Levels of Comprehension Skills
RICA Content Specifications (3 Levels):
1. Literal Comprehension Skills:
2. Inferential Comprehension Skills:
3. Evaluative Comprehension Skills:
Comprehension Strategies
RICA Content Specifications (3 Levels):
1. Literal Comprehension Skills:
- Infer Main Idea
- Identify important details and sequence of events in a story
- Identify cause/effect relationships
2. Inferential Comprehension Skills:
- (Same as Literal Comprehension skills, but all through inference instead)
3. Evaluative Comprehension Skills:
- Knowing author's bias and propaganda
- Distinguish between fact and opinion
Comprehension Strategies
- Self-Monitoring: Evaluate reading and understand if text is too hard
- Re-Reading: If text is too hard, ask for help or look up meanings
- Summarizing: Identify main idea and important elements of a story
- Note-Taking and Outlining: Organizing information
- Mapping: Order events in a story (usually chronologically)
- Learning Logs: Record thoughts and ideas
Assessment of Reading Comprehension
Determine Reading Levels
Use IRI to:
Assess Comprehension at each level: Literal, Inferential, Evaluative
Using Question-Answer Relationships (QAR): Teaches reading comprehension:
Using Retellings to Assess the Literal Comprehension of Young Readers
Two types of retellings:
1) Unaided Retelling: No guidance given
2) Aided Recall: Ask additional questions to see what the student has picked up
ex) Student gives only information about one character, you might ask, "What other characters are in the book?"
Determine Reading Levels
Use IRI to:
- Get percentage of words child reads correctly
- Get percentage of correct comprehension questions answered
Assess Comprehension at each level: Literal, Inferential, Evaluative
Using Question-Answer Relationships (QAR): Teaches reading comprehension:
- Right There: Literal comprehension (Ex) What school does Auggie go to in Wonder?)
- Think and Search: Literal comprehension but occurs at different parts of the story. (Ex) Name two people that befriend Auggie in the story, Wonder.)
- Author and You: Inferential and evaluative skills used. (Ex) Which character showed the most emotional growth over the course of the book, Wonder?)
- On My Own: Evaluative comprehension skills; the book is not needed. (Ex) A lot of students faced peer pressure to treat Auggie terribly because he was different. What types of peer pressure do students in our school face?)
Using Retellings to Assess the Literal Comprehension of Young Readers
Two types of retellings:
1) Unaided Retelling: No guidance given
2) Aided Recall: Ask additional questions to see what the student has picked up
ex) Student gives only information about one character, you might ask, "What other characters are in the book?"
Assessment of Reading Comprehension Strategies
To clarify understanding, RICA recommends self-monitoring, re-reading, and summarizing. These are difficult to assess as they are internal, however, there are assessments you can do:
Oral Think-Aloud
Done individually and teacher has student stop when text is difficult to student and at the end of each paragraph or page (ask the student to summarize at this point). These can be scaled based on how the student self-monitors.
Written Assessment of Reading Comprehension Strategies
Students write down notes, questions, etc. while reading. A learning log can be a good way to gauge oral think-aloud process by having students write their thoughts.
To clarify understanding, RICA recommends self-monitoring, re-reading, and summarizing. These are difficult to assess as they are internal, however, there are assessments you can do:
Oral Think-Aloud
Done individually and teacher has student stop when text is difficult to student and at the end of each paragraph or page (ask the student to summarize at this point). These can be scaled based on how the student self-monitors.
Written Assessment of Reading Comprehension Strategies
Students write down notes, questions, etc. while reading. A learning log can be a good way to gauge oral think-aloud process by having students write their thoughts.
How to Teach Reading Comprehension
1. The Context of Comprehension Lessons
2. Before Children Read
3. Strategy Instruction Using Reciprocal Teaching
Based on generating questions, summarizing, clarifying and predicting what will happen. It follows a lot of what Professor Samson mentioned in the "I do, We do, You do" strategies.
4. Skills Instruction Through Question Clarification and Answer Verification: Using QARs
Simply, students need to be taught to differentiate between literal questions and those that require inferential/evaluative ones. Students need to look at the question and know whether to look in the text for an answer or not.
5. Story Structure: Using Story Maps, Story Grammars, and Story Frames
Students who understand story structures are able to store information more efficiently and recall details with greater accuracy. The following tools are used to aid in building story structure:
Story Maps:
Represents stories visually. Can range from brain storms to spiderwebs (See Figure A below)
Story Grammars:
An outline that lists: Setting, Problem (Which can be separated into more events), and a resolution.
Story Frames:
Students simply fill in the blanks (See Figure B below)
1. The Context of Comprehension Lessons
- Should be planned and implemented for a small group of children
- Children in the group should be at the same reading level
- Balance between having word identification mastery and challenging reading content.
- Children will move groups; individualized attention when necessary
2. Before Children Read
- Activate Background Knowledge through KWL (What you know, what you want to know, and what they have learned)
- Activate Background Knowledge through PreP (Structured discussion).
- Make associations with topic (Tell me what you think about people who are different than you).
- Reflect on those associations (What made you think of that about people who are different from you?)
- Organize those associations (Do you have different ideas about people who are different from you?)
- Teach difficult words in the selection they will be reading
3. Strategy Instruction Using Reciprocal Teaching
Based on generating questions, summarizing, clarifying and predicting what will happen. It follows a lot of what Professor Samson mentioned in the "I do, We do, You do" strategies.
- Reciprocal Teaching Process:
- Defines strategy and how to use it
- Student models strategy using think aloud
- After strategy is defined and modeled, teacher and a small group of students practice the strategy
- Students do strategies on their own with guided practice through the teacher.
- Students work independently on the strategy.
4. Skills Instruction Through Question Clarification and Answer Verification: Using QARs
Simply, students need to be taught to differentiate between literal questions and those that require inferential/evaluative ones. Students need to look at the question and know whether to look in the text for an answer or not.
5. Story Structure: Using Story Maps, Story Grammars, and Story Frames
Students who understand story structures are able to store information more efficiently and recall details with greater accuracy. The following tools are used to aid in building story structure:
Story Maps:
Represents stories visually. Can range from brain storms to spiderwebs (See Figure A below)
Story Grammars:
An outline that lists: Setting, Problem (Which can be separated into more events), and a resolution.
Story Frames:
Students simply fill in the blanks (See Figure B below)
Fluency
Fluent readers read at an appropriate pace with appropriate expressions. People who lack fluency have poor word identification skills, inability to see divisions in text (commas, periods, etc.).
Assessing fluency requires a recording device or an application available to students via tablets or personal computers. Ways for students to improve fluency include:
Fluent readers read at an appropriate pace with appropriate expressions. People who lack fluency have poor word identification skills, inability to see divisions in text (commas, periods, etc.).
Assessing fluency requires a recording device or an application available to students via tablets or personal computers. Ways for students to improve fluency include:
- Repeated reading: Rereading a passage and check for time improvement
- Assisted Reading: Read with teacher
- Choral Reading: Reading aloud with two or more people, maybe entire class
- Reader's theater: Acting out a story
25. A teacher who wants to increase the amount of time students spend reading independently has many possible instructional interventions to consider. If a teacher considers the possibilities and decides to administer an informal reading inventory (IRI), what is the rationale behind this choice?
a. An IRI has a high degree of validity because the inventory will include a battery of tests, each allowing the teacher to view reading development from a different perspective.
b. In order to help children select books that are written at a level they can easily understand, it will be necessary to determine each child's independent reading level.
c. Research shows that the amount of time any child spends reading independently depends on many factors.
d. Student independent reading plays a critical role in promoting students' familiarity with language patterns.
26. Mr. Nakamura has been using guided reading with a group of five of his students. The lessons always seem to go badly. The students in this group do not seem to understand what is going on in the stories they read. This could be because:
a. He should be doing guided reading with the entire class, using an instructional aide to assist his less able readers.
b. He neglected to include a writing assignment with each guided reading lesson; for example, writing personal responses to stories in journals.
c. The five students have three different instructional reading levels.
d. He has failed to teach students how to summarize what they have read.
27. Mr. Edge would like his third graders to develop a sense of story structure. He thinks this will help them better understand the stories they read. He should:
a. Use story frames and, when students are ready, story grammars and story maps.
b. Teach his students that not all stories begin with "Once upon a time."
c. Use guided reading lessons that focus on how different students can have different perspectives of the same event in the story.
d. Use a combination of environmental print, the shared book experience, and reading aloud.
28. Jake is a fifth grade student. He is not a fluent reader. He reads very slowly, especially when he reads in his social studies textbook. To help him, his teacher is teaching him the meanings of difficult words he will encounter in each chapter of the social science textbook. What else could Jake's teacher do?
a. Improve Jake's reading self-image by giving him tangible rewards for positive behaviors.
b. Use paired reading: have Jake read aloud with a more competent peer who will read at a rate that is slightly faster than Jake's.
c. Have Jake read more orally, he needs more practice.
d. Place Jake in a group with other readers having difficulty with the grade-level social science book; then have them use a social studies book at the third- or fourth-grade level.
a. An IRI has a high degree of validity because the inventory will include a battery of tests, each allowing the teacher to view reading development from a different perspective.
b. In order to help children select books that are written at a level they can easily understand, it will be necessary to determine each child's independent reading level.
c. Research shows that the amount of time any child spends reading independently depends on many factors.
d. Student independent reading plays a critical role in promoting students' familiarity with language patterns.
26. Mr. Nakamura has been using guided reading with a group of five of his students. The lessons always seem to go badly. The students in this group do not seem to understand what is going on in the stories they read. This could be because:
a. He should be doing guided reading with the entire class, using an instructional aide to assist his less able readers.
b. He neglected to include a writing assignment with each guided reading lesson; for example, writing personal responses to stories in journals.
c. The five students have three different instructional reading levels.
d. He has failed to teach students how to summarize what they have read.
27. Mr. Edge would like his third graders to develop a sense of story structure. He thinks this will help them better understand the stories they read. He should:
a. Use story frames and, when students are ready, story grammars and story maps.
b. Teach his students that not all stories begin with "Once upon a time."
c. Use guided reading lessons that focus on how different students can have different perspectives of the same event in the story.
d. Use a combination of environmental print, the shared book experience, and reading aloud.
28. Jake is a fifth grade student. He is not a fluent reader. He reads very slowly, especially when he reads in his social studies textbook. To help him, his teacher is teaching him the meanings of difficult words he will encounter in each chapter of the social science textbook. What else could Jake's teacher do?
a. Improve Jake's reading self-image by giving him tangible rewards for positive behaviors.
b. Use paired reading: have Jake read aloud with a more competent peer who will read at a rate that is slightly faster than Jake's.
c. Have Jake read more orally, he needs more practice.
d. Place Jake in a group with other readers having difficulty with the grade-level social science book; then have them use a social studies book at the third- or fourth-grade level.