Monitoring comprehension

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Monitoringcomprehension
Workshop 2
Debbie Draper, Julie Fullgrabe Sue Eden
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Overview of the session

• The inner conversation hearing the inner voice
  that assists reading
• leaving tracks of thinking- ways to demonstrate
  thinking while reading
• The different types of (human)readers in a class
• Why meaning breaks down and what to do about it
  fix-up strategies
• Think aloud strategies to share thinking with
  students

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Monitoring understanding is essential to engage
with the reading strategies
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Do I really have to teach reading?
Content,comprehension grades 6-12 Cris Tovani
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Links to Tfel
1.1 understand how self and others learn 1.2
develop deep pedagogical and content knowledge
Understanding how students learn to read through
your own experiences
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Learning to learn. Using dialogue as a means to
sharing understanding
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Part one

• Your own inner voice and how you use it.

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Just relax..let your mind go free
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What did your inner voice say to you?

• When you are a busy person, your mind is always
  having conversations with you.
• What went on with you?
• If its appropriate, what did your inner voice
  say or think about?

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Listening to the inner voice-George Costanza does
not like what he hears
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NOT listening to any voice
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You need to hear your inner voice

• Without recognising this voice, it will be harder
  to think aloud with students and share the
  thoughts you have as a competent reader

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Part 2

• Leaving tracks of thinking- ways to demonstrate
  thinking while reading

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Sticky labels were invented to monitor
comprehension
They come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and
kids love them!
They are a great way to keep track of
thoughts and ideas and can be placed in books to
refer back to
They can help students to show tracks of their
learning without Interruption when working
independently
They support remembering what you read far
better than highlighting
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Discuss this quote-what do you think- have you
ever highlighted to extremes?

• Highlighting text-
• first of all throw away the highlighter
  in favour of a pen or pencil. Highlighting can
  actually distract from the business of learning
  and dilute your comprehension. It only seems like
  an active reading strategy in actual fact, it
  can lull your into dangerous passivity.
• (Harvard College library 2007)

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Text coding

• R- reminds me of
• T-T text to text
• ? Question
• ! Surprising
• Make it meaningful for your class, create your
  own codes

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From the text- Teaching Reading Comprehension
Strategies Sheena Cameron
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Leaving tracks of thinking

• Margin notes
• Sticky notes
• Many of these approaches will be dealt with
  further as we explore the strategies in more
  detail.

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• Think sheets scaffolds, graphic organisers
• Response journals, literature logs, notebooks,
  wonder books
• Artistic, dramatic, musical, numerical,
  scientific, historical, economic

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Another way to show tracks of thinking
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Which of these strategies have you tried?
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Strategies that Work

• Use some of the previous strategies when you read
  the 4 pages provided from Strategies that Work to
  make tracks of your thinking.
• Share what you have identified as important with
  someone near you.
• Is it the same or different?

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Part 3

• Different types of readers and reading behaviours

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Awareness of reading

• Four levels of metacognitive awareness and the
  ways in which readers monitor their thinking
  about their reading are described in Strategies
  That Work

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Types of readers
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Group chat

• Think of particular students that you have taught
  or are teaching that fit into each category of
  reader.
• How do you know they were one of these types of
  readers?

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Comprehension shouldnt be silentKelley and
Clausen Grace

• These authors talk about fake or disengaged
  readers and mindless reading
• What behaviours have you seen fake readers
  doing?
• You have probably been one yourself at some time.
• Y chart about behaviours of fake reading

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Disengaged reading..
Looks like
Sounds like
Feels like
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Part 4

• Why meaning breaks down and how to fix it.
  MONITOR your understanding

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Identifying synergistic regulation involving
c-Myc and sp1in human tissues

• Read the pages silently.
• Highlight in one colour the text you understand
• highlight in another colour the text that is
  confusing or difficult to understand.

What are you thinking about as you embark on this
task?
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After you have read some of the text..

• Of the parts of the text you highlighted as being
  hard to understand, could you not read it well
  because of
• lack of background knowledge?
• Vocabulary?
• Writing style?
• Discuss with someone what they learned about
  themselves as readers through the experience, and
  what they can take back to their work with
  struggling readers.
• What was your inner voice doing as you read this?

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Was it?

• Thinking about what you need to do at school?
• Panicking?
• Thinking about what to buy on the way home for
  dinner?
• Making rude comments about the activity?
• Trying to make connections, question etc etc

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The inner conversation

• The fact is that all readers space out when they
  read. Kids need to know this or they risk feeling
  inadequate when it happens to them.
• Once readers are made aware of their inner
  conversation, they tend to catch themselves
  quicker and repair meaning if there is a problem.
• Strategies that work. Page 27

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Checking on monitoring of comprehension-inconsiste
nt element

• An easy and informative technique to see whether
  students are monitoring their comprehension is to
  select a passage on a groups instructional
  level, then retype it adding an inconsistent
  element. Introduce the selection as you would
  normally do when you are getting students ready
  to read (tapping prior knowledge, setting a
  purpose for reading).
• After reading, ask students to comment on what
  they read.
• They may summarize or relate the information to a
  personal experience. See if any student points
  out the inconsistent element.
• Text example- Earthquakes

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When meaning has broken down
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From the text- Teaching Reading Comprehension
Strategies Sheena Cameron
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(No Transcript)
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(No Transcript)
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Podcast about monitoring reading
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Part 5

• Think alouds-
• strategies to share with students- making the
  implicit explicit

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• Think-Alouds have been described as
  "eavesdropping on someone's thinking." With this
  strategy, teachers verbalise aloud while reading
  a selection orally. Their verbalisations include
  describing things they're doing as they read to
  monitor their comprehension. The purpose of the
  think-aloud strategy is to model for students how
  skilled readers construct meaning from a text

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Sentence starters for think alouds

• So far, I've learned...
• This made me think of...
• That didn't make sense.
• I think ___ will happen next.
• I reread that part because...
• I was confused by...
• I think the most important part was...
• That is interesting because...
• I wonder why...
• I just thought of...

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Reciprocal think alouds

• In reciprocal think-alouds, students are paired
  with a partner.
• Students take turns thinking aloud as they read a
  difficult text.
• While the first student is thinking aloud, the
  second student listens and records what the first
  student says.
• Then students change roles so that each partner
  has a chance to think aloud and to observe the
  process.
• Students reflect on the process together, sharing
  the things they tried and discussing what worked
  well for them and what didn't. As they write
  about their findings, they can start a mutual
  learning log that they can refer back to.

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Use the checklist to observe my think aloud about
the text- Small pox
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Summary

• Which strategies to monitor understanding do you
  think are appropriate for your context?
• How will you introduce this strategy with your
  staff?
• How might you do any of this with your class?