Teaching Comprehension: Referents, Dialogue, and Inference

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Teaching Comprehension Referents, Dialogue, and
Inference

• EDC424
• Dr. Terry Deeney

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Why do we care about inferring?

• What is comprehension?
• Extracting and Constructing
• Creating a mental representation
• causal/logical relationships

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What Do the Common Core Standards Say?
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Key Ideas and Details

• 1. Read closely to determine what the text says
  explicitly and to make logical inferences from
  it cite specific textual evidence when writing
  or speaking to support conclusions drawn from the
  text.
• 2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text
  and analyze their development summarize the key
  supporting details and ideas.
• 3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and
  ideas develop and interact over the course of a
  text.

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Craft and Structure

• 4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used
  in a text, including determining technical,
  connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze
  how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
• 5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how
  specific sentences, paragraphs, and larger
  portions of the text (e.g., a section, chapter,
  scene, or stanza) relate to each other and the
  whole.
• 6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the
  content and style of a text.

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Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

• 7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in
  diverse media and formats, including visually and
  quantitatively, as well as in words.
• 8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and
  specific claims in a text, including the validity
  of the reasoning as well as the relevance and
  sufficiency of the evidence.
• 9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar
  themes or topics in order to build knowledge or
  to compare the approaches the authors take.

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Inferring A Skill or Strategy?

• Strategies
• Conscious activity to achieve desired goal
• Not automatic
• Can, with practice, become skills

• Skills
• Automatic
• Effortless
• Used without conscious control

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What kind of inferences?

• Drawing text and background knowledge together
  Basic
• Reggie began to tell a ghost story
• Once there was this ghost and he lived in a
  haunted house only he did most of the haunting
  himself. This house was empty except for this
  ghost because nobody wanted to go near this
  house, they were so afraid of this ghost. And
  every night this ghost would walk around this
  house and make all kinds of clunky, creeky
  sounds. Aroomp! Aroomp!
• How does Ira feel right now?
• Author Reggie is telling Ira a ghost story in
  bed at nighttime.
• Student BK Ghost stories are scary dark can be
  scary.

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• Drawing text and background knowledge together
  More difficult
• Stellaluna quickly clambered from the nest and
  hung out of sight below it. She listened to the
  babble of the three birds.
• What was that? cried Flip.
• I dont know, but its hanging by its feet,
  chirped Flitter.
• How do the birds feel about this thing they found
  hanging by its feet?
• - Author emphasizes that, hanging by its
  feet.
• - Student BK italics means stress, in this case
  something is odd birds do not hang by their
  feet birds would not know what was hanging by
  its feet birds and bats have different habits.

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Inferences based on two parts of the text Basic

• Hello, said Verdi. Do you want to climb trees
  with me?
• Im tired, Dozier growled. Go do a few laps
  around the jungle Okay?
• Are the Greens going to climb trees with Verdi?
• - Text 1 Verdi asks Greens to play
• - Text 2 Dozier tells Verdi that he is tired
• - Text 3 Dozier tells Verdi to do laps

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• Inferences based on two parts of the text More
  complex
• And now that you have been here a few weeks,
  Im going to leave you in charge for a few days
  while I go over the mountain to get the rest of
  my equipment. Now sit down and listen carefully
  while I explain how to run everything.
• How will things go for Big Anthony when Strega
  Amelia is away?
• - Beginning of story Big Anthony does not pay
  attention.
• - Current Strega Amelia tells Anthony to listen
  to what
• she has to say. Anthony will be in charge
  while Strega
• Amelia is away.

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• What do referents and dialogue have to do with
  inferring?
• Its hard to infer when you dont know who is
  talking or what they are talking about.

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• Thats weird, said Annie. I dont hear any
  birds.
• She was right. The grove was strangely silent.
• Dont worry about it, said Jack. Maybe
  theyre all at the beach.
• What does Annie think is weird?
• Why is that weird?
• Who is at the beach?
• Mary Pope Osborne (1998). Vacation Under the
  Volcano. New York Scholastic, p. 15-16.

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• I never raised my hand to answer a question,
  but when Miss Stickley called on me, I had to say
  something. My English wasnt perfect yet, so
  Elizabeth always giggled at whatever I said.
  Miss Stickley would stare at her, and then shed
  shut up.
• What does Elizabeth think of the narrators
  English?
• How does Mrs. Stickley react to the narrators
• situation?
• .

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Anaphoric Relations

• Associations between words where one word or
  group of words is used in place of another word
  or group of words.
• Antecedent or referent/substitution
• Example
• We just got a new puppy. That ball of energy is
  taking over our lives.

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Good primary literature authors try to clarify
referents

• Toad read a long story to his seeds.
• All the next day Toad sang songs to his seeds.
  
• And all the next day Toad read poems to his
  seeds.
• And all the next day Toad played music to his
  seeds.
• Toad looked at the ground. The seeds still did
  not start to grow.

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But referents are hard to avoid

• Drat! said Toad.
• My seeds have not
• started to grow.
• They must be afraid of the dark.
• Toad went out to his garden
• with some candles.
• I will read the seeds a story,
• said Toad.
• Then they will not be afraid.
• Lobel, A. (1971), The Garden. In Frog and
  Toad Together. New York Harper Collins, p. 24.

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And may be more challenging in expository text

• Some trees have long thin leaves that look like
  needles. (Picture of evergreen trees in summer)
• Pine trees and fir trees have needles like this.
  (Picture of pine branches/needles)
• These trees stay green all year long.
• (Picture of evergreens in winter)
• How do students know that
• trees that stay green all year long are the same
  trees as what they saw before?
• trees that stay green are pine and fur trees?
• trees that stay green have needles?

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Dialogue

• The speaker within a text is not always clearly
  marked (e.g. said John)
• Sometimes its hard to figure out who is talking
  when more than one speaker is involved in
  conversation if the text is not clearly marked.

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Dialogue is more clearly marked in primary
literature

• Toad knocked at the door.
• Hello, said Frog.
• Look at my list
• of things to do,
• said Toad.

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But not perfectly

• Toad said, My list tells me
• that we will go for a walk.
• All right, said Frog.
• I am ready.
• Who is ready? How do you know?

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And we might not know how the dialogue relates to
actions

• Strega Nona, Strega Nona, Bambalona and Big
  Anthony called, out of breath.
• What is it, my children? Strega Nona asked.
• Youll never guess. Read this! Bambalona
  handed Strega Nona a handbill.
• What does being out of breath have to do with
  handing her a handbill?
• .

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Stop and Think

• Besides marking the speaker with words like
  said, cried, etc., how does a text help identify
  the speaker?

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Teaching Referents, Dialogue, and Inferring
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A Good Reader

• Knows many strategies
• Activating prior knowledge
• Setting purpose
• Questioning
• Predicting
• Summarizing
• Visualizing
• Clarifying
• Inferring
• Making connections
• Integrating information
• Using graphics
• Using context
• Adjusting rate

• Knows how and when to use strategies
• Internalizes these cognitive processes
• Activating
• Focusing
• Selecting
• Organizing
• Integrating
• applying
• Becomes independent

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Strategy Knowledge

• Declarative knowledge
• Knowing that there are strategies
• Knowing what strategies are available
• Procedural knowledge
• Knowing how to use strategies
• Conditional knowledge
• Knowing when to use strategies

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Implicit vs. Explicit Instruction

• Implicit instruction
• Telling students they should be using the
  strategy without telling them what, how, why,
  when
• Does that make sense? How does a student
• Know what makes sense means
• Know whether the text makes sense
• Know what to do if it doesnt make sense

• Explicit instruction
• Explaining
• Modeling
• Gradual Release

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Teaching What

• Explain
• Tell students what the strategy is
• Tell students why/how it is helpful

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Teaching How

• Model
• Use the strategy yourself, making your thinking
  apparent (think out loud)
• Provide guided practice
• Give students a chance to use the strategy with
  your help
• Provide gradual release of responsibility
• Provide independent practice
• Give students a chance to use the strategy on
  their own

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Teaching When

• Explain when the strategy is helpful
• Provide opportunities to think about when during
  guided practice
• Scaffold students identification of strategy
  need as they read

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Clarifying for Ourselves An Example

• Teaching students to clarify referents

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Explain

• I want to talk to you about some words that we
  see a lot in texts that we read I, you, he, she,
  we, me, him, her, us, it, they, them.
• Did you ever stop to think about what the words I
  just wrote mean? Lets take out the ones we can
  tell easily what they mean. (I, you, me, us)
• Now lets look at the other ones. Who is he? What
  does they mean? Well, it depends.
• Sometimes when were reading a book, we come
  across these kinds of words (point) and we might
  not know what these words mean. They kind of
  disguise who or what the book is talking about.

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• These words are called pronouns, but I call them
  disguising words because they are talking about
  someone or something else, but they dont say
  exactly who or what.
• When we see a disguising word in our reading, we
  know that the word is talking about something or
  someone else. Its a word that stands for
  something else. So we need to know what that
  something or someone else is.
• Like this from our story, The Snowy Day
• After breakfast he put on his snowsuit and ran
  outside.

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• He is this story is Peter, and his is Peters.
• We knew that because the story is mostly all
  about Peter, so who else could he be?
• But what if the story had lots of people and lots
  of things? Maybe we wouldnt be so sure.
• Im going to show you how I might figure out what
  one of our disguising words is talking about.

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Model

• Toad baked some cookies.
• These cookies smell very good, said Toad.
• He ate one.
• And they taste even better, he said.

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• Im going to make sure I know what my disguising
  words mean.
• I know that Toad is the only character in the
  story so far. I know that Toad baked the cookies.
  So when the text says, He ate one, I know its
  Toad. But just to be sure, Im going to trade
  he for Toad and see if that makes sense.

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Guided Practice
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Teaching students to clarify dialogue
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Teaching students to infer
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Explain

• Sometimes when we read were supposed to figure
  things out that are tricky. Authors sometimes
  give us clues and we need to think about how the
  clues go together we need to learn something
  thats not said exactly.
• Sometimes we are asked questions that we need to
  think about based on what we read. The answer
  isnt exactly given in the text, but we can use
  what the text says to figure it out.
• When we think about what the text is telling us,
  but not telling us in exact words, we are
  inferring.

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Model

• The guards started toward them. Annie whipped
  her flashlight out of the pack.
• Ta-da! she yelled.
• The guards froze. They stared at the shiny
  flashlight in her hand.
• Annie switched the light on. The guards gasped
  in fear. They jumped back against the wall.
• Squinty dropped the torch. It fell into a dirty
  puddle on the floor, sputtered, and went out.
• My magic wand! Annie said, waving the
  flashlight. Get down or Ill wipe you out !
• Jacks mouth dropped open.
• Annie fiercely pointed her light at one, then
  the other. Each howled and covered his face.

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• Wow. The guards are really afraid of Annies
  flashlight. Im wondering why would they be
  afraid of a flashlight?
• The text doesnt tell me why, exactly. So I need
  to think about what the book has told me already.
• - It told me that the castle was lit by torches.
• - It said that the knights used torches to see
  in the dark.
• I know what a torch is its a long stick with a
  flame, like a big candle, that you can use like a
  light.
• So I think that back in the days of the knights,
  they must have used torches for lights.

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• Now Im going to use this information that I know
  to figure out what I dont know.
• - Torches lit up castles, and knights used
  torches to see their way.
• - Annie had a flashlight.
• - The knights were afraid of the flashlight.
• My guess is that back in the days of the knights,
  they only had torches, not electric lights or
  flashlights.
• They probably had never seen a flashlight before!
  Thats why they were afraid!
• I made an inference about why the knights were so
  frightened. I could figure it out even though
  Mary Pope Osborne didnt tell me right out.

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Provide for Guided Practice

• Lets look at this sentence in this text for a
  minute
• The more weight you lift, the bigger your muscles
  get.
• Thats telling us something directly, right? We
  know that the more weight we lift, the bigger our
  muscles will get. But how about if I ask you
  this question
• Bob and Susans muscles were the same size in
  November. Now Bobs muscles are smaller than
  Susans muscles. What does this tell us about
  Bobs weightlifting?

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Provide for Independent Practice

• Now I want you to try it on your own. Here are
  some passages in our latest Jack and Annie book.
• On the left side I put what the book says. On
  the right side, you need to write what that tells
  you.

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• The text says
• Whats wrong with her, Jack wondered. Usually
  Im the worried one.

• This tells me

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