Doug Fisher, PhD

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• Doug Fisher, PhD
• dfisher_at_mail.sdsu.edu
• Nancy Frey, PhD
• nfrey_at_mail.sdsu.edu

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A Case in Point
Ill go back to school and learn more about the
brain!
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400 Page text

• Somites are blocks of dorsal mesodermal cells
  adjacent to the notochord during vertebrate
  organogensis.
• Improved vascular definition in radiographs of
  the arterial phase or of the venous phase can be
  procured by a process of subtraction whereby
  positive and negative images of the overlying
  skull are superimposed on one another.

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Skills Versus Strategies?
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I dont know how youre going to learn this, but
its on the test.
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Quick, Build Background!
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Expand Understanding Through Reading
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Reading Increasingly Difficult Texts
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Read Non-Traditional Texts

• To date, over 100 YouTube videos!
• PBS (The Secret Life of the Brain)
• Internet quiz sites about neuroanatomy
• Talking with peers and others interested in the
  brain

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But, the midterm comes

• 17 pages, single spaced

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Using a Foldable to Support Your Learning
Increase Instructional Consistency
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Lets Make a Foldable

• Envelope fold Good for 4
• non-sequenced concepts
• Focus Lesson
• Guided Instruction
• Collaborative Learning
• Independent Learning

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TEACHER RESPONSIBILITY
I do it
Focus Lesson
Guided Instruction
We do it
You do it together
Collaborative
You do it alone
Independent
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY
A Structure for Instruction that Works
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In some classrooms
TEACHER RESPONSIBILITY
I do it
Focus Lesson
You do it alone
Independent
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY
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In the worst classrooms
TEACHER RESPONSIBILITY
You do it alone
Independent
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY
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The good enough classroom
TEACHER RESPONSIBILITY
I do it
Focus Lesson
Guided Instruction
We do it
You do it alone
Independent
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY
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Time for a Story
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TEACHER RESPONSIBILITY
I do it
Focus Lesson
Guided Instruction
We do it
You do it together
Collaborative
You do it alone
Independent
STUDENT RESPONSIBILITY
A Structure for Instruction that Works
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Reading and the Brain
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What is reading and what components are required
to read?

• National Reading Panel (1990s)

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The National Reading Panel Report

• Alphabetics
• Phonemic awareness
• Phonics
• Fluency
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension

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Vocabulary

• Word volume - 88,500 word families (500,000
  words) by high school
• Word gap - estimated at 3,000 in kindergarten
  between high and low income families

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Types of Vocabulary
General vocabulary Words used in everyday
language, with agreed upon meanings across
contexts (e.g., pesky, bothersome) Specialized
vocabulary Multiple meanings in different content
areas (e.g., loom, in, expression) Technical
vocabulary Specific to a field of study (e.g.,
concerto, meiosis)
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• Catherine the Great, a minor aristocrat from
  Germany, became Empress of Russia when her
  husband Peter, the grandson of Peter the Great,
  was killed.

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• Catherine the Great, a minor aristocrat from
  Germany, became Empress of Russia when her
  husband Peter, the grandson of Peter the Great,
  was killed.

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Comprehension

• Understanding
• Retelling and reading checks
• Making meaning from text
• Studies of good readers suggests that they
  predict, infer, question, visualize, monitor,
  summarize/synthesize, and connect

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Rich Semantic Knowledge Semantic Neighborhood
bites
king of jungle
mane
roars
big
animal
eats antelopes
furry
Leo
4 legs
lion
zodiac
green
lives in
zoo
Lion King
sour
famous lions
citrus
Africa
jungle
fruit
limeade
Wizard of Oz
Narnia
good in food and drinks
lime
key lime pie
Wolf, 2007
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Beyond the Big 5

• These top out
• Alphabetic knowledge
• Phonemic awareness
• Concepts about print
• Oral reading fluency both accuracy and rate

• These dont
• Vocabulary
• Comprehension
• Word reading and contextual reading ability

Paris, S. (2005). Reinterpreting the development
of reading skills. Reading Research Quarterly,
40, 184-202.
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Which is the greatest predictor of comprehension?

1. Fluency
2. Background knowledge
3. Vocabulary
4. Phonics

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Which is the greatest predictor of comprehension?

1. Fluency
2. Background knowledge
3. Vocabulary
4. Phonics

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Which is the second greatest predictor of
comprehension?

1. Fluency
2. Phonemic awareness
3. Vocabulary
4. Phonics

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Which is the second greatest predictor of
comprehension?

1. Fluency
2. Phonemic awareness
3. Vocabulary
4. Phonics

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Build Your Background Knowledge About the Brain
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2 Hemispheres

• Left and Right

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The hemispheres are connected by the CORPUS
CALLOSUM
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Each Hemisphere has Four Lobes

• Frontal
• Parietal
• Occipital
• Temporal

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Frontal Lobe

• Memory, emotion, planning

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Parietal Lobe

• Integrates sensory information
• Maintains sense of self in space

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Temporal Lobe

• Auditory processing

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Occipital Lobe

• Processes visual information and integrates
  vision with other senses

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Brocas Area

• Located in frontal lobe
• Responsible for speech production
• Damage to this area can result in slow, halting
  speech (Brocas aphasia)

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Wernickes Area

• Located where the temporal and parietal lobes
  meet
• Responsible for language comprehension
• Damage to this area can result in fluent, but
  nonsensical speech (Wernickes aphasia)

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Using a Foldable to Support Your Learning
Model Reading Comprehension
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Lets Make a Foldable

• 4-tab When you need a sequence

• Reading comprehension
• Word solving
• Text structures
• Text features

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Modeling

• Why?
• Humans mimic or imitate
• Students need examples of the type of thinking
  required
• Facilitates the use of academic language

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Modeling Comprehension

• Inference
• Summarize
• Predict
• Clarify
• Question

• Visualize
• Monitor
• Synthesize
• Evaluate
• Connect

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Word Solving

• Context clues
• Word parts (prefix, suffix, root, base, cognates)
• Resources (others, Internet, dictionary)

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Using Text Structure

• Informational Texts
• Problem/Solution, Compare/Contrast, Sequence,
  Cause/Effect, Description
• Narrative Texts
• Story grammar (plot, setting, character)
• Dialogue
• Literary devices

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Using Text Features

• Headings
• Captions
• Illustrations
• Charts
• Graphs
• Bold words

• Table of contents
• Glossary
• Index
• Tables
• Margin notes
• Italicized words

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What Happened to Phineas?

• Attend the tale of Phineas Gage. Honest, well
  liked by friends and fellow workers on the
  Rutland and Burlington Railroads, Gage was a
  young man of exemplary character and promise
  until one day in September 1848. While tamping
  down the blasting powder for a dynamite charge,
  Gage inadvertently sparked an explosion. The
  inch thick tamping rod rocketed through his
  cheek, obliterating his left eye, on its way
  through his brain and out the top of his skull.

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• The rod landed several yards away, and Gage fell
  back in a convulsive heap. Yet a moment later he
  stood up and spoke. His fellow workers watched,
  aghast, then drove him by oxcart to a hotel where
  a local doctor, one John Harlow, dressed his
  wounds. As Harlow stuck his index fingers in the
  holes in Gages face and head until their tips
  met, the young man inquired when he would be able
  to return to work.

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• Within two months the physical organism that was
  Phineas Gage had completely recovered - he could
  walk, speak, and demonstrate normal awareness of
  his surroundings. But the character of the man
  did not survive the tamping rods journey through
  his brain. In place of the diligent, dependable
  worker stood a foul-mouthed and ill-mannered liar
  given to extravagant schemes that were never
  followed through. Gage, said his friends, was
  no longer Gage.

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Questions

• How did Phineas survive this penetrating brain
  injury?
• For how much longer did he live?

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A dentist found the source of the toothache
Patrick Lawler was complaining about on the roof
of his mouth a four-inch nail the construction
worker had unknowingly embedded in his skull six
days earlier.
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• Proust and the Squid The Story and Science of
  the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf

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Dr. Jill Taylor
Listen to an 18-minute talk by Jill at www.ted.com
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Brain research, modeling, and comprehension
instruction