III. Strategies
a. Teaching Narrative in Secondary English
Comprehension, according to the RAND Reading Group (1999) is “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language.” It consists of three elements: the reader, the text, and the activity or purpose of reading. [i]
Meanwhile, reading comprehension strategies are, according to Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris (2008) “deliberate goal-directed attempts to control and modify the reader’s effort to decode text, understand words and construct meaning of text.” The authors distinguish between skills and strategies by noting that “skill is associated with the proficiency of a complex tact, and strategy is associated with a conscious and systematic plan.”[ii] So how much scaffolding should teachers use to help with comprehension? As much as students need. According to Jim Burke, English instructors should to the following—among other strategies--to support learners’ comprehension:
Jim Burke suggests that students do the following to increase comprehension:
A popular mental framework for scaffolding reading instruction is called before-during-after (BDA).
B- Before (Pre-Reading)
D- During (Reading & Rereading)
A - After (Post Reading)
A review of research on teaching students to comprehending narrative texts (SRA Read to Achieve and others) supports the following practices:
In the next section, we introduce a high leveraged strategy, the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity, or DR-TA.
[i] http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1465.html
[ii]http://northfieldtownshipschools.pbworks.com/f/Difference+between+reading+skills+and+strategies.pdf
[iii] http://www.englishcompanion.com/pdfDocs/BurkeHOutsFullWorkshop.pdf
Comprehension, according to the RAND Reading Group (1999) is “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language.” It consists of three elements: the reader, the text, and the activity or purpose of reading. [i]
Meanwhile, reading comprehension strategies are, according to Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris (2008) “deliberate goal-directed attempts to control and modify the reader’s effort to decode text, understand words and construct meaning of text.” The authors distinguish between skills and strategies by noting that “skill is associated with the proficiency of a complex tact, and strategy is associated with a conscious and systematic plan.”[ii] So how much scaffolding should teachers use to help with comprehension? As much as students need. According to Jim Burke, English instructors should to the following—among other strategies--to support learners’ comprehension:
- Provide direct, explicit comprehension instruction in which strategies to use, when to use them, and how to use them with a variety of types of text. Such strategies include summarizing, making inferences, evaluating importance, and visualizing.
- Embed effective instructional principles in the content so that students learn how to read, write, and think in ways specific to that subject area.
- Provide access to background knowledge––cultural literacy, vocabulary, personal experience––before, during, and after students read and write about a subject.
Jim Burke suggests that students do the following to increase comprehension:
- Make connections between what students are reading and have read, between the text and their own experiences and knowledge of the world.
- Generate questions before, during, and after students read a text. Such questions might be personal (make connections), strategic (evaluating importance), or practical (following directions).
- Establish a clear, compelling purpose for their reading or writing that allows students to evaluate the importance of information and monitor their progress toward that goal.
- Engage in cognitive collaboration before, during, and after working with a text. Students may have assigned roles or be preparing to bring to the group their understanding. Students collaborate to make sense of a range of challenging texts and to convey that understanding.[iii]
A popular mental framework for scaffolding reading instruction is called before-during-after (BDA).
B- Before (Pre-Reading)
D- During (Reading & Rereading)
A - After (Post Reading)
- I-Search Paper
- Jigsaw
- Recall/Retell
- Somebody-Wanted-But-So (SWBS)
- It Says – I Say Chart
- Index Card Activity
- Written Reflection
- Whip Around: Up & Down, Poll Method, Answer or Pass
A review of research on teaching students to comprehending narrative texts (SRA Read to Achieve and others) supports the following practices:
- Explicit direct instruction (Donovan, 2002; Marchand-Martella & Martella, 2009; NIFL, 2007; Biancarosa and Snow,2004; Kirschner, Sweller, and Clark, 2006; Haynes, 2007; Torgesen et al., 2007)
- Vocabulary strategies (Graves & Fink, 2007; Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2003; Vaughn & Bos, 2009)
- Identifying the story structure (Duffy, 2003; Gersten & Baker; Lapp, Flood, Brock, & Fisher, 2007)
- Reciprocal teaching (Johnson-Glenberg, 2000; Lederer, 2000; Palincsar & Herrenkohl, 2002)
In the next section, we introduce a high leveraged strategy, the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity, or DR-TA.
[i] http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1465.html
[ii]http://northfieldtownshipschools.pbworks.com/f/Difference+between+reading+skills+and+strategies.pdf
[iii] http://www.englishcompanion.com/pdfDocs/BurkeHOutsFullWorkshop.pdf