Strategies for Enhancing Expository Text for Diverse Learners

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Strategies for Enhancing Expository Text for
Diverse Learners

• Gerlinde Beckers, Ph.D. Earl
  H. Cheek Jr., Ph.D.
• Louisiana State University

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Session Objective

• This session will
• explore the characteristics and nature of
  expository text
• identify the significance of matching readers
  abilities and reading materials
• discuss effective instructional strategies
  utilizing expository text and materials in the
  content areas

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Reading in the Content Areas

• There are many factors that contribute to the
  difficulty of content reading.
• What are some factors that you think impact
  student learning?

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Role of Content Area Teacher

• Special Role of English Teacher
• Comprehension and study skills, and advanced word
  recognition skills
• Specialist vs. Content Teacher
• Generalization of strategies across content areas
• Making Better use of time
• Content area literacy skills save time
• Allotted time vs. engaged time
• Down time is bad time behavior problems

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Assessing Content Area Texts

• Knowing the demands made by a particular subject
  matter text, teachers are in a better position to
  help students comprehend material in that area
• Because texts are a key element in most content
  area classes and can make a significant
  difference in students learning they should be
  carefully assessed

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Objective Measures to Estimate Readability

• Syllable Formulas
• Fry Readability Graph is one of the most
  popular, measures sentence length and number of
  syllables in a word. Directions
• Randomly select 3 - 100 word passages
• Plot average number of syllables
• Plot average number of sentences
• Flesch-Kincaid formula found in Microsoft Word,
  measures sentence length and number of syllables
  in a word.

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Flesch-KincaidHigher scores indicate material
that is easier to read Lower numbers mark
harder-to-read passages90-100 Average 5th
grade60-70 8th 9th grade0-30 College
Level
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Vocabulary
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Selecting Words to be Taught

• Ask, What do I want my students to learn?
  lesson objective, benchmarks, standards,
  grade-level expectations
• Present only 7 or 8 words at one time
• Focus on high priority words and teach to a
  conceptual level
• Other, less important, less frequently appearing
  words might be taught to a definitional level.

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Estimating Students Vocabulary continued

• Stahl (1986) Describes three degrees of word
  knowledge
• Definitional knowledge means that the student can
  tell what a word means
• Contextual knowledge requires understanding the
  core concept the word represents and how that
  concept is changed in different contexts
  (required before comprehension is fostered)
• Generative knowledge Oh! That's like ..." It's
  the process of constructing links between new and
  old knowledge, It is required before words become
  part of our expressive, speaking and writing
  vocabularies

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Estimating Students Vocabulary

• Important prerequisite for building vocabulary
• Dale and ORourke (1971) Four Stages
• I never saw it before
• Ive heard of it, but I dont know what is means
• I recognize it in context has something to do
  with
• I know it
• Knowledge Rating Scale

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Knowledge Rating Scale
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? I do not know the word. Knowledge Rating
Scale ? I have seen this word.
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Vocabulary Strategies
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Feature Analysis - Category Planets
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Key Word Approach

• Students create images to help them associate a
  meaning with a new word
• Fold index card in half, word on outside ,
  picture on the inside
• How effective is the key word approach? Jones,
  Levin, Levin, Beitzel, (2000), students who
  used the key word approach learned almost twice
  as many words as those a conceptual sentence
  composing approach

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What is the meaning of this word?PNEUMONOULTRAMI
CROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS
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Used in context

• Because of his proximity to Mount St. Helens, he
  contracted pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoco
  -niosis.

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Morphemes.

• Pneumono related to the lungs
• Ultra transcending super
• Micro small
• Scopic related to a viewing instrument
• Silico mineral, silicon
• Volcano eruption in the earth from which molten
  rock, steam, and dust escapes
• Coni (konis) dust
• Osis referring to a disease condition

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The answer is

• A disease of the lungs caused by habitual
  inhalation of very fine silicon dust particles.

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Morphemic Analysis Strategy

• A morpheme is the smallest unit of language which
  has an associated meaning
• 60-70 of words contain morphemic units or clues
• Two types
• Free morphemes can function as a word
• some or thing
• Bound morphemes are those units that occur only
  as attachments, prefixes, suffices, or roots
• tele, er, cide

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Morphemic Analysis Example
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Where can I find these prefixes, suffixes, and
root words to teach?

• www.wordinfo.info
• ---click index for
• a list of all Greek
• and Latin sources

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List-Group-Label

• A brainstorming technique in which students tell
  what they know about a topic and organize that
  information
• Steps
• Write topic
• Student tell what the topic makes them think
  about
• List all the responses
• Categorize the words into groups of three or more
• Label the categories

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Egypt

• Group
• Nile River
• Pyramids
• Pharaoh
• Mummy
• Papyrus
• Cataract
• Hieroglyphics
• Rosetta Stone

• List
• Nile River
• Papyrus
• Cataract
• Mummy
• Pharaoh
• Pyramids
• Hieroglyphics
• Rosetta Stone

• Label
• Places People Things
• Nile River Pharaoh Papyrus
• Pyramids Mummy Cataract Hieroglyphics
• Rosetta Stone

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Concept Map

• A concept map organizes information according to
  categories but ALSO uses words to show
  interrelations among concept.
• Steps
• 1- list key terms or concepts
• 2- arrange concepts from most general to most
  specific
• 3- add linkage words that relationships among
  their concept

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Example of a Concept Map
South Asia has various physical features and
landforms
Such as
Such as
Such as
Mount Everest
Indo-Ganges Plain
Indus River Valley
is
is
is
The highest peak, 29,035 above sea level
Good farmland
The site of one of the worlds oldest
civilizations
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Comprehension
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Causes of Inadequate Comprehension

• Key technical terms my be unknown or known but
  used in a unfamiliar manner
• Concepts are unfamiliar
• Figurative language is misunderstood
• Paragraphs organization if difficult to follow
• Pronouns and antecedent relationships are unclear
• Relationships among paragraphs and sections are
  not established

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Causes of Inadequate Comprehension continued

• The reader becomes lost in details, key ideas are
  misinterpreted
• The reader has inadequate prior knowledge, or a
  conflict exists between that knowledge and the
  text
• The reader reads the passage in rapid narrative
  style instead of careful, analytic fashion

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Factors Related to Comprehension

• Schemata background knowledge
• Sensory and Perceptual abilities
• Thinking abilities
• Word recognition strategies, and
• Affective aspects
• Attitudes
• Motivation
• Self-concepts, and
• interests

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Purposes for Reading

• Enjoyment
• To perfect oral reading performance or use a
  particular strategy
• To update knowledge about a topic, to link new
  information to that already known
• To obtain information for an oral or written
  report to confirm or reject predictions
• To perform an experiment or apply information
  gained from the text in some other way
• To learn about the structure of a text
• Or to answer specific questions

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The Role of Metacognition and Comprehension
Strategies

• Metacognition or metacognitive awareness is being
  conscious of one mental processes literally to
  think about ones thinking
• Effective comprehension strategies are those used
  in preparing, organizing, elaboration,
  rehearsing, and monitoring (metacognition)
• Affective comprehension strategies are motivation
  and interest and the role they play in the
  construction of meaning.

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Instruction

• Comprehension strategy instruction should make
  use of the students own textbooks or trade books
• The teacher should
• describe the strategy,
• model it.
• Provide teacher-guided practice with it, and
• provide cooperative and independent practice
  opportunities.
• About one-fifth of each period should be spent on
  explicit strategy instruction, with rest spent on
  reading, responding to, analyzing, and discussing
  materials

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Comprehension Strategies
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Interaction of Reader, Reading Situation, and Text
During Reading Strategies and Activities
Prereading Strategies and Activities
Post Reading Strategies and Activities
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Prereading Strategies

• Activate prior knowledge
• Previews
• Predicting
• Anticipation guides
• Purpose questions
• Semantic mapping
• Writing before reading

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Semantic Mapping

• A graphic organizer that uses lines and circles
  to organize information according to categories
• Steps
• 1 - Announce the topic and invite brainstorming
  responses
• 2 Group and label responses
• 3 Discuss and revise the map
• 4 Use the map as a reference as they read,
  revising and adding as needed

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Semantic Map for Egypt
People
Pharaoh
Mummy
Egypt
Things
Places
Papyrus
Cataract
Rosetta Stone
Pyramids
Nile River
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During Reading Strategies

• Metacognitive strategies
• Does it makes since?
• Who or what am I reading about
• What is the most important thing about who or
  what?
• Guiding questions
• Close procedure

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Cloze Procedure

• Steps
• 1) instruct the learners to read and supply the
  words to fill in the blanks
• 2) have the learners write down the words they
  use
• 3) In partners, discuss the word choices they
  have made
• 4) encourage the learners to read the text again
  silently, using the appropriate words

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Example
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Innovative Cloze Task

• Follow these steps to make the cloze task more
  fun and interesting
• Give each group of students a different page of
  the book
• Make into a cloze passage with space left for an
  illustration
• Assemble them to create a class-made version of
  the book
• Write the names of all the authors and provide
  other book cover information

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Using PowerPoint

• Mountains affect the local climate in a region.
  They change the movement of air masses. Mountains
  also affect patterns of precipitation. The cloud
  shows air being forced up over a mountain. As the
  rising air cools, water vapor in the air
  condenses to form clouds.

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Postreading Strategies

• Postreading strategies help students integrate
  new information into existing schemata and allow
  students to elaborate upon learning that has
  taken place.
• Questions
• Visual representations
• Retelling
• Application

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Frayer Model

• The Frayer model is a four square graphic
  organizer that prompts students to analyze the
  concept (definition and characteristics) and
  synthesize/apply knowledge by thinking of
  example and non-examples
• Steps
• 1 provide a definition
• 2 list characteristics
• 3 provide examples and non-examples

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Example of a Frayer Model
Definition The way of life in which individuals
and groups react with their environment
Characteristics is shared is learned is based
on symbols is integrated
Culture
Non-Examples Genetics Race Heredity
Examples Customs Beliefs Art Technology
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THIEVES Strategy

• Expository Text Taught Explicitly
• T Title
• H Headings
• I Introduction
• E Every first and last sentence in a paragraph
• V Visuals and Vocabulary
• E End-of-Chapter questions
• S Summary

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Questions?

• Some books are to be tasted, others to be
  swallowed, and some few to be chewed and
  digested that is, some books are to be read only
  in parts, others to be read, but not curiously,
  and some few to be read wholly, and with
  diligence and attention. Francis Bacon