Chapter 4

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Chapter 4

Comprehending Content Area Text

Content Area Reading:

Teaching and Learning

for College and Career Readiness

Second Edition

Maureen McLaughlin

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What Do We Know about Reading Comprehension?

Comprehension as a social constructivist process

Constructivists believe that students construct knowledge by linking what they already know to new information.

Multiple literacies as comprehension

These literacies are distinctive in nature, yet similar in that one of the outcomes of each is comprehension.

Reading as a thinking process

Durkin defined reading as comprehension, indicating that the focus of instruction should be the strategies readers use in order to make sense of text.

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What Do We Know about Reading Comprehension?

A quality context is an integral part of meaningful literacy instruction.

Context has been viewed as a broad concept that encompasses instructional settings, resources, approaches, and tasks.

The instructional settings include teacher beliefs, literacy environment, classroom organization, classroom interaction, and grouping patterns.

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What Do We Know about Reading Comprehension?

Duke suggests that we expand our understanding of context and view curriculum, activity, classroom environment, teaching, discussion, text and society as context.

Researchers and practitioners agree that both teaching and learning are greatly influenced by the contextual choices we make.

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What Do We Know about Reading Comprehension?

Influential teachers affect students’ learning.

Researchers and professional organizations report that teachers are the single most influential factor in students’ learning.

International Reading Association, 2000; Ruddell, 2004

Good readers are engaged, strategic learners.

They describe good readers as active participants in the reading process, who have clear goals and constantly monitor the relation between the goals they have set and the text they are reading.

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Figure 4.1
Characteristics of Influential Reading Teachers

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Figure 4.2
Characteristics of Good Readers

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How Can We Teach Students to Think through the Comprehension of Text?

To help our students think through the

comprehension process, we can teach

them reading comprehension strategies.

We use multiple comprehension strategies when we read.

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How Can We Teach Students to Think through the Comprehension of Text?

We can teach students a repertoire of reading comprehension strategies to use, as needed, when thinking through text.

Reading comprehension thinking strategies include:

Previewing Visualizing

Making Connections Summarizing

Monitoring/Clarifying Evaluating

Self-Questioning

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What Can We Do to Foster Students’ Comprehension of Content Area Text?

Motivate our students

Read aloud to the students, provide opportunities to view short videos, or share an array of related photos

Offer opportunities for self-selection of related readings or project topics

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What Can We Do to Foster Students’ Comprehension of Content Area Text?

Encourage our students to:

continue to expand their prior knowledge.
deepen their understanding of how language works.
enhance their understanding of everyday and academic vocabularies.
read, write, and discuss.
develop and use a repertoire of comprehension strategies.

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How Can We Use Comprehension Strategies to Engage Thinking?

Previewing

Teach reading comprehension strategy applications that involve PREVIEWING and MAKING CONNECTIONS:

activating prior knowledge (What do I already know about this topic?)

setting purposes for reading (Why am I reading this text?)

predicting/inferring (Based on what I know and what I have read, what do I think will happen in this text?)

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Reading Comprehension Strategy Applications to Engage Students’ Thinking

Previewing:

Anticipation/Reaction Guide Prereading Plan (PreP)

Semantic Map Bio-Impression

Making Connections:

Connection Stems Coding the Text

Save the Last Word for Me Sketching Connections

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Anticipation/Reaction Guide

Students use Anticipation/Reaction Guides to preview text and to monitor thinking while reading.

The Anticipation/Reaction Guide consists of several statements related to the text.

Before reading, students indicate whether they agree or disagree with each statement and share their responses through class discussion.

After reading, students revisit the statements and decide whether their thinking has changed.

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Figure 4.3
Biology Anticipation/Reaction Guide

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Semantic Map

Students use the Semantic Map to activate prior knowledge, introduce content specific vocabulary, and organize information about a topic.

When teaching students how to use the Semantic Map, we choose a focus word, engage students in brainstorming, and create and complete a graphic organizer that features categories and subcategories.

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Figure 4.4
Semantic Map:
Geometry—Types of Triangles

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Prereading Plan (PreP)

Students use PreP to activate prior knowledge about a topic, learn new vocabulary, and make connections.

When teaching students how to use PreP, we provide a cue word or idea and invite the students to brainstorm related words or concepts.

We record all ideas and then ask the students why they suggested particular words.

Next, we read a text and revise the original list as necessary.

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Figure 4.5
Excerpt from PreP
about Climate Change

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Bio-Impressions

Students use Bio-Impressions before reading to predict what information the text will contain.

To create Bio-Impressions, we choose a person and structure a list of clues about his life connected by downward arrows.

Then we encourage pairs of students to use the clues in sequential order, as they write their Bio-Impressions—what they predict the content of the biography will be.

When students finish writing their Bio-Impressions, they share them with another pair of students.

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Figure 4.6
Bio-Impression about Lincoln (Part 1)

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Figure 4.6
Bio-Impression about Lincoln (Part 2)

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How Can We Use Comprehension Strategies to Engage Thinking?

Making Connections

A reading comprehension strategy in which students activate prior knowledge and make a variety of connections or associations to the text they are reading.

When reading, they make three different kinds of connections: text-self, text-text, and text-world (connections to others).

Connection Stems

Save the Last Word for Me

Coding the Text

Sketch and Label Connections

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Connection Stems

Students use Connection Stems to make connections or associations between the texts they are reading and themselves, other texts, and the world (others).

Connection Stems provide a structure to encourage students to make connections while reading and to encourage students to reflect on their reading.

Connection Stem samples:

That reminds me of … I remember when …

I have a connection … I felt like that person when…

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Figure 4.7
Connection Stems Completed in History, Trigonometry, and Physical Education

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Save the Last Word for Me

Students use Save the Last Word for Me to make connections to the text, evaluate information in the text, and provide a structure for discussion of the text.

Students select a quote, fact, or idea from the text and record it and the page number on which it is located on the front side of an index card.

On the back of the card, they explain why they chose the information and what connections they can made.

After reading, each member of the group comments on the quote or idea. The student who wrote that card speaks last and shares the thoughts she has recorded on the back of the card.

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Figure 4.8
Save the Last Word for Me: DNA

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Coding the Text

Students use Coding the Text to actively engage in reading by making connections.

During reading, students use small Post-it notes to indicate the points in the text where they are able to make text-self, text-text, and text-world connections. They use a code for each type of connection: T-S, T-T, and T-W and include a few words to describe each connection.

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Figure 4.9
Coding the Text in Biology Class

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Sketch and Label Connections

Students use Sketch and Label Connections to activate their knowledge and make a variety of connections or associations to the text they are reading.

Students use simple lines and shapes to represent their connections. Then they label them and share them with a partner.

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Figure 4.10
Sketching Connections:
“The Road Not Taken”

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Final Thoughts

When we engage students’ thinking, we motivate them to make connections between what they already know and what they are learning.

Activating background knowledge and setting purposes for reading are essential components of comprehension.

Making connections between background knowledge and what we are learning supports our belief that reading is a constructivist process.

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Chapter Summary

Teaching students to comprehend text in the disciplines was the focus of this chapter. Particular emphasis was placed on:

Analyzing reading comprehension as a constructivist process

Engaging students to think through texts

Strategies for engaging students’ thinking, which includes activating background knowledge and setting purposes for reading