Research provides evidence for the ways comprehension is embedded into daily literacy lessons. Firstly, a supportive classroom context to promote comprehension must be developed. Duke and Pearson (2002, pp. 207-208) recommend teachers: Show
Multiple copies of literary texts promote opportunities for students to talk about texts with each other. Opportunities for teaching comprehension occur throughout the curriculum. Early learners engage in “very much the same comprehension processes as do their older counterparts” (van den Brock, Kindeou, Kremer, Lynch, Butler, White and Pugzles Lorch, 2005). Therefore, the strategies that are taught in the early years of education should be practised, consolidated and expanded on throughout a student’s schooling. Depending on the researcher or author, there are a range of strategies recommended to assist comprehension (For example see:
The main strategies that are generally viewed as supporting comprehension are:
Many commercial products provide large amounts of blackline photocopy material for the various comprehension strategies. Other products provide a sequence of cards/levels that students progress through by reading and answering questions. Using the materials in this way unfortunately does not actually teach comprehension. It is important for teachers to provide explicit instruction in comprehension strategies . For more information, see: Explicit teaching: high impact teaching strategies Then allow time for their students to practise them, in small groups, when reading independently, through writing and in discussion-based groups. For more information, see:
A brief discussion of the identified comprehension strategies follows below. Activating and using prior knowledge to make connectionsPrior knowledge is unique to each reader. It is the sum of all experiences and knowledge they bring to the reading or viewing of a text. These experiences and knowledge may include:
EAL/D students are likely to have differing prior knowledge and experience to their English first language classmates.
A reader/viewer has opportunities to activate their prior knowledge and make connections before reading:
During the reading:
After the reading:
PredictingPrediction is about anticipation. “Skilled readers learn to expect the actions, events and ideas that are coming up in the text” (Davis, 2015, p. 51). A reader/viewer has opportunities to predict before reading:
An EAL/D reader/viewer may need support to develop the cultural and textual knowledge they need to successfully make predictions. They may also need support to understand how predictions aid comprehension and how to make informed predictions:
During the reading:
After the reading:
For more information, see: Prediction term in the VCAA English Glossary VisualisingVisualising is drawing on prior knowledge and the five senses to create a mental image of what is being read. Research indicates that comprehension is enhanced if readers can create mental images because “a visual display helps readers understand, organize, and remember some of those thousand words” (Duke and Pearson, 2002, p. 218). Readers draw on their senses to imagine:
By putting together all of these sensory details along with any prior knowledge, a reader can create a vivid mental picture. Successful readers describe the strategy of visualisation as “having a movie going on in your mind while you read” (Davis, 2015, p. 61). Supporting EAL/D learners to visualiseEAL/D students can be better supported to see, hear and visualise the content through multimodal texts. Breaking down a text allows EAL/D students time to process and visualise each sentence. They look at a picture based on a paragraph of text and associate each sentence in the paragraph with a component of the picture. Alternatively, they draw their own images and symbols to relate to the text. Readers/viewers can also draw on aural stimulus such as music to describe emotions and connect these to colours (Ollerhead, 2019). Asking and answering questionsSkilled readers constantly ask and answer questions of themselves as they read. They ask questions to wonder, justify, clarify, inquire and understand. They answer their questions by drawing on their metacognition; that is searching for and selecting thinking strategies to help them answer the questions they have posed. A reader/viewer has opportunities to ask and answer questions before reading:
During the reading:
After the reading:
EAL/D students may ask questions that are different from those of students who speak English as their first language. After the reading, EAL/D students may use question and answer stems to clarify any unfamiliar cultural or social contexts:
For more information, see:
SummarisingSummarising means recalling the main points or ideas. A reader must first learn to sequence a text, retell a text using the language of the text, then put it into their own words (paraphrase) and finally select the most important ideas to sum up what the author has told them. In order to summarise successfully a reader must be able to:
Readers must learn to separate the topic sentence or main idea from the supporting details. For more information, see: Guided reading lesson: Summarising Supporting EAL/D learners to summariseEAL/D students might be unfamiliar with the practice of summarising and will need to learn explicitly the importance of summarising and the strategies to summarise a text. With support EAL/D learners can:
If students use home language in paraphrasing, whether oral or written, they are converting the information into new language forms. If students are literate in their home language using this to paraphrase can be a strategic way to support content learning. Support staff such as Multicultural Education Aides may be able to verify the accuracy of the information. SynthesisingSynthesising is a higher order skill than summarising. A reader who successfully synthesises content is able to “summarize the information, listen to their inner voice, and merge their thinking so that the information is meaningful to them. They connect the new to the known, they ask questions, they pick out the most important information” (Harvey and Goudvis, 2007, p. 180). The process of synthesising changes and adds to a reader’s thinking. It occurs during and after reading. Sometimes new knowledge can affirm what a reader already knows about a topic and the information is integrated into their existing knowledge. Conversely, new knowledge can also challenge what readers already think and provide alternate options. “We synthesize when we think about what we have finished reading, bringing in additional concepts, beliefs, emotions, and texts that affect our understanding” (Keene and Zimmermann, 2007, p. 229). Supporting EAL/D learners to synthesiseWhen synthesising new knowledge about languages, EAL/D students may be combining knowledge about more than one language. Strategies to actively support this type of knowledge transfer about language and synthesis include:
Critical thinkingCritical thinking requires the reader/viewer to recognise that all texts are ‘crafted objects’ and are positioned by the author (Freebody and Luke, 1990; Luke and Freebody, 1999). “Text critics do more than read for truth and accuracy; they explore the intention of a text and how the text works on them or makes them feel (Hill, 2015, p. 200). When a reader is reading/viewing a text critically they ask:
Critical reading and viewing can be scaffolded for EAL/D students by breaking questions into more concrete components. For example;
ReferencesAnderson, N. (2008). Reading. New York: McGraw-Hill. de Jong, E. J., & Freeman Field, R. (2010). Bilingual Approaches. In C. Leung & A. Creese (Eds.), English as an Additional Language: Approaches to teaching linguistic minority students (pp. 108–121). London: Sage. García, O., Flores, N., & Woodley, H. H. (2012). Transgressing Monolingual and Bilingual Dualities: Translanguaging Pedagogies. In A. Yiakometti (Ed.), Rethinking Education, Volume 5: Harnessing Linguistic Variation to Improve Education. Oxford: Peter Lang AG. http://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107415324.004 Nation, P. (2009). Teaching ESL/EFL reading and writing. New York: Routledge. Ollerhead, S. (2019) Teaching across semiotic modes with multilingual learners: translanguaging in an Australian classroom, Language and Education, 33(2), 106-122, http://doi.org/10.1080/09500782.2018.1516780 Skilton-Sylvester, E. (2003). Legal Discourse and Decisions, Teacher Policymaking and the Multilingual Classroom: Constraining and Supporting Khmer/English Biliteracy in the United States. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 6(3–4), 168–184. http://doi.org/10.1080/13670050308667779 Vogel, S., Ascenzi-Moreno, L., and García, O. (2018). An expanded view of translanguaging: leveraging the dynamic interactions between a young multilingual writer and machine translation software. In Choi, J. and Ollerhead, S. (eds) Plurililingualism in Teaching and Learning. New York: Routledge, pp. 89-106. Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. See Guided Reading Sample Lesson: The merry-go-round-thinking critically about text What are the 6 comprehension strategies?What Are the Top Six Reading Comprehension Strategies?. Making Connections. Also called activating prior knowledge or schema, this strategy focuses on teaching students to make connections between a text and their own experiences and understandings. ... . Predicting. ... . Questioning. ... . Monitoring Comprehension. ... . Visualizing. ... . Summarizing.. What are the main comprehension strategies?The main strategies that are generally viewed as supporting comprehension are:. Activating and using prior knowledge to make connections.. Predicting.. Visualising.. Asking and answering questions.. Summarising.. Synthesising.. Critical thinking.. What are the 7 main comprehension strategies?To improve students' reading comprehension, teachers should introduce the seven cognitive strategies of effective readers: activating, inferring, monitoring-clarifying, questioning, searching-selecting, summarizing, and visualizing-organizing.
What are 6 strategies to optimize your reading?6 Strategies to Improve Reading Comprehension. Have them read aloud. ... . Provide books at the right level. ... . Reread to build fluency. ... . Talk to the teacher. ... . Supplement their class reading. ... . Talk about what they're reading.. |