Duke's video on comprehension strategies

The video of Professor Duke’s comprehension instruction illustrates clear ideas on strategies that can help all readers.  To better understand the process, observations of good readers are described.

Professor Duke’s research shows that good readers talk aloud, read aloud, and are extremely active when reading. In other words, they make meaning as they go; they make connections to their own experience; ask questions; and preview the reading by looking at the text structure. Based on these findings, strategies can be taught to struggling readers to implement good reading behaviors.

Although teaching one strategy will help improve comprehension, having multiple strategies is even better. Students need to be able to choose a strategy or multiple strategies that will help them in different situations.

Accessing prior knowledge and building knowledge are very important for teachers to build upon to help students with comprehension. Students need to be exposed to many books, rich experiences, world knowledge, and hands on experiences to build knowledge in subject matters.

Improving students’ vocabulary is essential to improving comprehension. A dictionary can and should be used to help students understand vocabulary that is necessary to understand reading materials. Students should be taught how to break down words by identifying prefixes, suffixes, and compound words; look at context clues; re-read for meaning; re-read around words; look for author’s clues or message; stop and think; and ask for help. It is also beneficial to students if there are many opportunities to practice comprehension by listening to teacher read alouds. This will provide students with a model of fluent reading and opportunities for using strategies to comprehend. Students will then be able to use short-term memory to comprehend instead of decoding words.

Teachers should teach and model for students the awareness of text structures such as complex plot twist, graphics in informational text (charts, graphs, and tables), the significance of bold and italic print, or captions under a picture. This can be extremely helpful in subjects like science where print structures can give clues to students to determine what is important information. Teachers should also provoke good discussions by asking many open ended questions that require students to make inferences and connections, encourage writing, and motivate students with authentic activities.

Teachers can use these strategies to help students improve comprehension. Although it is probably best to coach one to one, it might not be possible with a large class. However, students need to learn to be aware of when they comprehend and what they can do when they do not comprehend.

The idea from this video that was most relevant to me for teaching comprehension was the rereading. I think it is very important for struggling and emergent readers to learn through repetition. In fact, I used that idea for my writing project with a struggling ELL student. I had the student reread a lower level book once a day for five days. I also had him answer one question everyday pertaining to the story. By the end of the last reading, there was an improvement in his reading and comprehension. His reading was not exactly as he would speak, but it was more fluent; he sounded less robotic during his last reading than his first. This revealed to me that he is developing automaticity with decoding. If he continues to reread the same book or uses this method with another book, the decoding and the comprehension will improve.

QRI-5 vs Dibels

Using the Dibels System on the palm pilot was very interesting and at the same time frustrating to use. Because the device was unfamiliar to me, I found it confusing at first. When I finally understood how to use it, I realized how much time it would save me as a teacher.  With a touch of a screen, I can access many different evaluation materials that can be administered and assessed quickly. Data can be stored and charted to evaluate student progress in minutes. This eliminates all paper work that can be cumbersome and inconvenient to keep.  

When comparing the QRI-5 to Dibels, the most obvious difference is the grade levels each system targets. The QRI-5 provides assessment materials for students in grades K-12, while Dibels targets students from K-6. Dibels also has stringent rules on timing for each assessment; one minute. The goal of this timed assessment is to achieve automaticity and fluency in early literacy skills critical for reading comprehension.  The QRI-5 also has timed assessments but it is not used on all grade levels.

The QRI-5 and Dibels both offer a number of investigating options that serve a collection of choices. They can be used to identify reading levels and match students to suitable text, verify a suspected reading problem, determine strength and needs of a student, and recommend paths for interventions. Even though the QRI-5 and Dibels are designed to identify students having difficulty in achieving basic literacy skills, Dibels assesses more in-depth issues pertaining to phonemic awareness, alphabetic principle, accuracy and fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. The measures that encompass Dibels are Initial Sounds Fluency (ISF), Letter Naming Fluency (LNF), Phoneme Segmentation Fluency (PSF), Nonsense Word Fluency (NWF), Oral Reading Fluency (ORF), Retell Fluency (RTF), and Word Use Fluency (WUF).  The QRI-5 encompasses word lists, concept questions (accessing prior knowledge), miscue analysis, retelling, and comprehension questions. Although examiners using the QRI-5 will notice phonemic awareness when a student reads the word list, there is not a specific evaluation for that concept.

It is my opinion that Dibels’ assessments are broader in terms of evaluating student difficulties with basic early literacy skills.

Ovservation - QRI-5

At my last observation, I conducted the QRI-5 Assessment and it did not go as well as I had hoped.
The student did not want to cooperate with me. The student is reading at the primer level although he is in the first grade. He did not do well on the reading list, prior knowledge, or comprehension. The teacher and I was very surprised because we know he can read most of the words on the Primer level list. We feel that it was a bad day for him since he said he was tired and did not want to read. I think it is best if I conduct the assessment again this week to get a more accurate analysis of his ability.

Observation update

Here is the interview I conducted for my observation with the cooperating teacher.

• Please describe your ELL teaching experience. My ELL teaching experience includes having ELL students in my class when I was a first and fourth grade teacher. As a reading teacher, I have had ELL students in my reading groups and as Reading Recovery students. 

• What is your perception on ELLs in terms of their learning motivation and performance(especially in reading and writing)? 

ELL students are very motivated to learn. They listen and absorb all that is taught to them each day. In terms of writing, they may have difficulty putting their ideas into clearly written sentences. At times the structure of their sentences may not be clear. I have found that my reading students benefit from rich book introductions, that review new vocabulary that may be unknown to them.

What learning difficulties do ELLs usually encounter in schools? ELL students may be lower in reading and writing than their peers due to the fact that they are learning the language as well as learning to read and write.

What is the role of family and community in helping ELLs’learning? I think it is very important for family and community to be involved in any student’s learning. It is important for them to review and reinforce at home what the student has been taught in school.

• In your opinion, how do classroom teachers resolve ELLs’ learning difficulties? I believe that classroom teachers need to differentiate instruction based on the needs of the student. 

What strategies do you adopt? Students may need to work in small groups to complete assignments or may need reteaching of concepts that may be difficult for them. They may need to have a conversation to generate ideas for writing and they will benefit from rich book introductions to review vocabulary that may be unknown. 

Are they effective or not? Yes, these strategies are effective.

Do you participate in on-going professional training for teaching ELLs? I have not participated in specific training for teaching ELL students. I do participate in other professional development to enrich my teaching. 

What is your experience in terms of working students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds? I have had students from different cultural and linguistic backgrounds in my classes during my teaching career including students from Denmark, Sweden , and many students from Spanish speaking countries. 

How do you make sure that your teaching is culturally responsive? I think it is important to include each child’s background into your teaching and to have students share this information with you and the class.

How do you go about reaching out to the family and the community? I have always written newsletters to keep my parents informed of what is happening in my classroom. I have an open line of communication with parents and keep them informed of their child’s progress throughout the year. As a Reading Recovery teacher, I invite the parents in to observe me teaching a lesson to their child.

• If you have an ELL in your class whose culture you are not familiar with at all, how do you go about teaching the child?
I think it is important for a teacher to learn about a child’s background from the child, their family or from other resources. 

COCA

The COCA assessment system is an effective tool to measure student informational comprehension to first and second graders who show signs of poor comprehension. Unlike the QRI-5, COCA does not use word list to define comprehension or reading passages in the traditional way. Using an unconventional method of no words on a page, COCA assesses four different dimensions of informational comprehension through the use of vocabulary knowledge (V), the use of comprehension strategy (CS), comprehension of graphics in the context of text (GCT), and knowledge of informational text features (TF). Questions and prompts are used to assess each of the four dimensions. Students are required to answer some questions by providing a missing word in a sentence or provide an answer based on what was heard. Graphics or pictures on a page assist students with a required answer. Scoring for this assessments range from 0 – 2. If a child scores several 0’s on questions assessing informational text features (TF) such as table of contents, index, glossary, labels, or pronunciation guides, the teacher can provide additional instruction for that student. If a student scores lower than a 1 on several questions pertaining to vocabulary words used in informational text, such as examine, observe, and kinds, instruction can be given to improve students comprehension in that area. With each dimension, a teacher can provide instruction to improve a student’s skills or knowledge in that area.

Since many students have a more difficult time with comprehending informational text, COCA addresses these issues by concentrating on assessing the skills and strategies needed to improve comprehension. Although these assessments are not determining student level of reading, it does reveal certain kinds of thought processes needed for good comprehension. If COCA were used in conjunction with the QRI-5, it would be most beneficial to students who read but struggle with comprehension. In the future, I hope there is more documentation revealing the improvement of informational comprehension using COCA. It is a system I would like to learn to help struggling students.

Reflection on Christopher Myers

Before this video clip, I have never heard of children's author, Christopher Myers. What a positive role model he is to students! He has a powerful message to students: Being different is cool! He uses his own oddities to transfer to students that being different is great and that is what makes you special. When students hear this from someone who has accomplished so much, it brings positive feelings about themselves. He also has a great message for students who do not like to read because it is difficult for them. His advice: keep reading! Every time you read you will get better and better. Many students need to hear and understand this when they are struggling with anything, especially reading. So often students reach a level of frustration that causes them to shut down. This can be avoided if students are reminded that it's alright not to know that word or words; keep trying, it will get better. This is something that I will say to the ELL student that I will be working with. Positive reinforcement will encourage him to continue to read and not give up even when he is frustrated with himself.

Observation Update

Great news!!!
As of yesterday, I finally have placement for this class! I will observe an ELL student with a reading teacher at Clayton Huey Elementary School. I will meet the teacher on Tuesday and will ask the interview questions. I will also get the background information I need on the student.