3.
practise writing paraphrases for sentences for example, for the following sentences :
Its natural habitat is bamboo forest found in China.
Whilst there are many varieties of bamboo, the panda will eat only
four types.
Their basic diet is arrow bamboo.
The arrow bamboo will not grow in areas that are above 3500 metres or
in river valleys and plains that have been farmed.
4.
Build up to paraphrasing paragraphs. Give a paragraph of 3-4 sentences to a small group.
Each student paraphrases one sentence. Combine the four paraphrases into a paragraph.
5.
Give them 3-4 paraphrases and ask them to arrange them in order of closet to furthermost
away from text.
Automatize paraphrasing Students can make up card games in which they match two sentences
that are paraphrases. In groups they are given a set of cards with one sentence on each. They write
a paraphrase for each sentence on another card.
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13 Its natural
habitat is
bamboo forest
found in China.
It lives
naturally in
Chinese.
bamboo forests
Their basic diet They mainly
is arrow
eat arrow
bamboo.
bamboo.
text sentence
paraphrase
text sentence paraphrase
The giant panda
needs a special
environment to
survive.
text sentence
the giant panda
must have certain
conditions to live.
paraphrase
Five pairs of students combine their pairs of cards into a pack and play Snap..
The students can also play Bingo. Each student is given a blank Bingo board with 6 or 8 squares.
In pairs again they make paraphrase cards. These are collected and one is read out at a time.
Students who have the matching sentence on their board get a point.
Teach students to visualize each sentence
1.
Look at picture and talk about what it shows, answer questions about it.
2.
Look at picture and imagine it changing.
3.
Look at picture, make ‘mental photograph’, obscure picture and talk about what was seen,
answer questions about it. Allow time for this and minimize the verbal interactions while
the student is expected to retain the mental picture.
4.
Look at picture, make ‘mental photograph’, obscure picture and talk about what was seen,
answer questions about it.
5.
Listen to a sentence in a story, visualize and talk about the picture made. Gradually listen to
two or more sentences, make a ‘mental videotape’ and talk about the picture made, talk
about it. They can draw a picture what has happened in the story or what the story may
look like in 5 minutes. Model and teach LIDER strategy; they listen to part of a story and
•
make a mental picture what has happened in the story.
•
say the picture they have made
•
say how it helped them to remember what happened.
6.
Introduce the RIDER strategy. Have students read a sentence in story, visualize it and talk
about what the picture. Part of this includes modeling and cueing. Steps in RIDER:
•
Read ~ Read and paraphrase a sentence
•
Image ~ make a picture of this in your mind
•
Describe ~ Describe the image of what you have read.
•
Evaluate ~ Evaluate the image ; check it with the text for correctness
•
Repeat ~ Repeat the process again by reading the next sentence.
7.
Teacher prompting and guidance through the sequence of stages is gradually reduced.
Students say how they will do RIDER before they do it. They use this self-management
strategies. They say what they will do next, at each stage of the strategy and why. The
intention was to get the students to be more strategic learners.
8.
Students transfer the strategies to texts in different content areas and text difficulty levels.
Page of 24
14 Teaching vocabulary1
Planning the vocabulary teaching Which words and phrases will you teach ?
•
Identify key words in the text you expect students to read and comprehend
•
List the words you think will be unfamiliar to the student readers
•
Select 5 -10 key concepts (single words or short terms) for each lesson.
•
Sort the unfamiliar words into 2 groups;
•
Defined by the text
•
Not well defined by the text
•
Either teach these explicitly or have the students work out their meanings.
You can teach vocabulary explicitly as you develop a topic with your class. You can do this at
various points or phases in a lesson. Each phase teaches a particular aspect of vocabulary.
Early in the topic and /or lesson : Getting knowledge ready
This is when you stimulate what the students know about the words for the topic. They are the words you assume they
can already read, spell, say and comprehend the meaning. In this phase you
•
stimulate them to remember the meanings of relevant words you believe they already know.
•
check what they know about how to say, read and spell relevant words.
While learning/ reading about the new topic
This is when you
•
teach key words for each topic explicitly and directly
•
teach students how to work out what new written words mean and how to say them.
Review and consolidate the new words and meanings they have learnt
This is when you ask the students
•
to look back over and review the new words they have learnt and say what they mean
•
link the new words with what they already knew through synonyms and word patterns
Store new words and meanings in long term memory and practice recalling the meanings
This is when you ask the students
•
to say what they will remember about the new words; what they mean, how they are spelt
•
to talk about the mental pictures they link with each word to help them remember it
•
say how each new word fits in with words they already know.
1
This is part of Munro (2005). Strategies for improving reading comprehension. © John Munro, 2005
Page of 24
15 Automatise word meanings and the links; revise key words and vocabulary
This is when you ask the students
•
to practice recalling the meanings of the new words, how to read, spell and say them.
•
use the new words in a wider range of situations.
Phase 2: Teaching new words while reading about new topic This is when you teach students
•
•
•
•
to say, read and spell new words
the meanings of some new words
work out the meanings of other new words
link images with words. visualize meaning, use analogies to compare and show parallels,
use concrete model of the meaning.
text on early
civilizations
ancient
civilizations
developed
palms
Egyptians
sustain
fertile
environment
desert
fertile
society
mammals
Teach the meaning of each term.
•
•
There are two ways of teaching new word meanings:
directly and explicitly teach each new meanings before the students begin to read a text
teach students how to work out new word meanings for themselves and to work out the new
meanings when they come to them.
Teaching new vocabulary directly and explicitly Teach each new meanings through examples
rather than by giving a formal definition or using a dictionary initially. Some useful activities are:
teach new meanings through examples in up to three
specific contexts that most clearly shows its meaning and
that are familiar to students. Have them say the word both •
by itself and in sentences about each context
•
•
To teach the word ‘environment’
fish live in a water environment.
lizards live in a dry environment; it doesn't rain much.
Cows need an environment that has much fresh grass.
Use pictures to show the meaning of a term. Have students
visualize the meaning, link the image with word. Ask the
students : What do you see in your mind when you hear
…..? What does it look like?
What does “a fertile” environment look like? What do
you see in your mind when you look at a fertile place ?
Which parts of Australia would we call fertile ?
Teach meanings through actions that are linked with the
term. You can use concrete model to show the actions
linked with the words.
For the word ' developed ', examples could be
•
•
•
•
Use analogies to show what the word means.
"The boy developed into a young man",
"They developed the picture."
"As the plot developed, it became more scary”.
What are the actions that go with developed?
Ask them to generalize their understanding.
What do all of these situations / examples show ? The
students and say what seems to be common or shared by
the three examples of environment or developed .
Ask them to suggest what they think the word doesn't
mean. Show pictorial or concrete non-examples of the
This helps them to 'put bounds' on the meaning of the
Page of 24
16 word. The students
word.
Select / discriminate between examples + non-examples
•
• say how the examples differ from the non-examples.
Ask students to develop their own ‘dictionary’ definition
and them compare it with a ‘dictionary’ definition
Teach students how to work out the meanings for themselves. Below is an example for paragraphs
relating to the topic of early Egyptian cultures along the Nile. Teach students to work out the
meanings of the following words as they read each paragraph.
script and
inscribed
If you cannot read Arabic, the script above will be meaningless. Egyptian was also meaningless to
historians for a long time. Then, in 1799, an inscribed stone was found that allowed scholars to
interpret them. Much was then learnt about the world of ancient Egypt.
delta.
Like many other ancient civilizations, the civilization of ancient Egypt developed around a river — the
Nile. It flows from the wet highlands of central Africa through the desert Red Lands, and finally
empties through a long delta into the Mediterranean Sea.
sustain.
The Nile’s water, the plants and palms that grew on its banks, and the birds, fish and mammals that
lived in and around it all helped to sustain the society of the ancient Egyptians. The river provided a
regular supply of water in a land that had virtually no rain. Its annual floods irrigated the fields in
which crops were planted. The creatures it supported provided an extra food source.
flax
Its banks provided reeds to make boats, roofs, baskets and papyrus. The flax that grew in the riverside
fields provided the material needed to make fabric.
Inundation. The river’s annual flood cycle helped to set the calendar. The Inundation, or flood season, was
regarded as the start of each year. This period was seen as a time of ‘rebirth’ — a time when fertile new
soil washed down from the highlands was dumped on farmlands as a base for the next year’s crops.
You can teach the students to act on the text in various ways to do this. For each word they can
•
underline or write down the new word or term and try to say it to themselves as they do this.
•
say what the word does in the sentence; flax was a plant that grew on the banks and was
used to make material.
•
visualize the sentence/s that have the new word and other ideas; they put as much of the
sentence as they can into the image. To work out the meaning of delta they visualize the
river Nile just before it enters the sea; the ground might be sandy or muddy.
•
note any pictures or visual features that go with new word.
Page of 24
17 •
look at the letter patterns in the word, guess at what each part might mean by linking them
with other words they know. They can link script and inscribed with reading and writing.
•
try to put other words or phrases in place of it and see which one/s fit best.
•
check their guess by re-reading the sentences with the other words in them and modify their
guess if necessary.
•
consolidate their guess: I think inundation means flooding; the students visualize the Nile
overflowing its banks and covering all the land beside the rive.
•
check their guess with a dictionary definition.
You can teach students to do these meaning-making actions one at a time and to practise using
them. They also need to learn how to apply them to more complex text.
Teach students to talk to themselves about working out the new vocabulary, for example, to ask
themselves questions such as Could it / does it mean … ? They can also learn to tell themselves
what to do, for example, You say to yourself what you think it means, or I need to try possible
synonyms and see how they fit, and You may need to fine tune your first meaning. Say now what
you think the meaning is now.
Teaching students to Review and consolidate their vocabulary
When students have finished reading part of a text, ask them to review, consolidate and revise the
new vocabulary. You can have them review in various ways.
1.
Collate a list the new words on a whiteboard. Useful consolidation activities include:
•
students suggest the new words, say what each new word tells them and why it was used.
What new words have you learnt ? What do they mean? When might you use them in the
future ?
•
in unison they can say each word and suggest or recall the synonyms they used earlier.
•
in small groups or pairs, they use each word in sentence that shows its meaning, write a
paragraph / short story using the list words.
•
they use this type
of chart to list the
new words and
terms, synonyms
and sentences that
illustrate the use of
each word.
2.
Suggest synonym
When might you use it ?
ray of hope
paraded
gruffly
‘chuckled’
Ask students to link new vocabulary with synonyms. Useful activities include
Page of 24
Say each new word
18 •
small groups compete to collate as many synonyms as they can in 2 minutes. For the word
‘endure’ they might suggest ’last, continue, remain, bear, cope with, go through, hang in,
keep up, ride out, stick, tolerate, carry on, persist, tough out, live with, suffer, persevere’.
•
the students match key words with their synonyms in writing activities such as Select from
the right hand list the synonym for each term from Pandas becoming extinct:
Text vocabulary
extinct
habitat
endangered
heritage
species
synonym list
threatened
a type
environment
dead
what it gets from its parents
3.
Ask students to link new word
meanings with more general and more
specific meanings by drawing a
network diagram.
How animals breathe
Humans
lungs
worms
fish
holes
gills
4. Teach students to work on the possible origin of word. They look for patterns in the new
vocabulary. They could, for example, in small groups
•
suggest words similar to ‘sustain’ such as ‘retain’, ‘obtain’, ‘maintain’ and use these to
infer what ‘sustain’ might mean.
•
link the key words with other words that have the same meaning base. For ‘endure’ they
might suggest during, durable, duration, endurance, durability. They can investigate
what ‘dur’ means (it comes from the Latin word duro - to last).
•
keep a list of the key letter clusters they learn and review these. They can infer that ‘tain’
in the words sustain, retain, obtain and maintain’ could mean ‘keep ’. They can also
practise using these to analyze other words such as ‘captain’ .
•
Have the students link the key
words with words that have
related letter patterns and
meanings, for example:
Page of 24
Other words
extinct
instinct
species
special specimen
habitat
habit, habitual
heritage
inherited inheritance hereditary
19 5.
Review explicitly the new spelling patterns and rules. After students have worked on two or
three examples of the pattern, have them to talk about it and apply it in other examples.
6.
Ask students to read the dictionary meaning of key vocabulary and then to repeat it in their
own words. They can discuss how their understanding of the term fits with the dictionary meaning
and how they would fit the dictionary meaning into the present context.
Call, shout, yell, bellow,
attract, pull, draw,
Shoe, sandals, boot, thong, slippers, sneakers, runners,
repel, push, drive away, repulse,
7.
Ask students to review how they can
work out the meanings of unfamiliar words. As
they learn each action, they can say how to use
it and when they could use it in the future.
They can keep a list of the actions they will use
and add to this as they learn new actions.
Things I do to work out what words mean
•
write down and say the new word to myself
•
what the word does in the sentence ?
•
visualize the sentence with the new word
Teach students to store new vocabulary in long term memory
To store vocabulary in memory, students need to link it with what they know; to
1.
say what they will remember about what the words mean. Useful activities include having
students complete written definitions, for example,
‘endure’ means to ……………. Often students need time to compose or to compile their
definitions. Think-pair-share activities are useful here :
each student drafts their
definitions of key words
pairs of students synthesize
a definition of each word
two pairs combine, evaluate the
definitions and form joint definition
2.
say how it is like what they already knew and how it is different (where the new ideas ‘fit
in’). They ask themselves What do the new words remind me of ? What words it is like ?
What are opposites ? They can draw a semantic or network map of the word to show how
it links with known words.
3.
visualize the new meanings in particular contexts. They can
• visualize the event in which they met the word, talk about this image or draw it. A
student may visualize ‘sustain’ with feeding people to keep them alive. In early Egypt,
they imagine the Nile sustaining the Egyptians by giving them fish to eat.
• use pictorial or concrete models of the word, for example, pictures of fertile lands.
Page of 24
20 4.
act it out, do actions that show its meaning, for example, to show sustain or fertile.
5.
say when ideas might be used in future, imagine themselves remembering the idea.
Teaching students to use their vocabulary automatically
Recalling automatically how to read and spell words and what they mean enhances comprehension.
Re-view at beginning of later lessons.
To help students recall ideas from memory effectively, check that they can recognize the ideas
before they asked to recall them. Before you ask students to recall the meaning of ‘cottage’ for
example, ask them : Does cottage mean a small house or a palace ?
To teach students to read and use their vocabulary automatically:
1.
use activities in which they read faster, spell and recall the words, for example, practise
recognizing them in pictures, naming items rapidly. Begin each lesson with 5 minutes of
revising vocabulary taught in previous lessons for example “Give me for synonyms and
antonyms for each of these words as quickly as you can: ancient, fertile, sustain.”
2.
practise using s words to cue related words.
•
What goes with what ? List words from earlier topics. They read each word or phrase
silently, decide the topic and categorize the words. Example : Olympic Games, central
Africa, Nile, skilled craftsmen, flax, desert seagoing traders, Romans, palms.
•
Given 3 – 4 words from a topic, predict others, for example, moons, orbit, Solar, year.
•
Say the word a sentence describes, eg., I am land that grows lots of food. I am not like the
desert.
•
Write down as many words as you can about life in ancient Egypt in 3 minutes.
•
Say a topic you have taught and ask the students in a think-pair-share activity to write down
the key words or synonyms.
3.
make up picture card games and have students practise recalling names. Play games like
Snap, Bingo, Memory in which they match the word with a synonym or antonym or match
a word with the category to which it belongs, for example, they can write the key
environment words and their synonyms.
dead
group
environment
extinct
sort
genetic
type
danger
inherit
stimulus
home
dead
Page of 24
21 threat
Reviewing what has been read and learnt
Why teach reviewing ? Reviewing helps students to
1.
draw together, integrate what they have learnt, consolidate, compress and link the new
ideas, see the main ideas, subordinate ideas
understand what they are reading , show comprehension
link the new ideas with what they already know learn more about the topic they are learning,
use the knowledge they gain to ‘go further’
store new knowledge in memory, remember it later
automatise their knowledge.
transfer it and use it in creative ways, in problem solving.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
Review and consolidate what has been learnt by reading At the end of a lesson or reading
session the students can
•
say/ select /identify/ write the key ideas they have learnt and link them with what they
already knew
•
say the questions they can answer now
•
visualize the key ideas and say the mental pictures they link with them
•
say the actions they will link with the new ideas
•
organise the new ideas on a map or a schematic chart
•
say how the ideas interested them or were of value to them •
say what they did to help them read
These actions can be used following reading aloud or silently. This is the ‘value adding’ aspect of
the reading. Show comprehension: Readers can show their comprehension of the text they have read
in cloze activities.
by re-telling or paraphrasing what has been read.
by drawing a poster, pictures or by acting out (following a recipe etc…).
by writing questions for the print read.
by answering comprehension questions. Types of questions include
•
'Right there' questions: for answers that were explicitly stated in the text,
•
Think and search questions: for answers that needed to be inferred from the text,
•
On my own questions: for answers that drew on readers' background knowledge.
•
•
•
•
•
They consolidate what they read in a range of ways; they can
•
suggest or select the summary sentence for a set of narrative sentences or a paragraph;
•
select the paragraph in a narrative that answers a particular question or that provides
particular information.
Questions can be classified in different ways, for example:
•
•
•
•
recall information directly from the text, for example, What colour are fire engines?
reorganize, paraphrase, translate, analyze, synthesize or organize explicitly stated text.
go beyond the information given in the text, interpret it; Why do you think fire engines are
painted red, rather than brown or blue?
evaluate the ideas in terms of an external criterion, for example, Do you think that it is a
good idea to paint fire engines red?
Page of 24
22 •
express an emotive response to the content, for example Did you get excited as you read the
story about fire engines?
Readers can show comprehension at each level of text processing, for example,
•
•
•
•
word level; use context to decide word meanings, why particular words used.
sentence level; answer sentence level questions, paraphrase sentences.
paragraph level; infer, anticipate, suggest alternatives, apply ideas in other contexts.
topic level; write or invent a similar text , extend the theme, draw a comic strip of the
main events, invent a play based on the theme, play games described in it, etc.
Respond emotionally to the print; The readers link a positive emotion response with their
reading activity How did I like the story? How did I feel while I was reading it? What made
me feel that way? Would I like to read it again? Were there words or things that happened,
that made me feel happy, excited, or worried?
Review the reading 'actions' that worked while reading. Readers review and evaluate the
reading strategies they used, particularly the strategies they were learnt at the time. What
reading actions worked for me? What did I do to work out this word? Did making a picture
help here? Students share the strategies that worked and list them, adding new ones.
Discuss why the material was written. Readers review the writer’s purposes for writing the text and
how well it achieved this; Why was the text written ? Did it say what I expected it to say ? How
well did it achieve its purpose ? To amuse us, to make us feel happy, sad or to scare us, to teach us
something, to let us know how other people live? To tell us about something that happened, to give
us ideas about things that we could do? The readers support opinions using the print; "What helped
to make me feel sad?”
Add new words and new meanings to their vocabulary. Readers identify the new language
and literacy knowledge that has been learnt. They discuss new words, guess their meanings
using the context of the text, use them in sentences, check the guess against dictionary
meanings, put them in semantic categories; What new ways of saying things have I learnt ?
What new words were in the text ? What could __ mean? What can I guess about its
meaning? Why did the writer use this word? What other words could have been used? What
are opposites of the word? When might I use this word in the future?
Teach students to store new ideas in long term memory
Identify key ideas and store them in long-term memory; the student needs to store in memory
what has been learnt and to change or add to their knowledge base in the area. They can:
•
•
•
•
•
say or describe concisely the main ideas; What key new ideas have I learnt;
link these ideas to the existing knowledge base; What do these ideas remind me of?
How are they like / different from things I've already learnt? How do they fit with
what I know already ?
draw a picture of the main ideas, or use a concrete model of them, visualize them draw a semantic map of the ideas
describe when the ideas might be used in the future.
How to get new knowledge from thinking space to long term memory ?
Self Talk for memory
Page of 24
Useful student self talk for long term memory storage
23 1. How can I say the new ideas as briefly quickly as possible ?
2. What do the new ideas remind me of ? How are they like / different from what I already know ?
Where do they fit in with what I know ?
3. What pictures can I make of them ?
4. What will help me remember them next time ?
5. What was special about the place where I learnt them ?
Automatise and practise reading aloud and silently similar text to achieve increased fluency.
To automatize new ideas, students practise recalling them by reconstructing them:
•
Scaffold recall by reminding students of the context in which they read the ideas.
•
Ask students to ‘put themselves in the context’ in which they learnt them
•
Prompt and scaffold the the ideas to be recalled; give them most of the ideas, use
actions or pictures to assist.
•
Ask for recognition of the new ideas before recall of them. Automatise vocabulary Students practise recalling vocabulary from memory : they
speed up reading, spelling and recalling the words, for
example, the names of items. Begin each lesson with 5
minutes revising vocabulary taught in the previous lessons.
“Say for synonyms and antonyms
for each of these words as quickly as
you can: ancient, fertile, sustain.”
use some words to stimulate/ cue / predict related words
based on what they have learnt
What words go with moons, orbit,
Solar, year ?
hear a sentence description and say the word it describes (for
words already taught)
I am land that grows lots of food. I
am not like the desert.
play card games like Snap, Bingo, Memory in which they
match the word with a synonym or antonym or match a word
with the category to which it belongs.
make up quizzes for other groups based on the vocabulary
they have learnt.
use cloze activities to revise the vocabulary you have taught
earlier. Write some sentences using the key vocabulary for
the topics. Delete the key vocabulary.
Important aspects of literacy to automatize
1. Phonological, phonemic knowledge
2. Reading aloud fluency
3. Use of sentence strategies
4. Use of paragraph strategies
5. Recall of word meanings
6. How to use the topic of the text to guide reading.
Page of 24
24 Objects attracted to magnets are
made of either ______, ________
or _________.