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Can we Afford to Ignore the Science of Reading?

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Can we Afford to Ignore the Science of Reading?

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Can we Afford to Ignore the Science of Reading? | Melissa Hostetter | TEDxUofISpringfield

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The Science of Reading: The Basics and Beyond - The Science of Learning Blog

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What should educators and parents know about the science of reading? Here is a basic summary, plus two important beyond-basic facts to inform educators' choices of reading programs.

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Teacher question Shanahan's response: : I keep hearing that teachers don't know the science of reading. But all the teachers that I talk to say that they teach phonics. What's really going on?
I suspect that both the critics and the teachers are telling you the truth.

Unfortunately, we don't have a national education inspectorate that monitors classroom trends in the U.S. We all guess what may be happening based on our own narrow experiences. That means you could visit classrooms in your community, and I could in mine, and we might see very different patterns of teaching

But there is more to it than that kind of variation.

However, before we go there, we need to clarify one important point: The "science of reading" includes more than phonics and phonological awareness.

Phonics is certainly an important part of the science of reading, but it's not the whole thing.

Any real "science of reading" would include all the methods or approaches that have been found, through research, to give kids a learning advantage in reading.

That means oral reading fluency instruction should be part of the science of reading. And, vocabulary and morphology teaching, too. There are also a number of instructional approaches that have been found to boost reading comprehension by teaching thinking strategies or enhancing written language performance (e.g., cohesion, sentence combining/reducing). And, guiding kids to write about text is scientific, as well.

Any science of reading would concern itself with the amount of reading instruction provided and there are quality factors that need to be included. For instance, kids learn more when teachers provide clear purposes for the lessons, when there is plenty of interaction among teachers and students, and when teachers explain themselves clearly. Those are just examples, of course; there is even more.

But, with that said, back to your original question.

A reason for the seeming discrepancies in what you're hearing about teaching has to do with the lack of precision in how we talk about these things. What is phonics instruction and what is a sufficient amount of phonics teaching? How many minutes a day do your teachers teach phonics?

Most primary teachers when asked if they teach phonics are, in my experience, likely to say, "Yes." However, when I visit some of those classrooms, what they mean by phonics is pretty pale and thin; often no more than marking up a worksheet. Bloodless teaching not likely to help kids to figure out the decoding system.

When teaching the simple sound-symbol correspondences, teachers should make sure the kids can hear those sounds and distinguish them from other sounds; they should make sure kids can recognize these letters within words; they should make sure the kids can sound out unknown words or even nonsense words using those correspondences; and they should be able to read and write words with those elements, too.

Showing kids a spelling pattern and its pronunciation is a necessary step, but it's not sufficient, if the goal is enabling kids to read and spell. Phonics teaching should provide opportunities to decode and spell words, to sort words, to recognize misspellings, and to gain proficiency in using all this information.

Although the numbers of phonics skills to be taught is usually pretty limited, the amount of phonics instruction kids should be receiving is considerable. Experts usually recommend 20-30 minutes or so of daily phonics instruction in grades K-2 (in other words, about 200 hours of such teaching). That means there is a need for thoroughness and depth; we want mastery, not familiarization.

The teacher who I mentioned earlier, the one who may be doing no more than having kids mark up the daily phonics worksheet, can honestly say she is "teaching phonics," since those lessons are being dispensed.

But she, if probed, may also honestly admit that she knows nothing of the science of reading (in this case, the nature of the orthographic-phonemic aspects of the English language and the research on effective decoding instruction).

She may even complain, again quite rightly, that she received inadequate preparation at her local university. Her reading class was instructed by someone who thought guessing the words based on the pictures or on context were good ways of reading words (they are not; good readers don't do it that way), or perhaps they had a philosophy that scorned the value of explicit phonics instruction, despite the research.

And, the parents?

Those who see their children guessing words and struggling to read, grumble about the injustice of it all. They want more phonics. And, the reading community is as frustrated with those parents as the parents are with them.

Many reading professors simply can't understand why these moms and dads demand phonics so vociferously when there are other aspects of reading science that are important.

The parents can't understand why their kids' teachers don't know how to teach decoding and providing terrific classroom libraries and free time to read really don't help those kids who simply can't read the words. (And, telling them to look at the pictures and guess borders on cruelty).

Now multiply this through the entire system. What I just described about phonics may be true in Mrs. Jones' first-grade class, but not in Mrs. Smith's down the hall. It might describe phonics instruction in one school, while in others it is the fluency, or vocabulary, or comprehension instruction that is so strenuously grounded in an ignorance of the knowledge of a science of reading.
See comments here >
We need a substantial commitment to all those things found to benefit kids learning - not just to the ones we may like best.

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What Is the Science of Reading? | Reading Rockets

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Teacher question: I keep hearing that teachers don't know the science of reading. But all the teachers that I talk to say that they teach phonics. What's really going on? Shanahan's response: I suspect that both the critics and the teachers are telling you the truth.

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Using the Science of Reading Without Starting a War

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Using the Science of Reading Without Starting a War

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February 2020 | Volume 77 | Number 5
Rooted in Reading Pages 16-22

Benjamin Riley

Something remarkable is happening throughout the U.S. education system. Educators at all levels, from university faculty to early childhood-education teachers, are clamoring to learn more about the science of reading.

As the founder of Deans for Impact, a nonprofit that has long championed the need for teachers to understand learning science, I find this new wave of interest something to celebrate. From a scientific perspective, we know a great deal about how children learn to read. Yet, for too long, we haven't done enough to ensure that new teachers-in particular, teachers of children from ages 0-8-are familiar with this science as they start their careers.

Veteran educators reading this essay may be feeling skeptical about my optimism-and with good reason. After all, it wasn't long ago that the U.S. education system was engaged in what many refer to as the "Reading Wars." Those so-called wars pitted advocates for explicit phonics instruction against "whole language" partisans. The fighting was fierce. Both sides claimed to have science on their side, and neither won an outright victory. Advocates for phonics-based instruction took comfort in the authoritative findings of the National Reading Panel in the year 2000, which affirmed the importance of developing phonological awareness in young readers. For their part, whole-language supporters largely shifted to supporting "balanced literacy," which, to summarize briefly, ostensibly blends phonics and other reading-skills instruction with time for children to read complete texts. (Whether teachers who use balanced literacy actually keep these components in balance is the subject of ongoing debate that I won't explore in this essay.)

After some pitched battles in the early 2000s, things seemed to settle into an uneasy truce among reading experts. But perhaps lost in the fog of the first Reading Wars was an important question: Were (and are) teachers actually using evidence-informed approaches to help students learn to read? Empirical evidence suggests the answer is, sadly, no (Kretlow & Helf, 2013). And over the past two years, driven in part by hard-hitting reporting by American Public Media's Emily Hanford (2018), the education community has been forced to confront the question: If there's a science related to learning to read, why aren't all teachers employing that science in their practice? And if they aren't, who bears responsibility for changing that reality?

Or, as master educator Yoda might ask, "Begun again, the Reading Wars have?"

In what follows, I'll explain why I think the answer is no, and why I believe the recent surge of interest in the science of reading is poised to take deeper root in K-12 education practice. At the same time, I'll offer some strategic advice to advocates for applying findings from reading science to how we teach kids to read-advice that may help limit the potential for backlash that may arise again as this movement grows.

The Science of Reading: A Quick Summary

Reading is an unnatural act.

There is an enormous amount of complexity buried in that sentence, complexity that ties into issues that strike at the core of public education, so I'm going to spend a little time unpacking what it means. As I do, bear in mind that this is meant to be an (embarrassingly) quick summary of reading science.

There are certain things we learn "naturally," that is, as the result of millions of years of human evolution. The most obvious example is understanding spoken language. Absent cognitive or hearing impairment, virtually all human children will learn what words mean simply by being around and listening to other humans.

Reading is another matter entirely. Anthropological records suggest the oldest use of a written alphabet emerged approximately 6,000-8,000 years ago -a mere blip on an evolutionary timescale (McCarter, 1974). This is why it's not accurate to call reading, and the process by which we learn to read, "natural." It's a modern human innovation-arguably the most powerful in our species' history.

But the cost of that innovation is high in terms of brainwork. As cognitive scientist Daniel Willingham (2009) has observed, although humans are naturally curious, we aren't naturally good thinkers. In fact, because thinking is hard work, our minds are wired to avoid thinking. Readers of Daniel Kahneman's 2011 book Thinking Fast and Slow should be nodding along here. Put simply, learning to read imposes significant cognitive burdens-and at an age when cognition is only beginning to take form.

Now for some joyous news: Virtually all children can learn to read through formal education (again, absent some cognitive or physical impairment). What's more, the process by which humans learn to read has been well-researched, to the point that we can describe our knowledge of this process as a science. Here are just a few reading-science principles that aren't in dispute among English-language literacy experts:

Children can learn to understand how written letters relate to sounds-to decode text-through explicit phonics instruction (Castles, Rastle, & Nation, 2018). They should receive explicit instruction that teaches the sounds that letters and combinations of letters represent, and the relationships of spelling patterns and pronunciations. Teachers need to be explicit in such instructing; this isn't the place for being a "guide on the side."

The key factor in helping young children transition from decoding text to becoming fluent readers is lots of reading practice with varied texts (Stanovich & West, 1989). Teachers should make books and other texts readily available in different parts of the classroom. But "independent reading" shouldn't supplant direct reading instruction.

Explicit strategies designed to improve reading comprehension cannot, on their own, compensate for lack of vocabulary or content knowledge on a particular subject (Willingham, 2009). It's fine for teachers to teach a few comprehension strategies (like making predictions) to students, but they shouldn't overdo it.

These principles and others related to fostering early literacy are summarized in "The Science of Early Learning," a guide that Deans for Impact published in early 2019. This document explores the practical implications of these principles for teaching children to read.

So if the basic principles of the science of reading are well-established, why do some think we're at risk of a second Reading War? Probably because both sides tend to dig in. In an insightful op-ed for the Washington Post in 2018, Rachael Gabriel of the University of Connecticut commented on the tribal-like behavior of both advocates of phonics and advocates of whole-language approaches:

Like different denominations of a single religion, different approaches to reading instruction often have significant assumptions in common, but some core disagreements that each believes is the fatal flaw of the other and the reason to dismiss it completely. Distrust and misinformation on both sides perpetuates dramatic pendulum swings back and forth between contrasting approaches. These rob educators of the continuity needed to master and innovate in any direction and eliminate the possibility of meaningful integration of ideas.

Like the polarization infecting American politics currently, polarization around reading science threatens to undermine reasoned deliberation and uptake. But there's reason for optimism.

Bringing Reading Science into Teaching

If elementary teachers aren't using reading science to the degree we might hope, whose fault is that? For many, blame lies with teacher-preparation programs. Some critics have gone so far as to suggest that university faculty are the education equivalent of climate-change deniers and guilty of malpractice for failing to teach the science of reading (Walsh, 2019).

Not only is this rhetoric unhelpful-if you're trying to persuade people to change their behavior, it's rarely effective to insult them-it's belied by the fact that many programs that prepare teachers are already working hard to integrate the science of reading into their courses and clinical training.

For example, over the past year, teams of teacher educators from five diverse schools of education in North Carolina have been exploring how to integrate reading-science principles into the coursework and practical training they provide to their teacher candidates. With the support of Deans for Impact, this effort-called the NC Early Learning & Literacy Impact Coalition-is focused on ensuring that future teachers understand how to teach young children to recognize and write the letters of the alphabet, and to explicitly and systematically connect letters and sounds.

Faculty at these programs use a "learning cycle diagnostic" to assess how they introduce the principles of reading science to their teacher candidates, and what sort of activities teacher candidates should engage in to understand how these principles can inform effective teaching. For example, do teacher candidates have the opportunity to observe teacher educators modeling effective pedagogy using principles of reading science? And to rehearse their own teaching using these same principles prior to instructing young children?

The result of that inquiry revealed some interesting challenges. Most of these five programs studied reported that a majority of their teacher candidates (60-80 percent) had chances to think about and draw on reading science principles as part of their training by reading research and lesson planning. But when it came to employing these principles through practice-based training, the programs provided few such opportunities to their teacher candidates. In fact, 50-60 percent of these pre-service teachers received no practical training that was explicitly tied to principles of reading science.

To be sure, this is self-reported data, but that's my point: A group of educator-preparation programs have voluntarily joined together to figure out how to integrate reading science into the preparation process. What's more, participating programs are now starting to align coursework for both pre-kindergarten and early elementary grades using the principles identified in "The Science of Early Learning"; developing curriculum maps to see whether and how principles of reading science are explained to teacher candidates; and working with cooperating mentor teachers to ensure they too are familiar with key principles. While a great deal of hard work lies ahead for this coalition, its very existence is evidence that, with the right support and motivation, change is possible.

A Nuanced Approach

So what will it take to drive change across the broader education system? What strategies should advocates for the science of reading use to foster uptake of its principles?

One way to drive systemic change is through policy. The renewed interest in incorporating reading science into teaching has caught the attention of lawmakers across the United States. States as diverse as Alabama, Arkansas, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Mississippi have recently passed laws to promote reading science, largely through teacher-licensure exams that have beefed up questions related to phonics and other evidence-supported practices.

I'm encouraged by this development, but caution is warranted. As an education advocate for more than a decade, time and again I've seen well-intentioned education policy be translated into questionable (at best) education practice. Put simply, passing laws that demand change is not enough. There needs to be a meaningful plan in place to support improvement to drive real behavior change.

Indeed, it's worth ruminating briefly on why many educators resist teaching phonics explicitly. My hunch is that many educators have been asked to teach phonics "explicitly" without learning the empirically supported theories that explain why phonological awareness is essential to developing literacy. What's more, teaching is an applied science; understanding the science of reading does not in and of itself lead to effective pedagogy. I strongly suspect that some teachers are hostile to phonics because phonics-based instruction, when done poorly, can be mind-numbing for students to sit through. Teachers who've seen this happen are (rightfully) concerned.

To again quote Rachael Gabriel's piece in the Washington Post:

Poor instruction, jumbled instruction, and unbalanced instruction do not occur because of Balanced Literacy, schools of education, or the vestiges of a whole-language movement. Poor, jumbled, and unbalanced instruction is just as likely to exist in settings where explicit, systematic phonics instruction is mandated in schools and teacher preparation programs. (2018)

So how can we advance understanding of the science of reading and support teachers to use effective, thoughtful pedagogical practices that draw from that science? Here are three principles of advocacy that I hope reading science enthusiasts will employ going forward:

Be nuanced. Yes, there is a strong scientific consensus that supports the use of phonics in the early stages of learning to read. But it is equally true, scientifically, that "reading comprehension clearly entails more than identification of individual words: Children are not literate if they cannot understand text" (Castles et al., 2018). Learning to read is a progression from decoding text to fluent reading to deeper inference and comprehension. In advocating for reading science, we should recognize this nuanced progression rather than fall into the trap of stridently demanding (on its own) "more explicit phonics instruction."

Remember, science should inform-not dictate-practice. Broadly, the science of reading offers insights from a cognitive perspective into how we develop as readers-that is, how our minds make sense of written symbols. But, to quote Willingham (2017), "seeking to make a reader out of a child who does not read is an educational goal, not a scientific one." Scientific insights should inform education practice by adding to a teacher's "mental model" of how their students make meaning of text. That still leaves a great deal of space for educators to decide which pedagogical techniques they'll use to help students learn to read.

Focus on encouraging instead of shaming. For the past five years, Deans for Impact has worked closely with more than 50 educator-preparation programs across the country that want to improve teacher preparation, including the programs in North Carolina that are focusing on reading science. While the programs that choose to work with us may be a minority now, they are growing in number. Fostering that growth will be greatly enhanced by celebrating the fact that many programs are taking on the hard work of changing how they prepare teachers, with learning science at the center. It's time to move past stereotypical critiques and the strategy of shame, and instead offer support and encouragement to those who are helping to grow this movement.

Scientific ideas, no matter their usefulness, don't spread of their own accord. Let's work together to foster the science of reading while also striving, in Tolstoy-esque fashion, to go from war to peace.

References

Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19, 5-51.

Deans for Impact. (2019). The science of early learning. Austin, TX: Deans for Impact.

Gabriel, R., & Strauss, V. (2018, September 25). The straw man in the new round of the reading wars. Washington Post.

Hanford, E. (2018, September 10). Hard words: Why aren't our kids being taught to read? American Public Media.

Kretlow, A., & Helf, S. (2013). Teacher implementation of evidence-based practices in Tier 1: A national survey. Teacher Education and Special Education, 36(3), 167-185.

McCarter, P. K. (1974). The early diffusion of the alphabet. The Biblical Archaeologist, 37(3), 54.

Stanovich, K. E., & West, R. F. (1989). Exposure to print and orthographic processing. Reading Research Quarterly, 24, 402-433.

Walsh, K. (July 2019). Case closed. [Blog post] NCTQ. Retrieved from https://nctq.org/blog/Case-closed

Willingham, D. T. (2009). Why don't students like school? San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Willingham, D. T. (2017). The reading mind: A cognitive approach to understanding how the mind reads. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Benjamin Riley is founder and executive director of Deans for Impact. Follow him on Twitter.

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Drawing on Reading Science Without Starting a War

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February 2020 | Volume 77 | Number 5 Rooted in Reading Pages 16-22 Benjamin Riley Something remarkable is happening throughout the U.S. education system. Educators at all levels, from university faculty to early childhood-education teachers, are clamoring to learn more about the science of reading.

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Do you ever feel like there just aren't enough hours in the day to get done all that you need to accomplish with your students?

Creating a schedule that maximizes time and has sacred periods for instruction, free of interruptions, can be such a challenge.

This was one of my biggest stressors in the classroom.

There were two different blocks of time during my day in which I refused to budge, these were my non-negotiables in the classroom:

1 - Read Aloud Time

The gift of time to read aloud with my students will forever be time I cherished the most with them. The opportunity to fall in love with characters, feel an emotional pull with a story, and to connect with each other through the shared experience of a book is priceless to me. My favorite days were the days we just couldn't bear to tear ourselves away from the story for even a moment, so I would read aloud as we waited outside of the lunch room or the specials class. Again, maximizing every minute.

2 - Literacy Block

We know this time is so critical for our students, but it could feel so frustrating at times. There was so much to accomplish during this time and each year I tried to find new and more effective ways to squeeze every minute out of that block.

It became easier once I adopted a Structured Literacy approach. The scheduling nightmare seemed to become a little more manageable. Since Structured Literacy lessons consist of specific activities, it was easier to figure out how to fit these into a schedule that met the needs of my readers every day.

Over the years, I worked with various reading/phonics programs. They all had one thing in common; my kids' levels were all over the place.

While I am a fierce advocate for differentiated instruction, sometimes this went too far.
The result was I felt like I spent my time running from student to student to check in on their sorting or word work, but rarely had time to give them explicit instruction before I had to move onto the next student. This left my kids with gaps and holes in their decoding/encoding skills.

I want to share with you a method that differentiates for varied needs through small group instruction but also has an opportunity for whole group or universal instruction. This is a saving grace.

By introducing your whole class to one concept, one phonogram, and syllable type at a time, you can keep your instruction systematic and cumulative.

Then, within this common concept you can differentiate instruction to meet the needs of each small group.

Step One -Begin with a whole group mini-lesson.

This allows you the opportunity to introduce the target syllable type and phonogram to the class. Together, you can review the target syllable type and phonogram through brainstorming words, making anchor charts, and possibly looking at a text that highlights these targets.

By focusing on one common target, you can devote more time to really digging into this syllable type and phonogram rather than feeling scattered and trying to teach to multiple phonograms.

Step Two - Break into small group instruction.

Through ability grouping, you can easily differentiate a lesson to meet your students' different needs.

In order to make this work, you can use centers or independent work to set up workshop stations easily.

Students can use games and workbook pages to review concepts and cement learning that took place during their small group instruction. These same activities can be used with classroom volunteers.

Step Three - Give yourself some grace.

While the literacy block often feels like a blur, know that you are delivering valuable, amazing instruction for your students! It's a sacred time and one that will make all of the difference in the world for your students!

I have tried a million different schedules, workshop models, center rotations, and small group instruction plans over the years and feel your pain! You're not alone and you can do this!

How To Schedule Your Literacy Block -

We put together this >>>Suggested Schedule<<< that we hope can be the answer to all of your scheduling woes. It aligns perfectly with a Structured Literacy approach which is perfect for reaching the needs of your struggling readers, grade-level readers, and advanced readers.

The schedules were designed to help make delivering instruction to a whole group on a universal level while differentiating for targeted small groups easier.

The idea is that each component of the literacy lesson is numbered. We found this method helpful in putting together varied activities/targets that are necessary to get massive results for struggling readers + it broke up our lessons into manageable chunks.
This is a GAME CHANGER when you only have 20 minutes with a small group!
Suggested Small Group Plan

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How to Organize Your Structured Literacy Block | SMARTER Intervention

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Do you ever feel like there just aren't enough hours in the day to get done all that you need to accomplish with your students? Creating a schedule that maximizes time and has sacred periods for instruction, free of interruptions, can be such a challenge.

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retrieved from: http://snippetsbysarah.blogspot.com/2018/08/structured-literacy.html?m=1

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Structured literacy graphic

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For a downloadable PDF click here. Summer 2016
By Carolyn D. Cowen

IDA infographics help make complex information easy to digest, remember, and share and are made for a wide audience-those new to dyslexia and related literacy/learning issues as well as the experts. Please share our infographics as well as our Fact Sheets to raise awareness about dyslexia and to help support the policy and practice changes needed to bring effective instruction (particularly in reading) to every child with dyslexia in every classroom across the nation.
Author's Note: You may need to zoom in to read small text.
Carolyn D. Cowen, Ed.M., is the Social Media Editor/Strategist for the International Dyslexia Association's Examiner. She also serves on the Board of Trustees for the Newgrange School, Ann Robinowitz Education Center, and Laurel School and on the Board of Directors for the Research Institute for Learning and Development. Carolyn is especially interested in creative ways nonprofits and movements can "power the mission with the message." Follow her on Twitter .

More infographics!

Good News! Most Reading Difficulties Can Be Resolved or Greatly Diminished (April 2016)

How Widespread Is Dyslexia? (February 2016)
Copyright © 2016 International Dyslexia Association (IDA). We encourage sharing of Examiner articles. If portions are cited, please make appropriate reference. Articles may not be reprinted for the purpose of resale. Permission to republish this article is available from info@interdys.org.

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What Is Structured Literacy? - International Dyslexia Association

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Explicit teaching in structured literacy

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Explicit teaching in structured literacy

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Explicit Teaching in Structured Literacy

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https://www.teachingchannel.com/blog/word-of-the-day

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. What is the class's daily routine for learning the word of the day?

2. Why does Ms. Noonan have students "sit like a scholar" and wait before she says the word of the day?

3. How does the "Grab Bag Quiz" help with classroom management as students move back to their desks?

School Details

Think College Now School
2825 International Boulevard
Oakland CA 94601

Data Provided By:

Teachers

English Language Arts Math Social Studies / 5 / Teacher

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Madeline Noonan shows us two ways she manages transitions. We see her "Word of the Day" routine and her "Grab Bag Quiz." Both of these help to manage her class and add instructional time as students transition from one activity or location to another.

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ELA.L.11-12.4b

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

L: Language Standards 6-12

11-12: 11th & 12th Grades

4b:
Determine or clarify the meaning of unknown and multiple-meaning words and
phrases based on grades 11-12 reading and content, choosing flexibly from a
range of strategies.

a. Use context (e.g., the overall meaning of a sentence, paragraph, or text; a
wordâ\x80\x99s position or function in a sentence) as a clue to the meaning of a word
or phrase.

b. Identify and correctly use patterns of word changes that indicate different
meanings or parts of speech (e.g., conceive, conception, conceivable).

c. Consult general and specialized reference materials (e.g., dictionaries,
glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation
of a word or determine or clarify its precise meaning, its part of speech, its
etymology, or its standard usage.

d. Verify the preliminary determination of the meaning of a word or phrase
(e.g., by checking the inferred meaning in context or in a dictionary).

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Thought starters

1. What scaffolds does Ms. Wessling put into place to get her students using new vocabulary?

2. Which words are best suited for paint chips?

3. How could you use paint chips in your classroom?

School Details

Johnston Senior High School
6501 Northwest 62nd Avenue
Johnston IA 50131

Data Provided By:

Teachers

English Language Arts / 10 11 12 / Teacher

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High School ELA teacher Sarah Brown Wessling uses paint chips to teach her students about related words. Sarah writes related words and synonyms on the different parts of the paint chips. Students read the paint chips and practice pronouncing the vocabulary words.

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Teachers already know that vocabulary development is a critical part of a child's development, but I've often talked with colleagues about how hard it is to fit it in to our daily schedules. "Where does it all fit in?" is a question that elementary teachers find ourselves asking all the time. When we start to think about the many components that need to be squeezed into our days, we can get overwhelmed and sometimes vocabulary gets lost in the shuffle. However, vocabulary doesn't need to be an overwhelming part of your instruction! There are opportunities for practice everywhere! Vocabulary is in the books your students are reading, the math lessons you are teaching, the science experiments you are performing and more. There are lots of ways to engage students in meaningful practice that can easily become a part of your daily instruction in any subject. Today I'm sharing 10 vocabulary games that are student and teacher approved!

2 Fly Swatters (Dollar Store)

Draw a line down the middle of your whiteboard/chalkboard. Write 10-15 vocabulary words in different spots in each space, making sure that you put the same words on each side. I would recommend not putting them in the same place on each side.

1. Divide your students into two teams and have each line up on one side of the board.

2. One student from each team comes up to the board and grabs a fly swatter.

3. The teacher reads the definition of the word. After the teacher is finished reading the entire definition, students swat the correct word. The first student to correctly swat a word gets a point for their team. Each student passes the swatter to the next person in line and they go to the end of the line.

4. Continue until all words have been covered at least once. I like to cover all of the words more than once, but you can definitely adjust this depending on the time that you have.

What you'll need:
sentence strips

Prepare:
You will need to create a sentence for each vocabulary word and then replace the vocabulary word with a nonsense word. Write each sentence on a sentence strip then write each vocabulary word on a separate sentence strip piece. You will need to make a set for each group that you will have.

As an alternative, you can type the sentences and words instead (with sentences on one page and words on the other), though this would be a bit less interactive.

How to play:
1. Put students in groups of 2-4.
2. Give each group the sentences and then a baggie with the words. If typed, give students the page with the sentences and the page with the words.
3. Students should match up their nonsense sentences with the correct vocabulary words. You can make this a timed activity for a little extra competition. Groups should inform the teacher as they complete the activity to have their answers checked.

What you'll need:
sticky notes

Prepare:
Write each vocabulary word on a separate sticky note.

How to play:
1. Have students stand in a circle.
2. Choose one student to be "it" and have that student stand in the middle of the circle.
3. Put a sticky note with the vocabulary word on the students back and have them slowly turn around to show the other students what their word is.
4. Instruct the students in the circle to come up with hints that they can give the student with the note on their back. Be clear in directing your students to NOT use the word itself in their clue. As an extra incentive, if their clue leads to a correct guess, they will become become the person who is it.
5. Let the student guess after each clue or let them collect clues and then guess after a certain amount. When they have guessed correctly, or the other students are out of clues, choose a new student to be "it" and begin a new word.

What you'll need:
sentence strips
paper clips

Prepare:
Write a sentence for each vocabulary word on a sentence strip. Cut the sentence apart, phrase by phrase or word by word, mix them up, and paper clip them together. Clip each sentence separately and place in a bag. You'll want to prepare a bag for each group.

How to play:
1. Put students in groups of 2-4. Students will need a larger space to work since they will be putting multiple sentence strips together.
2. Pass a bag to each group. Instruct students to take out one clipped set at a time. Their goal is to put each sentence back in the correct order, working on one sentence at a time. Students should raise their hand when they have all sentences in the correct order.

What you'll need:
typed vocabulary lists
a marker for each student
a timer

Prepare:
Type and make copies of the vocabulary list that you will be working on.

How to play:
1. Put students in partner groups of two and give each student a vocabulary list.
2. One student will have a marker and the word list. The other student can access the list, but will not use the marker.
3. The student with the marker will start the timer (select a time appropriate for your grade level and word length) then read a word from the list to their partner.
4. The partner will then have to use that word correctly in a sentence/give the definition of that word (whichever you prefer or you can give both options) orally. When one word has been used correctly, the partner with the marker will check it off the list and read the next word to their partner. This should continue until the timer stops.
5. Students will swap roles and repeat steps 3-4.
6. Students get one point for each check. After both students have had a turn, they will count up the checks on their lists and compare their totals.

One last suggestion: review, review, review! Throw in an old word, put a math word in during a science review, and build their vocabulary by allowing lots of practice with words old and new!

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10 Vocabulary Games for the Engaged Elementary Classroom

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Teachers already know that vocabulary development is a critical part of a child's development, but I've often talked with colleagues about how hard it is to fit it in to our daily schedules. "Where does it all fit in?" is a question that elementary teachers find ourselves asking all the time.

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Using the Total Physical Response method to teach vocabulary. The TPR strategy is very useful, especially when teaching English Language Learners.

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ELA.RI.7.6

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

RI: Reading Standards for Informational Text 6-12

7: 7th Grade

6:
Determine an author'\x80\x99s point of view or
purpose in a text and analyze how the author
distinguishes his or her position from that of
others.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

|

ELA.RI.8.6

Common core State Standards

ELA: English Language Arts

RI: Reading Standards for Informational Text 6-12

8: 8th Grade

6:
Determine an author'\x80\x99s point of view or purpose in a
text and analyze how the author acknowledges and
responds to conflicting evidence or viewpoints.

Download Common Core State Standards (PDF 1.2 MB)

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. What's the benefit of doing vocabulary development after completing the various activities around a complex text?

2. When Ms. Langlois reflects on the strategy of pre-teaching vocabulary, what were some of her realizations as her students engaged in this new way of vocabulary development?

School Details

Morey Middle School
840 East 14th Avenue
Denver CO 80218

Data Provided By:

Teachers

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ELA.RI.7.6 Common core State Standards ELA: English Language Arts RI: Reading Standards for Informational Text 6-12 7: 7th Grade 6: Determine an author'\x80\x99s point of view orpurpose in a text and analyze how the authordistinguishes his or her position from that ofothers.

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by Toby J. Karten

The Possible Whys

Brain scans indicate that people with dyslexia have differences in a part of the brain called the corpus callosum. The corpus callosum is composed of nerve cells that connect and transport information and messages back and forth from the left and the right sides of the brain. Balance and communication between the two sides yields optimum learning. Each side-or hemisphere-is programmed to perform different functions. The left side of the brain sees things from their constituent parts to the whole. Someone who is predominately left brained notices the details before seeing the whole. For example, they may gaze at the night sky and focus on each star rather than see the big picture of the sky.

As related to reading, the left side logically lines things up in a structured manner to

Match letters with sounds.

Separate a word into its constituent sounds.

Decipher grammar and syntax.

By contrast, the right side (often referred to as the creative part of the brain) sees words in their entirety as pictures, shapes, and patterns (not a mixture of individual sounds).

The characteristics of the right side of the brain are collectively analogous to gazing at the night sky and not seeing individual stars or viewing the ocean without seeing the crests of the waves. Words are composed of letters that make discrete sounds, but a student with dyslexia has difficulties understanding these individual phonemes. Faulty signals between the two sides of the brain result in an inability to decipher and interpret written language. Dyslexia tends to run in families, with genetic implications evidenced (Lyon, Shaywitz, & Shaywitz, 2003; Siegel, 2006; Wagner & Torgesen, 1987).

Characteristics and Strengths

Dyslexia has cognitive correlates underlying reading that affect phonological and orthographic processing, rapid automatic naming (RAN), processing speed, working memory, attention, and executive function (State of New Jersey Department of Education, n.d.). Simply put, phonological processing affects understanding, learning, and remembering how to associate sounds with the letters that make up the word and how to break up a word into its discrete sounds. Students with orthographic processing differences have difficulties learning how to form or copy letters and remembering sight words. Although letter reversals may be a characteristic of dyslexia, it is only a slice of the orthographic processing difference that a student with dyslexia experiences. At times, students with dyslexia confuse similar-looking letters and words and have difficulties encoding (spelling) and decoding (reading) words. Even though these characteristics are evidenced, a student with dyslexia is often able to tap into stronger modalities. Learners can decipher words through appropriate multisensory instruction such as touching raised letters to increase spelling skills, snapping or clapping out each syllable in a word to pronounce it, listening to a digital recording of a book, recording a lecture, illustrating concepts as a demonstration of comprehension, and using syllabication to break up more difficult vocabulary presented in an algebra, science, or history text.

Warning signs of dyslexia include-but are not limited to-differences in language, reading, writing, and social-emotional domains (National Center for Learning Disabilities, 2015). Students may experience inaccurate or nonfluent word recognition. They may also be good word memorizers, but they're not learners who have cracked the phonetic code and "own" the individual sound-symbol connections they see and hear. Some learners with dyslexia get by in the early grades because they are excellent memorizers and can retrieve a file of sight words that they have stored in their brains. Beginning in kindergarten and 1st grade, these students exhibit low levels of phonemic awareness and cannot take apart the individual sounds that make up words. They also exhibit similar deficits with respect to phonics and an inability to learn the unique sounds associated with letters. Other types of reading disabilities include specific difficulties with reading comprehension and processing speed (i.e., reading fluency). Generally, students with dyslexia do not read with automaticity.

Dyslexia affects reading from the early grades, and primary symptoms include complications with the following literacy skills (International Dyslexia Association, Professional Standards and Practices Committee, 2010):

Word recognition

Spelling

Reading fluency

Comprehension

Written expression

People with dyslexia may also display characteristics of other differences or disorders, which is referred to as comorbidity (Germanò, Gagliano, & Curatolo, 2010; Snowling, 2012). Ben Foss, an entrepreneur, advocate, and author of The Dyslexia Empowerment Plan, explains comorbidity in relation to his dyslexia:

Everyone in Dyslexia carries a passport that allows easy entry into a number of bordering countries, including the nations of Dyscalculia, Dysgraphia, and ADHD, to name some of the major ones. In my view, we are all "in the club"-my catchphrase for the broad family of people who experience the non-obvious disabilities generally housed under the umbrella of "specific learning disabilities" ... holding dual citizenship with each one of these. (Foss, 2013, p. xi)

This quote sheds light on the fact that dyslexia interventions need to be comprehensive ones that address deficits in reading, writing, mathematics, and attention, along with behavioral, emotional, and social domains. As an example, learners with dyslexia who evidence signs of dysgraphia experience weaker writing skills. These learners may be unable to accurately copy, organize, or read class notes. To capitalize on stronger modalities, offer these students alternative ways to capture information, such as a digital pen that records information, graphic organizers, or peer scribers. A student with a reading and math difference such as dyscalculia or an attention difference such as ADHD requires math and behavioral strategies as well as reading interventions. He or she benefits from a digital version of a math lesson to stop and then play back, as well as feedback for time on task, effort given toward mastery, and recognition of positive class participation. Acknowledgment of reading strides achieved and progress toward IEP goals is essential.

Even though a learner with dyslexia often has difficulty decoding and encoding words and formulating written expressions, he or she may be highly creative, possess strong personal skills, and have an excellent oral vocabulary. Nurturing these strengths with the appropriate classroom interventions is essential (Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity, n.d.). For example, instruction and assessments are not exclusive to verbal and written ones, but they also include debates, cooperative learning projects, and multimodal engagements. Using technology to represent, access, and demonstrate knowledge minimizes some of the weaker characteristics that often challenge learners with dyslexia. The strategies in this chapter (and subsequent ones) are not only instructional but also have practical classroom, school, and "real-life" applications.

Classroom Implications

School staff require training in specific ways to identify students who show signs of dyslexia at early ages before their language processing difficulties spiral and multiply into additional academic, social, emotional, and behavioral domains. These concerns also need to be addressed before the reading demands increase. In addition, students who have advanced a grade-being socially promoted but are still educationally underserved-should be recognized as learners who require specific strategies to close their reading gaps.

School staff members need to collaborate effectively to intervene with strategies and interventions. As examples, a physical education, art, music, science, math, or social studies teacher needs to provide appropriate scaffolding. This includes interventions that do not permit a student's reading difficulties to interfere with successes (e.g., access to the content in each discipline and an ability to interpret the directions on a worksheet or an assessment, follow safety procedures in a science lab or gymnasium, and effectively answer a document-based question in social studies). Students should not be penalized for a diagnosed difficulty but instead offered multiple avenues of access, such as digital text, alternative reading levels of the same content, math word problems read aloud, science lab procedures verbally communicated, and increased visuals across the disciplines.

The primary characteristics of dyslexia include difficulty reading real words in isolation, decoding nonsense words, spelling, and accurate oral reading. The secondary consequences of dyslexia include but are not limited to inconsistencies in schoolwork with lower levels of reading comprehension and writing skills, and increased distractibility (Moats & Dakin, 2008). The secondary consequences often lead to frustration with school assignments and anxiety when students are required to read in front of peers (Torgesen, Foorman, & Wagner, 2007). Since staff members and students with dyslexia do not always understand the disability, blame is often incorrectly applied to an individual's lack of effort. A student with dyslexia requires the appropriate academic and behavioral interventions that honor his or her strengths. Weaknesses need to be remediated-not highlighted or magnified. It is vital to note that the educational practices for literacy instruction are never exclusively limited to students who have reading goals listed in IEPs or 504 plans but are applicable to all students. Learners across skill sets and grades benefit from systematic instruction that honors diverse interests and levels. Read on for more specific strategies.

Inclusion Strategies

Identify, Screen, and Individualize

Because students with dyslexia exhibit different characteristics, it is imperative that accurate screening continually drives individualized interventions. This includes informal phonics inventories as well as formal evaluations by trained professionals who determine skills through rapid naming of letters and sounds, identification of real and nonsense words, and activities around vocabulary, phonemic segmentation, spelling, verbal fluency, rhyming, and passage interpretation. Early literacy skills include-but are not limited to-knowing the sounds and names of letters, sequencing letters and numbers, and speaking in simple sentences. Levels of performance are screened with oral reading tests, checklists, parent interviews, nonverbal reasoning assessments, written assessments, and more. Alphabetic principles and phonemic awareness skills are often addressed as early as preschool. Screening for phonological awareness, rapid naming and memory begins in kindergarten, and testing in 1st grade includes word reading, decoding, and spelling. All learners across the grade levels who struggle need to be screened so they receive the appropriate instruction. Older learners also require screening, since high-quality literacy instruction is appropriate for high school and beyond (Alliance for Excellent Education, 2006).

Appropriately Tier Literacy Instruction

Educators also need to infuse multitiered systems of support (MTSS). In MTSS models, learners receive literacy interventions in tiers. There is no template for tiered literacy instruction since it is generated by the data. For example, a model with three tiers has all learners participating in the first tier: core literacy instruction. This core instruction includes an entire class learning together with a combination of direct instruction and literacy instruction in smaller cooperative groups. Based on progress monitoring, supplementary literacy instruction is provided to secondary groups of students who require additional literacy practice with skills for fluency, automaticity, and mastery. As indicated by formal and informal literacy assessments, more intensive instruction is given to a third tier with small-group or individualized instruction provided.

When students read slowly, their comprehension is negatively affected. They read each word so slowly that they consequently struggle to determine text meaning; they laboriously read letters and words, which interferes with comprehension flow and text meaning. Students who try to decode irregular sight words inappropriately (e.g., people, could, whose) lose the gist of a passage read. When this happens, it's important to increase oral and shared readings with the whole class, small groups, and individual students as appropriate. Interventions that offer increased guided oral reading assist with fluency. This includes learners becoming more strategic with both oral and silent reads (e.g., interest-related readings on students' instructional level and modeling) (Guerin & Murphy, 2015).

Strategies for fluency also change as students advance through the elementary grades. As learners advance, their reading fluency is affected by several factors, including the display of different skill sets and frustrations. The fluency of 1st graders is more dependent on listening skills, whereas reading fluency and comprehension play a larger role in grades 2-4 (Kim & Wagner, 2015).

Alternatively, for older students who require basic reading skills, present age- and level-appropriate readings with motivating content and appropriate vocabulary that is not insulting to a learner's age. Even though a secondary student may be reading at a primary level of instruction, do not offer juvenile text. For example, if short vowel sound instruction is required, then replace a sentence such as The cap is on the cat with a more sophisticated sentence such as The raft capsized on Saturday. There is no need for staff to rewrite texts since many publishers and online sites provide high-interest, lower-level text for older learners. Online sites such as Smithsonian's Tween Tribune and Newsela provide the same content for nonfiction articles on multiple Lexile levels. A site such as Starfall may have an excellent video on how to chunk a word for a 2nd grader, but it would be an inappropriate choice for a secondary-level student who requires the same skills. Benchmark, Steck-Vaughn, Perfection Learning, Curriculum Associates, High Noon, and Saddlebrook are just a few of the many publishing sources to explore. In other words, offer age-appropriate reading selections and tools that entice readers to decode and encode words. High-interest topics such as fashion, music, and sports and alternative presentations such as tweets, texts, and cooperative projects are viable secondary engagements.

Structure, Monitor, and Communicate

Direct, structured, and systematic instruction includes teaching phonemic awareness; segmenting words; and advancing spelling, writing, fluency, and reading comprehension across the genres. Reading progress requires monitoring and employing sensitivities to teach and communicate the appropriate skills and strategies to learners. Set up timetables that embrace IEP goals and literacy lesson objectives. Most important, allow students to own their reading strategies with structured task analysis and feedback. Encourage students to see how their perseverance has positive long-range effects by charting improvements (e.g., in fluency, comprehension, decoding) on graphed index cards and by listening to digital passages before and after set instructional timeframes. Keep digital portfolios and share these with students as visual and concrete reminders that monitor their efforts and increase awareness of literacy levels. Help students read words they may not have seen before by teaching strategies with proactive step-by-step visual and verbal directions. The following steps offer models that empower students to figure out a potentially tricky multisyllabic word, use context clues, and apply prior knowledge. A self-directed learner reads fluently with comprehension, knowing both pronunciation and word meanings both in isolation and with context.
To understand what you are reading ...

1. Put your finger under the word to ex-am-ine and chunk it. See if there are syllables and word parts such as un-der-stand and read-ing. Find smaller words (e.g., fan in fantastic) or compound words (e.g., bird's-eye).

2. Look at illustrations that accompany the text and other words in the sentence or paragraph for clues that help you figure out what a word or sentence might mean. Ask yourself if you could substitute another word that means the same as the one you are reading. For example, He admired his friend's decision implies that He respected his friend's actions and behaviors.

3. Skip the word and read to the end of the sentence and paragraph to see if the context clues help you interpret the word's meaning. Give the words a chance to develop meaning. Sometimes, you need to read on before you understand what the author is saying.

4. If you still need help to read a "tricky word," then use an online or digital tool to pronounce the word, look it up in a dictionary, or ask a peer or adult.

Although using etymology, context clues, and a dictionary may be considered standard instruction for all students, learners with dyslexia require additional practice, varied engagements, multiple representations, and more time-along with vigilant progress monitoring-to achieve mastery. Ongoing feedback toward partial mastery acknowledges efforts toward achievement, which encourages more progress.

Implement Multiple Representations

Providing representation options for learners with dyslexia means that instruction is not limited to printed text. Multiple representations reduce barriers and provide the same information through various modalities to ensure easier access and comprehension (CAST, 2011). When literacy instruction exists beyond two-dimensional worksheets, learners whose brains are wired differently are allowed multiple ways to decipher words and interpret text meaning. This includes offering learners diverse tools and resources (Cervetti, Damico, & Pearson, 2006).

The Orton-Gillingham approach (Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators, 2012; Hwee & Houghton, 2011), which is based on neuroscience, propagates multisensory approaches for reading, spelling, and writing difficulties. Complex academic vocabulary in expository text in disciplines such as science and social studies sometimes fail to engage students (Marino, Gotch, Israel, Vasquez, Basham, & Becht, 2014). Increased auditory, visual, and kinesthetic-tactile approaches are employed to strengthen reading fluency and comprehension skills to better encode, decode, write, read, decipher, and understand written language. For example, students use their fingers to indicate or tap out the individual sounds of letters in words, which adds a tactile component. Other tactile approaches include forming and writing letters with clay, with shaving cream, on sandpaper, and in salt trays. Increased visuals allow some students to concretize letter sounds.

Another option is to present key words for vowel sounds; associate the short e sound with a picture of an elephant or the digraph sh with a picture of a finger by one's mouth to indicate quiet. When showing a video, activate the closed captioning so the auditory presentation is accompanied by the associated words. This assists primary- and secondary-level learners. In early grade levels, label classroom items and encourage families to do the same at home. If possible, provide advanced notes and partially filled-in organizers to lessen the writing requirements. As an example, allow students to concentrate on the content of a presentation instead of on the laborious task of taking notes. Notes available ahead of time also allows students to be more familiar with vocabulary that may not be in their prior knowledge. Sites such as Quizlet allow students to hear vocabulary read aloud and preview a word's meaning in isolation with digital and printed flashcards.

Use both low-tech and high-tech digital tools that honor and tap into students' stronger modalities and preferences to increase reading acumen. As an example, a student can use a sticky note to jot down a fact or question as he or she is reading text. A learner may prefer to use an app such as Post-it Plus to start conversations with peers and store information that is then looked at later. Handheld highlighters also offer digital ways to annotate and record text; the C-Pen uses Optimal Character Recognition (OCR) software. This higher-tech option captures text, decodes it, and then has the capability to transfer that information to a computer or smartphone. With this technology, unfamiliar and multisyllabic vocabulary is defined and spoken with reference tools and text-to-speech features activated. Each decision requires looking at each learner to determine the best instructional decision that may or may not include technology. The goal is to find a method that eases students' weaker areas and builds on each student's skills. Resources to consider include alternative reading formats, such as graphic novels, infographics, posters, e-books, apps, audiobooks, and online sites that target specific reading skills. Encourage struggling readers to preread while listening to audio or digital versions of the text to prepare them for class instruction. Use technology in class with instruction on how to use tools such as a digital thesaurus and spell check. Have students live-tweet answers to discussion questions on a Google Doc.

Handheld cue cards, checklists, and posted classroom wall charts are visual references that concretize what some learners with dyslexia view as abstract text. The letters, words, sentences, paragraphs, novels, and longer texts are not read with automaticity by most learners with dyslexia. Therefore, the provision of resources and accompanying strategies strengthen weaker reading skills and thereby increase self-efficacy. This includes dated progress reports and high-interest text across a variety of genres (from decoding words in poems to extracting information from online sites). If multiple students answer the same question, then the peer models offer additional insights for some learners. The goal is to guide students on a reading path that increases skills and self-efficacy. Provide the support with multiple representations, and then fade the scaffolding as students consistently and independently demonstrate literacy skills.

Teach Decoding

Students who read slowly may require help with decoding and phonological awareness. Consider creating a classroom syllable wall chart (which continually grows as students add to it) to increase awareness of the various syllable types (see Figure 1.1). In addition, have students record the syllable charts in individual reading notebooks. Consider also dictating both simple and more complex sentences for students to hear, write, and self-correct. It's important that you're not the one who corrects errors. Offer opportunities for students to self-correct with a model provided. Provide instruction with both nonsense words and actual words to be certain that students are comfortable breaking the phonetic code-and not just memorizing words.

Collaborate

Collaboration with staff, families, and students decreases the negative effects of dyslexia and highlights students' potential with moving their reading plans forward. Keep an eye on academic and social-emotional reading implications, with fidelity to the students, and share strategies with their families regarding the reading programs selected. Share reading progress and upcoming vocabulary and books on the school/class website or through regular (i.e., weekly or monthly) family newsletters. Communicate individual student progress in school-home journals and emails.

It's also important to collaborate with specialists, such as the speech-language pathologist for interventions that relate to phonics and phonemic awareness and occupational therapists for handwriting strategies and physical issues associated with dyslexia (e.g., slant board, alternative writing implements, specific handwriting programs, and ways to increase stamina).

In summation, it's critical that you can

Identify characteristics of students with dyslexia and other reading disabilities and connect them to each learner's strengths.

Use differentiated strategies to strengthen skills with sound-symbol association, fluency, spelling, comprehension, written expression, auditory and visual processing, and memory.

Review multisensory ways to teach language with direct systematic instruction that honors learners' visual, auditory, and kinesthetic-tactile modalities.

Use both low- and high-tech tools to help increase students' reading acumen.

References

Academy of Orton-Gillingham Practitioners and Educators. (2012). The Orton-Gillingham approach. Available: www.ortonacademy.org/approach.php

Alliance for Excellent Education. (2006). Adolescent literacy (Fact Sheet) Available: www.carnegie.org/publications/adolescent-literacy-fact-sheet

CAST. (2011). Universal Design for Learning guidelines (version 2.0). Wakefield, MA: Author.

Cervetti, G., Damico, J., & Pearson, P. (2006) Multiple literacies, new literacies, and teacher education. Theory into Practice, 45(4), 378-386.

Foss, B. (2013). The dyslexia empowerment plan: A blueprint for renewing your child's confidence and love of reading. New York: Ballantine.

Germanò, E., Gagliano, A., & Curatolo, P. (2010). Comorbidity of ADHD and dyslexia. Developmental Neuropsychology, 35(5), 475-493.

Guerin, A., & Murphy, B. (2015). Repeated reading as a method to improve reading fluency for struggling adolescent readers. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 58(7), 551-560.

Hwee, N., & Houghton, S. (2011). The effectiveness of Orton-Gillingham-based instruction with Singaporean children with specific reading disability (dyslexia). British Journal of Special Education, 38(3), 143-149.

International Dyslexia Association, Professional Standards and Practices Committee. (2010). Knowledge and practice standards for teachers of reading. Available: https://eida.org/kps-for-teachers-of-reading

Kim, Y., & Wagner, R. (2015). Text oral reading fluency as a construct in reading development: An investigation of its mediating role for children from grades 1-4. Scientific Studies of Reading, 19(3), 224-242.

Lyon, G., Shaywitz, S., & Shaywitz, B. (2003). Defining dyslexia, comorbidity, teachers' knowledge of language and reading. Annals of Dyslexia, 53, 1-14.

Marino, M., Gotch, C., Israel, M., Vasquez, E., Basham, J., & Becht, K. (2014). UDL in the middle school science classroom: Can video games and alternative text heighten engagement and learning for students with learning disabilities? Learning Disability Quarterly, 37(2), 87-99.

Moats, L. C., & Dakin, K. E. (2008). Basic facts about dyslexia and other reading problems. Baltimore: International Dyslexia Association.

National Center for Learning Disabilities. (2015). 13 organizations urge U.S. Department of Education to tell states: It's okay to use terms like "dyslexia" in IEP. Contributors of www.ncld.org

Siegel, L. S. (2006). Perspectives on dyslexia. Paediatrics & Child Health, 11(9), 581-587.

Snowling, M. (2012). Changing concepts of dyslexia: nature, treatment and comorbidity. Journal of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 53(9), e1-e3.

State of New Jersey Department of Education. (n.d.). Dyslexia. Available: www.state.nj.us/education/specialed/dyslexia/pd.shtml

Torgesen, J., Foorman, B., & Wagner, R. (2007). FCRR Technical Report #8. Dyslexia: A brief for educators, parents, and legislators in Florida. Available: http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED542605.pdf

Wagner, R., & Torgesen, J. (1987). The nature of phonological processing and its causal role in the acquisition of reading skills. Psychological Bulletin, 101, 192-212.

Professional Resources

Barden, O. (2009). From "acting reading" to reading for acting: A case study of the transformational power of reading. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 53(4), 293-302.

Berninger, V., Lee, Y., Abbott, R., & Breznitz, Z. (2013). Teaching children with dyslexia to spell in a reading-writers' workshop. Annals of Dyslexia, 63(1), 1-24.

Bonifacci, P., Montuschi, M., Lami, L., & Snowling, M. (2014). Parents of children with dyslexia: Cognitive, emotional, and behavioural profile. Dyslexia, 20(2), 175-190.

Brackley, L. (2015). A response to Elliott. Psychology of Education Review, 39(1) 28-31.

Dyslexia Buddy Network: www.dyslexiabuddynetwork.com

Flocabulary Songs and Videos: www.flocabulary.com

Hachmann, W. M., Bogaerts, L., Szmalec, A., Woumans, E., Duyck, W., & Job, R. (2014). Short-term memory for order but not for item information is impaired in developmental dyslexia. Annals of Dyslexia, 64(2), 121-136.

Hulme, C., & Snowling, M. J. (2013). Learning to read: What we know and what we need to understand better. Child Development Perspectives, 7(1), 1-5.

Hurley, K. S. (2013). What is dyslexia? TED Talk. Available: http://ed.ted.com/lessons/what-is-dyslexia-kelli-sandman-hurley

International Dyslexia Association (IDA): http://eida.org

IDA-Testing and Evaluation: https://dyslexiaida.org/testing-and-evaluation/

National Council of Teachers of English. Read write think: www.readwritethink.org

Newsela: https://newsela.com

Nielsen, C. (2011). The most important thing: Students with reading and writing difficulties talk about their experiences of teachers' treatment and guidance. Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research, 55(5), 551-565.

Paul, A. (2012, February 5). The upside of dyslexia. New York Times. Available: www.nytimes.com/2012/02/05/opinion/sunday/the-upside-of-dyslexia.html?_r=1

Pongrey, M. Dyslexia and high school. LD Online. Available: www.ldonline.org/article/25150

Quick Phonics Screener: www.readnaturally.com/products/qps.htm

Quizlet-Vocabulary, Flashcards, Games: https://quizlet.com

Rakhlin, N., Cardoso-Martins, C., Kornilov, S., & Grigorenko, E. (2013). Spelling well despite developmental language disorder: What makes it possible? Annals of Dyslexia, 63(3-4), 253-273.

Readworks: www.readworks.org

Smithsonian Tween Tribune: http://tweentribune.com

Starfall: www.starfall.com

Stetter, M. E., & Hughes, M. T. (2010). Computer-assisted instruction to enhance the reading comprehension of struggling readers: A review of the literature. Journal of Special Education Technology, 25(4), 1-16.

Storyonline: www.storylineonline.net

Tar Heel Reader: http://tarheelreader.org

University of Michigan. (2016). Tests for dyslexia and learning disabilities. The regents of the University of Michigan. Available: http://dyslexiahelp.umich.edu/dyslexics/learn-about-dyslexia/dyslexia-testing/tests

Washburn, E. K., Joshi, R. M., & Binks-Cantrell, E. S. (2011). Teacher knowledge of basic language concepts and dyslexia. Dyslexia, 17(2), 165-183.

Yale Center for Dyslexia and Creativity: http://dyslexia.yale.edu

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Students with Dyslexia and Other Reading Differences

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by Toby J. Karten Brain scans indicate that people with dyslexia have differences in a part of the brain called the corpus callosum. The corpus callosum is composed of nerve cells that connect and transport information and messages back and forth from the left and the right sides of the brain.

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Do you have vocabulary words you'd like to stick in your students' brains? Whether you teach upper elementary, middle school, or high school, I'm guessing you're nodding your head, yes! It encompasses all subjects- we all have key terms that will improve our students' learning.

It's always a teacher's goal to improve retention, in other words, help our students move information into long-term memory. If students retain key terms, our jobs are so much easier!

Visual "Memory Triggers"

The way that we can blend text and images in a doodle note strategy leads to better comprehension and retention of our lesson material. This combination of visual and linguistic input is based on Dual Coding Theory and supports student learning.

I call these blends of text and graphics "visual memory triggers" because the student brains process the text and image together in a way that builds connections and helps them to remember the concept later on.
A solid visual trigger is based around an image that either fits the lesson material or fits into an analogy that will help students remember. They're a key component of doodle notes. For example, this school bus is a visual trigger for the commutative property.
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"Commutative" Property - to move back and forth: Students write one letter per bus window and remember "commuting" to and from school as the connection.

In the same lesson, I have students write "associative" inside an image of two people or an image of a handshake. This one helps them remember that associates are like partners and that math property is all about switching "partners" in an equation. We accompany these graphics with examples that will help connect the abstract analogy with a concrete principle. The hand's action of lettering and sketching leads to a brain pathway that helps store each memory as a blend of visual and linguistic input. This has been proven to be the most effective way for the brain to ensure that information gets into long-term memory.

Here are more samples of what visual "memory triggers" look like. Students can develop these blends of graphic and linguistic content themselves to help a big concept or key word stick in their brains:

How to Help your Students Develop their Own Visual Memory Triggers

A way to instantly boost memory and retention is to have your students create their OWN visual memory triggers. To teach them how to do this, start with specific prompts.

You can have them create a visual magazine cover for a key term like the one below for the term "gravity." Or you can encourage them to design a t-shirt for a term, sketch it, or use it in sentences.

​Or, if the given topic has various layers, have your students show that in scoops on an ice cream cone or layers of a cake. The opportunities are endless!

Show them more examples of visual triggers for inspiration!

This pack of Visual Vocabulary Prompts: Doodle Note Review Card Templates makes this process a breeze for you and your students! The cards already have a variety of creative prompts built in, as well as designated areas to doodle, color, and visualize on paper a given term.

The graphic layout of these study guides allows students to mentally organize the information in their minds, understand the relationships and connections between ideas, and remember the lesson material better!

Why this Helps Them Remember

There is psychological research done on visual note-taking. Dual Coding Theory originated with Paivio in the 70s, and explains how visual and linguistic information is processed in two different areas of the brain.

In essence, as new input enters the brain, it's stored in short term memory in two distinct categories. Graphic information, images, and other sensory input are processed in the VISUAL center while auditory input, words, and text are processed in the LINGUISTIC center of the brain.

This is a great way for our brains to constantly take in both types of information, and the system works very well as we are on the go. However, in order to actually convert new information into true learning, we need it to be saved and stored in long term memory.

To do this, we need referential connections between the two zones. We have to CONNECT the information in the visual area with the information in the linguistic area.

When we are able to blend the text/auditory input together with the images, we boost the potential for retaining the information!

​Not only are the individual words and ideas committed to long term memory more effectively, but the associations between them are retained as well. With this strategy, our students can understand the big ideas and concepts AND remember the vocabulary and small details more consistently.

In addition to the learning benefits of visual note-taking, when students develop their own visual memory triggers, they are essentially able to teach others. According to the Art of Problem Solving, "The best test of whether or not you really understand a concept is trying to teach it to someone else. Teaching calls for complete understanding of the concept. You can't just 'kind of get it' or know it just well enough to get by on a test; teaching calls for complete understanding of the concept."

Even if you don't use the visual vocabulary in groups or partners, your students still have to interact with the term from a different perspective. They have to think about the key term as if they were teaching it; they have to fully understand it in order to build a visual memory trigger. It's all about coming up with their own brain-friendly memory boosters!

The templates and prompts shown above are part of this set.

For support and more information as you explore the different opportunities that visual note-taking can offer your classroom, download the complete Doodle Note Handbook for free here.

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Visual Vocabulary - Helping students remember key terms

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Do you have vocabulary words you'd like to stick in your students' brains? Whether you teach upper elementary, middle school, or high school, I'm guessing you're nodding your head, yes! It encompasses all subjects- we all have key terms that will improve our students' learning.

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As a reading teacher, this quote certainly hits home. These are such powerful words concerning the importance of vocabulary instruction, which is often neglected in today's classroom.

There has been a great deal of research concerning the importance of vocabulary within reading instruction. Some students naturally acquire vocabulary words as an effortless process. These are often children that hear a wide variety of words spoken at home, and those words become part of the child's vocabulary. However, this effortless connection does not happen for our at risk students. Researchers found that 3-year-old vocabulary levels were indicative of their reading success in upper elementary grades, and the gap grew wider as children progressed through school.

My first few years teaching, my vocabulary instruction was limited to science and social studies terms, and I thought that was more than enough vocabulary instruction. However, the book Bringing Words to Life completely transformed my views on teaching vocabulary. While science and social studies terms are important, they are not broadly used words. We must also teach words with a broad application. Beck breaks words down into three different tiers, and our vocabulary instruction should focus on Tier 2 words.
Tier 1: Common Words
These are everyday words that most students already know. These words do not require vocabulary instruction. If you are teaching English language learners, you may find that these students will need instruction with Tier 1 words.
Tier 2: Useful Language
Tier 2 words are academic words that are general enough to be used across all domains, yet are not part of students' everyday language. The CCSS refer to them as general academic words. These words help students move past the "lexical bar" - a hypothetical barrier that exists between social, conversational language and more formal, sophisticated language that helps students succeed academically.
Tier 3: Infrequent, domain-specific words
Tier three consists of low-frequency words that occur in specific domains. Yes, these words are important, but they should not make up the majority of our vocabulary instruction.

What does this mean for teachers?

The biggest improvement to vocabulary comes from reading, so we need to make sure our students are consistently reading and being read to. However, students rarely learn a word the first (or even second, third, fourth, etc.) time they encounter the word. Vocabulary instruction should include planned teaching of selected words. For students to learn new words, they must connect new and existing knowledge. New words are best learned when presented meaningfully, and students need to use the new words in meaningful contexts and think about the words in meaningful ways. Therefore, having students look up words in a dictionary and memorize definitions are not enough for quality vocabulary instruction.

Vocabulary Interactive Notebook

In order to develop more robust vocabulary instruction, I've created a packet of interactive notebook activities to coincide with my reading instruction. Each week my vocabulary instruction follows the same format to provide consistency and to allow me to move at a rapid pace.

I've tied my vocabulary program into my Reading Workshop units, but it can be used with any reading curriculum. All of the words I selected are Tier 2 words from the books I use as mentor texts. I use a spiral-bound notebook for students' vocabulary journals. The first few pages of the notebooks are used for a word bank. I have students glue-in pages to the journals which helps them organize the words that they find. This is where students collect new or interesting words they come across in their reading.

The following page s include a word bank for prefixes and suffixes. Once again I have students glue-in these pages in their journals, and this is where students can add new words with various prefixes or suffixes. You can read more about how I teach prefixes and suffixes here.

Having a vocabulary routine allows me to stay consistent, and it makes planning vocabulary instruction so much easier. I try to keep my vocabulary instruction short and sweet-about ten minutes a day.

Monday

I begin Monday by distributing students' vocabulary cards. As a class, we generate student friendly definitions of the words and students write the definition on the vocabulary card. Underneath the definition, students can mark the part of speech for each of the words.

I follow the introduction of words with our reading mini lesson where I briefly teach a specific skill or strategy. I then read aloud our mentor text that compliments with our mini lesson. All of the vocabulary words for the week are found in that day's text.

Tuesday

On Tuesdays, we work together to brainstorm examples and non-examples of each of the six vocabulary words. Students create a flipbook and glue it on the page to the right of their handout from Monday. When students write the vocabulary word, they should write it at the top, because they will be adding pictures to the outside flaps.

Wednesday

After students have two days of exposure to the word, they are ready to draw a picture to represent the word. This visual representation allows students to internalize words and helps store the words in students' long term memories. I only give students 1-2 minutes to draw for each word, so this lesson doesn't take forever!

Thursday

It is difficult for students to apply new words in their writing, so I do not have students attempt this until they have experienced the word multiple times. On Thursday, students write their words in a sentence. They do this on the page that was glued in on Monday. As an extension, I have students look through their writing notebook to see if there are any areas where they could add the words to their writing. I don't require this, because I want the use of the words to sound natural, rather forced.

Friday

I have included an assessment for each week's words. If I give an assessment, I typically do this on Friday. The assessment is a combination of matching, multiple choice, and short answer.

For students to retain and use the vocabulary words, we must review the terms students have previous learned. I don't give an assessment every Friday, because I like to have students play review games instead. I've included a collection of ideas for easy to prep games that students will love. I included word cards for each week's words that can be used for the games.

I also included weekly posters that could be displayed around the room for a little reminder. The posters include a picture of the book the words were taken from to allow students to more easily make connections to the words.

I have everything in my TpT store, and you can check it out here!

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Upper Elementary Vocabulary Instruction - Ashleigh's Education Journey

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"Vocabulary is the best single indicator of intellectual ability and an accurate predictor of success at school" W.B. Ellet. As a reading teacher, this quote certainly hits home. These are such powerful words concerning the importance of vocabulary instruction, which is often neglected in today's classroom.

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Educational Leadership is pleased to announce a new column this year- The Art and Science of Teaching- and a new columnist-noted researcher Robert J. Marzano. Internationally known for his practical translations of current research into effective classroom strategies, Marzano is cofounder of Marzano Research Laboratory, which synthesizes teacher research into components that schools can use for gains in student learning. A well-known speaker and trainer as well as a prolific book author, he draws from 40 years of experience in education. Each month, Marzano will focus on one teacher-tested instructional strategy in education.

After examining for decades the research on instructional strategies and reflecting on my involvement in hundreds of studies, I can say one thing confidently: If you examine all the studies conducted on a given instructional strategy, you will find that some studies indicate the strategy improves student achievement whereas other studies indicate it doesn't.

Take, for example, the strategy of providing feedback. Researchers Avraham Kluger and Angelo DeNisi (1996) synthesized the findings from 607 studies on that strategy. They found that the average effect of providing feedback to students is a 16-percentile-point gain. However, more than one-third of the studies indicated that feedback has a negative effect on student achievement. Simply using a strategy does not guarantee positive results. Rather, it's how someone uses the strategy that determines whether it produces great results, mediocre results, or no results at all.

So what's a teacher, school, or district to do? Certainly, the answer is not to ignore the research. In fact, the research is the first place to start. You should scour studies to identify those strategies for which research shows positive effects on student achievement. Next, teachers, schools, and districts should conduct their own informal (and formal) studies on how well an instructional strategy works in their particular context-with their students, their grade level, or their subject matter. No strategy is foolproof. No strategy is proven. You have to see how it works in your particular setting.

They Won't Forget the Crocodile Teeth

1. Provide a description, explanation, or example of the new term.

2. Ask students to restate the description, explanation, or example in their own words.

3. Ask students to construct a picture, pictograph, or symbolic representation of the term.

4. Engage students periodically in activities that help them add to their knowledge of the terms in their vocabulary notebooks.

5. Periodically ask students to discuss the terms with one another.

6. Involve students periodically in games that enable them to play with terms.

Teachers use the first three steps when introducing a term to students. For example, assume a teacher is introducing the term mutualism. Instead of offering a textbook definition, the teacher describes the term or tells an anecdote that illustrates its meaning (Step 1). The teacher might explain that the crocodile and a bird called the Egyptian plover have a relationship that exemplifies mutualism. The crocodile opens its mouth and invites the plover to stand inside. The plover picks things out of the crocodile's teeth. Both parties benefit: The plover gets fed; the croc gets its teeth cleaned. While explaining this relationship, the teacher might show students images found on the Internet.

In Steps 2 and 3, students try their hand at explaining the meaning of mutualism. They devise an explanation or an example from their own lives (Step 2). Next, they draw an image depicting what they think mutualism means (Step 3).

A few days later, the teacher reviews the new term using Steps 4, 5, and 6, which needn't be executed in sequence. The teacher might have students compare the meaning of mutualism with another previously studied term, such as symbiosis (Step 4). Students might pair up and compare their entries on the term in their vocabulary notebooks (Step 5), or the teacher might craft a game that students play using these terms (Step 6).

What Teacher Research Found

Over the last five years, I have been involved in more than 50 studies that involve this strategy. In all these studies, teachers used the strategy with one class but did not use it with another. Then they compared the results.

These studies have taught us several things about this six-step strategy. First, the strategy works at every grade level, from kindergarten to high school. Second, it works better if you use all the steps without leaving any out. In one middle school study, teachers found that the whole process enhanced students' achievement much more than the parts of the process in isolation did. Third, although the majority of studies indicate that the process enhances student achievement, some studies indicate that it doesn't.

For example, in one district in which 24 elementary teachers used the six-step process with one group of students but not with another, the average effect for using the strategy across all 24 elementary teachers was a 24-percentile-point gain. Six studies showed gains greater than 40 percentile points, but nine studies showed negative effects.

When students copy the teacher's explanation or description of a term instead of generating their own explanation, the results are not as strong. Ideally, student explanations should come from their own lives.

The third step in the process is crucial-having students represent their understanding of a new term by drawing a picture, pictograph, or symbolic representation. When students do this step well, achievement soars.

Games seem to engage students at a high level and have a powerful effect on students' recall of the terms. Games not only add a bit of fun to the teaching and learning process, but also provide an opportunity to review the terms in a nonthreatening way. After the class has played a vocabulary game, the teacher should invite students to identify difficult terms and go over the crucial aspects of those terms in a whole-class discussion.

Of course, we still have more to learn about this strategy. But for now, it's safe to conclude that it can be a powerful tool that teachers can use in classrooms at any grade level and in any subject area.

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The Art and Science of Teaching / Six Steps to Better Vocabulary Instruction - ASCD

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Educational Leadership is pleased to announce a new column this year-The Art and Science of Teaching-and a new columnist-noted researcher Robert J. Marzano. Internationally known for his practical translations of current research into effective classroom strategies, Marzano is cofounder of Marzano R

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Reading Rockets Article

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August, D., M. Carlo, C. Dressler, and C. Snow. 2005. The critical role of vocabulary development for English language learners. Learning Disabilities: Research & Practice 20 (L), pp. 50-57.

Beck, I.L., M.G. McKeown, and L. Kucan. 2002. Bringing words to life:Robust vocabulary instruction. New York: Guilford.

Calderón, M., D. August, R. Slavin, D. Duran, N. Madden, and A. Cheung. 2005. Bring words to life in classrooms with English-language learners. In E.H. Hiebert and M.L. Kamil (eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbraum.

Chall, J., and E. Dale 1995. Readability revisited: The new Dale-Chall readability formula. Brookline, MA: Brookline Books.

Cunningham, A.E. 2005. Vocabulary growth through independent reading and reading aloud to children. In E.H. Hiebert and M.L.Kamil (eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbraum.

Cunningham, A.E., and K.E. Stanovich. 1998. What reading does for the mind. American Educator. 22, pp. 8-15.

Graves, M.F. 2000. A vocabulary program to complement and bolster a middle-grade comprehension program. In B.M. Taylor, M.F. Graves, and P. Van Den Broek (eds.), Reading for meaning: Fostering comprehension in the middle grades. Mew York: Teachers College Press.

Kamil, M.L. 2004. Vocabulary and comprehension instruction: Summary and implications of the National Reading Panel finding. In P. McCardle and V. Chhabra (eds.), The voice of evidence in reading and research. Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.

Kamil, M.L., and E.H. Hiebert. 2005. Teaching and learning vocabulary: Perspectives and persistent issues. In E.H. Hiebert and M.L. Kamil (eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

National Center for Educational Statistics. 2005. The condition of education. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

National Reading Panel. 2000. Teaching children to read: An evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications for reading instruction. Washington, DC: National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.

Schwartz, R.M., and T.E. Raphael. 1985. Concept of definition: A key to improving students' vocabulary. Reading Teacher 39, pp. 198-203.

Scott, J.A., and W.E. Nagy. 2004. Developing word consciousness. In J.F. Baumann and E.J. Kame'enui (eds.), Vocabulary instruction: Research to practice. New York: Guilford.

Stahl, S.A. 2005. Four problems with teaching word meanings (and what to do to make vocabulary an integral part of instruction). In E.H. Hiebert and M.L. Kamil (eds.), Teaching and learning vocabulary: Bringing research to practice. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.

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Consider some excellent lesson models for teaching vocabulary, explaining idioms, fostering word consciousness, instruction for English Language Learners, and mnemonic strategies.

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ReadSource is a non-profit launched by The Schenck School as a means for sharing the reading expertise of the School with other struggling readers. Our mission is to empower communities to serve all students who are learning to read, especially those who struggle. This is accomplished through our teacher training offerings, direct reading remediation services, and partnerships with other schools and non-profits.

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ReadSource is a non-profit launched by The Schenck School to share the School's reading expertise with struggling readers.

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The Vocabulary Revolution 🚀 NEW Evidence on Vocabulary Instruction

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Accommodations for students with dyslexia 

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Accommodations for students with dyslexia 

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Accommodating Students with Dyslexia in All Classroom Settings

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The International Dyslexia Association prepared this fact sheet describing reasonable accommodations involving materials, interactive instruction, and student performance to help children with learning problems in general education and special education classrooms.

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Dyslexia affects up to 1 in 5 people, but the experience of dyslexia isn’t always the same. This difficulty in processing language exists along a spectrum -- one that doesn’t necessarily fit with labels like “normal” and “defective.” Kelli Sandman-Hurley urges us to think again about dyslexic brain function and to celebrate the neurodiversity of the human brain. [Directed by Marc Christoforidis, narrated by Addison Anderson].

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With school officially underway, many teachers and parents are on the hunt for reading comprehension strategies to help new and struggling readers develop a love for reading, and we're excited to share our best tips and ideas for a fantastic school year!

Whether you're a teacher creating lesson plans for a classroom full of kids, a parent trying to find ways to support your child at home, or a special needs therapist in search of out-of-the-box ideas to support the exceptional kids in your life, this collection of simple yet effective reading comprehension strategies is a great first step in understanding how to develop abstract thinking in kids so they can understand what they are reading and make inferences.

We've also included 12 reading comprehension activities to compliment your lesson plans, which double as fabulous independent study ideas to support struggling readers at home!

What is reading comprehension?

Before we get started, it's important to note that reading isn't the same as comprehending. While many kids learn their numbers and letters at an early age, with some teaching themselves how to read before they start kindergarten, this doesn't necessarily mean they understand what they are reading.

Reading comprehension requires higher level thinking, and once children learn how to decode, or identify and sound out the words they are reading, it's time to take it a step further and teach them how to understand the bigger picture so they can problem solve and draw their own conclusions.

How Can I Tell If My Child Struggles with Reading Comprehension?

Most of us tend to view grade 1 as the turning point at which kids move beyond simple reading and begin to grasp the basics behind reading comprehension, and while many kids are able to start making inferences from the material they read around the 6-year mark, there is no hard and fast rule when it comes to developing reading comprehension skills. The reality is that some kids take to reading more easily than others, and a delay in the development of a child's reading comprehension skills doesn't necessarily mean he or she has a learning disability.

With that said, we obviously want to be proactive and help struggling readers sooner rather than later, so if your child demonstrates any of the following characteristics, a meeting with his or her teacher may be in order:

Has a limited vocabulary compared to peers

Has difficulty sounding out words

Struggles with spelling

Reverses letters

Has difficulty learning and recognizing sight words

Relies on memorization, making it hard to learn new skills

Can't recognize words out of context

Poor reading fluency

Note: The presence of one or more of these challenges does NOT indicate a child has a learning disability, nor is this an exhaustive list. If you suspect your child is struggling with reading comprehension, make sure to speak further with his or her teacher and/or physician.
8 Reading Comprehension Strategies That Work

When it comes to reading comprehension strategies, finding ways to develop a child's higher-level thinking is paramount in helping them understand what they are reading so they can draw their own conclusions and make inferences. Here are 8 things teachers and parents can do both in the classroom and at home to help facilitate the development of these skills.

Remember that vocabulary counts. Reading comprehension can be tricky for a child if he or she doesn't have a working understanding of the words used in the material he or she is reading, and I once read that a good rule of thumb to use is to ask your child to count the number of words he or she cannot understand while reading a page in a book. If the number exceeds 10 before he or she reaches the end of the page, go down a reading level (or more) to ensure the material is appropriate for your child.

Choose age appropriate books. Further to the point above, you want to ensure there is fluency in your child's reading before you begin working on reading comprehension. If your little one is struggling to sound out words and/or frequently takes breaks to ask what certain words mean, it makes it much more difficult for him or her to pay attention to the material, make observations, and draw conclusions. The smoother the reading, the better the comprehension.

Read out loud. I've read countless articles suggesting that kids who spend time reading with their parents and caregivers tend to have an easier time learning how to read, and while the jury is still out on the validity of these claims, I think it's pretty safe to say that the more we expose our kids to the world of reading, the more they will enjoy it (and the easier it will become). The trick is to figure out ways to get your child to read out loud to you, rather than the other way around. You can start off small by having your child read the fun parts of the stories you read together, and gradually increase the amount they read over time. Remember to start small and make it collaborative so as not to make it too overwhelming, but do your best to challenge your child.

Use a bookmark or index card to help them follow along. While beginner books are fairly simplistic in that they only contain one sentence per page and/or are broken up with illustrations, the amount of text per page increases with each reading level. This can be extremely overwhelming and make children reluctant to challenge themselves with more advanced material, but if you provide them with a bookmark or index card and place it directly below each sentence they are reading, you will help them maintain focus and fluency in their reading.
PRO TIP: Have your child make her own bookmark to make reading even more exciting with this Scratch Art Set by Melissa and Doug!
Ask questions along the way. When reading with your child, make it a point to ask questions before, during, and after the stories you explore together, such as:

What do you think this book will be about?

Who is your favorite character so far?

What do you think will happen next?

What are you picturing in your mind while we're reading this story?

What would you change about the ending?

The idea is to naturally train your child to make observations and to use them to problem solve and make his or her own conclusions about what will happen as the story progresses.

Re-read tough passages. If you sense that your little one is struggling with a certain passage or page in a book because he or she is distracted, the language is a bit too advance, etc., make it a point to go back and re-read it together a couple of times and then engage your child in a discussion to ensure he or she is understanding the information. Keep a dictionary handy to look up new words and encourage your child to ask questions about things he or she finds confusing. This will teach him or her appropriate problem-solving strategies, and will also help you gauge if you need to go down a level (or 2) in reading level while working on reading comprehension.

Teach them to draw mental pictures. When moving from illustrated books to chapter books, it's important to teach your child how to visualize the information he or she is reading to make it more memorable. This can be a really fun exercise to do in a classroom setting or at home! Encourage your child to use all of her senses and emotions to explain the mental picture she has created from the story she's reading to help bring the characters and scenes to life!

Practice makes progress! The last of my reading comprehension strategies might seem pretty basic, but it's probably one of the most important. The more you practice reading comprehension with your child, the easier it will be for him or her to learn this new skill. Of course, teachers already do this as part of their lesson plans, but if you're looking for ways to support struggling readers at home, make it a part of your daily routine!

12 Reading Comprehension Activities Kids Love

Now that you have some reading comprehension strategies to consider, it's time for the fun part! Whether you're looking for reading comprehension activities to try with your students or need tips to make homework easier and more engaging at home, this collection of ideas will most definitely inspire you!

Guide Learning Beach Ball | The Thrifty SLP
Got a couple of beach balls and a sharpie hanging around? If so, this is one of my favorite reading comprehension activities for kids! It's so simple to make, and you can find so many ways to incorporate this into your lesson plans or homework sessions!

20 Story Re-Telling Literacy Ideas | Kindergarten Works
If you're looking for fun reading comprehension activities, this collection of literacy center ideas will not disappoint! Using favorite childhood books like Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Peanut Butter and Jelly, the props in these ideas will keep your kids excited and help them learn how to re-tell a story in a fun and non-threatening way.

Retelling Sticks | Teachers Pay Teachers
If you want to create simple reading comprehension activities to complete with your kids at home, print off these story retelling prompts, grab some popsicle sticks and a glue gun, and create these simple yet effective retelling sticks to help teach your child how to recount a story while identifying and describing story elements.

Comprehension Construction | Teachers Pay Teachers
If you're looking for hands-on, visual lesson plans to help teach the students in your class (or the kids in your home!) reading comprehension, this bundle is where it's at! There is so much great stuff in this set, I can't even do it justice. CLICK HERE and watch the video showing you what's included in the package, how to use the material, and why you'll love it so much!

I hope this collection of reading comprehension strategies and activities helps you find new and innovative ways to help the struggling readers in your life develop a love for reading. Remember to get involved, to find ways to keep it fun and engaging, to practice often, and to think outside the box!
This post contains affiliate links. If you found this collection of reading comprehension strategies and activities for struggling readers helpful, please share this post on Pinterest! And if you're looking for more parenting tips and tricks, please follow our Parenting board where we share all kinds of great ideas we find each day!

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8 Classroom Reading Comprehension Strategies for Struggling Readers

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With school officially underway, many teachers and parents are on the hunt for reading comprehension strategies to help new and struggling readers develop a love for reading, and we're excited to share our best tips and ideas for a fantastic school year!

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When students struggle with comprehension...

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When students struggle with comprehension...

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You are listening to Episode 19, When Kids Can't Remember What They Read.

It is one of my least favorite experiences as a teacher or a parent. You've got a child who is halfway through a book and they look at you and can't tell you what they read. You ask questions, you try to get answers, but the child gives you a blank stare or a terribly confusing summary that makes no sense at all. That's frustrating. And it can be hard to know what to do, especially if it's a book that you, the teacher or parent have never read. So today I'm going to talk to you about some things you can try when learners don't understand what they read. If this sounds familiar at all, it's because you remember a blog post I wrote some time ago with these very same tips, but now I'm sharing them in a podcast episode.

So here we go, 10 things to try when learners don't remember what they read. Tip #1: Know what to listen for. The way you find this out is you ask them questions about the book and they can't answer them, or they tell you things that aren't exactly accurate, or they try to tell you about the book and it's just very confusing and clear that it really didn't stick. So when a child is telling you about a book, the first thing I recommend doing is familiarizing yourself with the book as much as possible. So scan the book yourself. It's amazing what you can pick up from the summary on the back or the inside flap, or the titles of the chapters. And then listen to how the learner is summarizing the book. If they're giving you every single detail, that's actually a problem.

And it's also a bad idea if they can't really tell you much of anything, right? What you're really going for is for them to tell you only the most important details, a summary. When they're summarizing for you, do they rely on you to feed them? So do they need you to say, "And then what? Okay. But why did that happen? Okay. But why did that happen? And then what?" If they need you to do that, it's like you're pulling teeth, then their comprehension isn't very good. If they feel comfortable and excited about the book and enjoy talking about it, chances are good they understand it.

Let's move on to tip number two. You want to make sure the book is appropriate for the reader. And that's why I think it's really important to make sure you know the child's reading level and have them choose within that range. So I am a fan of the Fountas and Pinnell guided reading levels. I have a blog post all about them. I will link to that in the show notes. I think that's very, very helpful because it gives you a range of books that are good for a child, especially when we're doing early chapter books.

I did something that I can hardly believe that I did because it took so much time, but I spent about six months reading and reviewing over 250 different chapter book series so you don't have to. And I did that because I know as my own children are reading, it can be very hard for me to know what chapter book series to suggest next based on their level. And I figured if I have that problem, other people do too. I know as a teacher, I certainly had that problem. So I created this long blog post giving you a quick summary of each series and their levels to show you what I think is a good choice for kids at different levels and interests. And then I also bundled them into a pack in my shop, which includes a huge variety of early chapter book book lists. So book lists for kids who like sports, for kids who like animals, things like that. And then also I have them organized by reading level. So this is a goldmine, and in my opinion, it's worth every penny, because not only will you get these book lists to help you match books to kids, but you will also get 75 reading response sheets that are perfect for helping kids keep track of what they're reading in a chapter book. These are open-ended, they can be used with nearly any book. And it's just a way for kids to keep track of their learning. But I'll get to that more later in this list of 10.

So after you know what to listen for, you've made sure the book is appropriate, it's about their level and their interest, you want to teach them to preview the text before reading. Think about when you get yourself a new book. I always preview the text, right? I look through it. I check what the chapters are called. I just see how long it is. I always read the back or the front cover. Teach your students how to do that. That's just priming the pump and getting them ready to read the book. You don't want them to read a book cold. And that would mean just starting on the first page without any understanding at all of what the book is about.

Tip number four is to teach them to monitor their comprehension. I know when I was having this problem with one of my boys that he wasn't remembering when he was reading, I would come up and talk to him about it. And we could be halfway through the book and I would say, "Tell me what happened here." And he would be, "I don't remember that. That was four chapters ago." Or he would be reading to me and we would stop and I would say, "Tell me about what you just read," And he wouldn't know. Personally, I have had that experience where I read a whole bunch of something and it goes in one ear and out the other. That can happen with our students and we have to teach them to notice when that's happening, to monitor their comprehension. If they get to a stopping point and they don't remember what they just read, they need to learn how to go back and then reread. That's very important.

So that moves us into tip number five, which is to teach fix up strategies. They need to know what to do when they're suddenly not understanding. So one thing is to reread. Another problem could be understanding some tough vocabulary. So getting help from an adult or a dictionary to learn what some words mean. To slow down and read that confusing part slowly. Maybe there's some text features if it's a nonfiction book that can help them understand the text better, or teach them how to create a visual in their mind, or even sketch it on paper as they read. I remember when I was in college in biology, I would take a piece of paper and draw all the new concepts I was learning because science does not come naturally to me and really wanted an A in that class. So the only way for me to retain all the stuff I was learning was to create a visual of it for myself. Your students can do that too.

Tip number six is to make sure your learner has a purpose for reading. Now that may just be to enjoy the book, but if they're reading for school, the purpose is to understand it, right? And so we want them to sometimes set shorter goals than read and understand the whole book. So it can help if they have a sticky note maybe at the end of one chapter. And then you tell them, "When you find the sticky note, I want you to find me and tell me the most important thing that happened." And of course, if you're busy, they may want to write that on the sticky note or a piece of paper and they can come see you later. But if you're at home with your child, it's easy for them to come find you. Maybe you're cooking dinner and when they get to a certain page, they need to come give you a summary.

Other things they could do would be if it's a nonfiction book, tell them to read these two pages and then tell me the most important thing the author wants you to remember. Or read these pages or this chapter and tell me the problem the character is having. Or again, with a nonfiction book, read this section and then tell me a question you still have about this topic. So there are many different things that you can do to give kids a purpose for reading, even just a small chunk of text.

Tip number seven is to use a paperclip. This is a lot like the sticky note tip, but it is to put a paper clip where you want them to stop and engage with the text. And this could be talking to themself, maybe tell themselves what they remember reading. If you have some kind of recording device where they could actually record themselves talking about what they've read so far, if you're home, the child can just come to you and tell you what they've read when they get to the paperclip.

Number eight is to use sticky notes more. So I talked about using sticky notes as a stopping point, but they can also be a recording space. Sticky notes are seriously unappreciated and it's amazing how many possibilities they hold for our young readers. So imagine the things they could write on them. For example, I think blank will happen next. Or at the end of a chapter, they could write, blank just happened. The most important thing in this chapter was, or a question I still have is, so this is just a visual stopping space with a prompt on it so they know what they need to think or write about.

Tip number nine is to work through a graphic organizer. Now I mentioned earlier that my mega pack of booklets for early chapter book series comes with 75 graphic organizers perfect for early chapter books. And so if you go through that, you will find lots of ideas for helping kids talk through a story. At first, you may not have them write in the organizer and that's okay because having that visual of things to talk about can also be extremely helpful. Organizers are great, but I want to encourage you not to overdo it. So don't assign too many in one week or you'll burn your children out. Show them how to use that organizer to help them keep track of what they're learning. It may not be for a grade. It may just be a tool to help them understand what they're reading.

And my last tip is to think conversation, not quiz. This is really hard to do and I fail at it most of the time. But it's so important to remember that when you're talking to a child about a book, try to make it a conversation and not a test. So imagine you're talking to another adult about a book you've both enjoyed or that she or he has read and enjoyed and you want to know more about it. Try to make it be more like that rather than, then what happened? Then what happened? Why did he do that? Then what happened? What happened in this chapter? That can feel kind of like hammering and we want kids to enjoy their books and to enjoy conversations with us about them. So imagine you're in a mini book club so that your students know that they get to talk about it with you afterward, not be tested.

So those are my top tips for helping kids who struggle to remember what they read. Let's recap. Number one, know what to listen for. So scan that book so you have some ideas about what it's about and notice how the child is telling the story. If they're comfortable, if they're halting. Number two, make sure the book is appropriate by checking the reading level. Again, I encourage you to check out my early chapter book list. I'll link to that in the show notes. Number three, teach them to preview the text before reading. So take a look at the back. Look at the chapter titles before they read. Number four, teach them to monitor their comprehension. So they should be able to know when they're not understanding what they're reading. So that number five, they can apply fix up strategies like rereading or reading a part slower.

Tip number six is to give them a purpose for reading. And often these are smaller for smaller chunks of time. So you might say read just this chapter so that you can tell me this. Tip number seven is to use a paperclip so they can mark the place where you want them to stop. Or tip number eight, use sticky notes. And those are often a great place to actually record their thinking. Number nine, talk them through a graphic organizer. I've got 75 of those waiting for you. And number 10, think conversation, not quiz. So in the show notes, I will link to the early chapter book blog post that I have as well as the bundle in my shop and some other things that I've mentioned in this podcast episode. And you can check out the show notes at themeasuredmom.com/episode 19. Thanks for listening, and I'll talk to you again soon.

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When kids can't remember what they read - The Measured Mom

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TRT Podcast#19: When kids can't remember what they read It's one of my least favorite experiences as a teacher or parent. I have a child who is halfway through a book; I ask them about it, but they look at me with a blank stare and can't tell me anything about it.

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Reading comprehension is a phrase you think about daily in the classroom. It may seem like you are stuck doing the same thing repeatedly. Your students read a text and answer questions to check their understanding. Sound familiar? While this strategy is a great way to see how students are doing with their comprehension, there many other strategies that can be used to get students to where they need to be.

Below are five simple ways to increase reading comprehension with your students. Share these strategies with your students so they can start using them daily with their reading!

Be sure to grab the FREEBIE!

Previewing the Text

When given a text, it is essential for students to take a quick look at the passage before diving deeper. I like to give my students a graphic organizer that helps them know what to look for. I always suggest students notice the headings, subheadings, bold words, charts, photos, etc.

Previewing the text will allow students to gain a deeper understanding of what they are about to read.

Repeated Reading

Repeated reading is another way for students to increase their reading comprehension and build fluency. When students are given the same text to read over several days, it is fascinating to see the new information they will pull out, the unique questions they will come up with, the new connections they will make, etc. This is especially helpful with struggling readers.

My Spiral Reading Homework is perfect for this reason because students are asked to reread the same passage each night and answer questions for that day. When students spend more time with the same passage, they are able to gain a deeper understanding of the text as a whole.

Summary Sentences

Summary sentences are sentences used to summarize different sections, or parts, of a passage. These sentences are a great way for students to gain an understanding of the different parts of a text, which will lead to an increase in their comprehension of the text as a whole. Students go through each section of the text and write a sentence to summarize that section.

Check out my blog post "How to Use Summary Sentences to Increase Reading Comprehension" to learn more about Summary Sentences:

Vocabulary Review

Taking note of new vocabulary words that students come across in a text is crucial when it comes to their comprehension. It is essential for students to be able to identify the words that are new to them and work through different strategies to help them better understand those words. Students need to realize that each vocabulary word has an important meaning to the text.

To identify these vocabulary words, students can merely underline or highlight the word. I also like to use one of my Reading Comprehension Graphic Organizers to aid students in reviewing new vocabulary.
Get this Graphic Organizer FREE! Just click below.
DOWNLOAD NOW >>

Talk it Out

Give students the opportunity to talk about a passage with their peers. Students can discuss questions they have about the text, the connections they made, the things they noticed, and so much more. Each student will naturally take away something a little different from the text. This strategy lets them share that with their peers. As a result, students gain a deeper understanding of the passage and think about things they may not have thought of without the input of their peers.
Want more tips for teaching reading? Check out my post on "How to Make Guided Reading Stress-Free".
There are LOTS of reading comprehension strategies that will help students grow as readers. If you are looking for some great resources to help reinforce reading skills, check out my Fiction and Nonfiction Graphic Organizers.

You may also like my Daily Reading Review resources!

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5 Ways to Increase Reading Comprehension | One Stop Teacher Shop

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Reading comprehension is a phrase you think about daily in the classroom. It may seem like you are stuck doing the same thing repeatedly. Your students read a text and answer questions to check their understanding. Sound familiar?

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February 2020 | Volume 77 | Number 5
Rooted in Reading

Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey

Helping students make meaning from texts is critical to their success, and reading comprehension is one of the oldest lines of inquiry in education. Way back in the early 20th century, Thorndike noted that comprehension requires "a cooperation of many forces" (1917, p. 232). Following a thorough review of research, Snow (2002) later clarified those forces and noted that comprehension is dependent on four variables: (1) reader variables (age, ability, affect, knowledge base, and motivation); (2) text variables (genre, format, features, and considerateness); (3) educational-context variables (environment, task, social grouping, and purpose); and (4) teacher variables (knowledge, experience, attitude, and pedagogical approach).

Unfortunately, however, models for helping teachers develop students' comprehension have not kept pace with the knowledge about what comprehension is. While there are strategies, such as modeling or reciprocal teaching, a unifying framework for reading comprehension instruction remains elusive. The education field needs a structured approach to comprehension instruction.

Hattie and Donoghue (2016) suggested instructional strategies could be organized along a continuum of skill, will, and thrill, which sparked our thinking about reading. These three phases also apply to students' improved reading comprehension. When students do all of these, they come to see the instructional experiences their teachers provide them as purposeful. Importantly, they begin to accept responsibility for their learning and understand that struggle is a natural part of the process.

Getting the Skills

In this first phase of instruction, teachers focus on the component parts of reading-oral language, phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and fluency. These components are formulated according to the age and needs of students, with the need fading for some skills instruction as students master them. However, neglecting any one of these processes will very likely result in compromised comprehension. If a student is laboring over individual words, whether because she can't decode them or because she doesn't know what they mean, meaning making is harder and sometimes impossible. When students read laboriously, they rarely pay attention to the meaning and often forget what they read at the start of the sentence or paragraph. Comprehension suffers.

We want students to evolve from strategic readers to skilled ones. As Afflerbach, Pearson, and Paris (2008) note, "Reading skills operate without the reader's deliberate control or conscious awareness ... [t]his has important, positive consequences for each reader's limited working memory" (p. 368).

Strategies, on the other hand, are "effortful and deliberate" and occur during initial learning, and when the text becomes more difficult for the reader to understand (p. 369). At the skill level, specific comprehension strategies can be introduced, such as monitoring, predicting, summarizing, questioning, and inferring. Noticing when meaning is lost is a useful skill, especially when the reader has fix-up strategies such as rereading, revisiting the purpose for reading, using context clues, talking with others, or formulating questions. Similarly, summarizing information in a text, asking questions during reading, and making inferences will likely improve a reader's comprehension of a text.

Building Background Knowledge

Notably, comprehension strategies cannot compensate for lack of background knowledge or vocabulary. Imagine trying to predict or visualize while reading the following sentence from a physics textbook: "Plane potential flow supplemented by the inclusion of circulation is of considerable practical importance" (Joos, 1986, p. 207). You can probably decode all the words and read it fluently. You likely even know the general meaning of the vocabulary. But without the knowledge of the discipline, true meaning is elusive, and not even a whole host of comprehension strategies will help.

Two effective instructional approaches that can help with this background knowledge and vocabulary issue are direct instruction and teacher modeling. Despite some negative perceptions about direct instruction, there is evidence of its influence on learning (Hattie, 2012). Direct instruction is not simply telling students what to do or think but rather is an explicit approach to guiding student thinking. For example, the teacher might directly teach the meaning of key vocabulary terms and have students practice those word meanings. The technique requires that teachers provide students with input and then guide their practice, check for understanding, and have students practice independently.

Teacher modeling using a think-aloud process is another effective instructional approach for developing students' skills (Fisher, Frey, & Lapp, 2011). Teachers verbalize their expert thinking such that students can imitate similar cognitive and metacognitive actions. It is an apprenticeship technique in which students learn to approximate the actions of another more skilled person. For example, a teacher might say:

I've noticed that I'm not really understanding this paragraph. I think that I'll go back to reread because it might be that I lost focus and wasn't paying attention. If that doesn't work, then I think I'll focus on the words that are confusing to me.

The teacher then proceeds to demonstrate exactly that. In turn, students apply the same strategies to a similarly complex text to support their own understanding.

Unfortunately, many students are left at the skill level of learning. Reading comprehension appears to them as a set of skills they must mobilize to understand a text. However, we argue that the skills alone are insufficient. To develop strong readers who choose to read and learn from texts, skill must be coupled with will.

Where There's a Will ...

The will level of reading comprehension focuses on students' mind-sets about reading. These approaches invite students to engage more fully with texts and attempt to create the mental attitude, inclination, habit, or disposition that predetermines their willingness to engage in reading. In other words, the will of comprehension relates to student engagement and motivation to read and understand.

Far too often, students abandon reading when the text is complex. A common misconception is that reading should always be easy, and struggle must be avoided. In fact, productive failure is widely understood as a necessary component of the problem-solving process. And reading is problem solving. There are times when we grapple with ideas and persevere to make sense. That is not to say that 1st graders should be reading War and Peace, but rather that struggle should be seen as natural, and that sometimes the texts we read are challenging. Overcoming appropriately challenging tasks fuels a sense of pride and accomplishment, important ingredients in motivation.

Challenge is crucial for goal setting, which is itself a powerful influence on learning. But all goals are not created equally. Mastery goals are focused on increasing competence ("I want to learn to speak Mandarin"), whereas performance goals are focused on the grade for the assessment ("I want to get an A in my Mandarin course"). Performance goals are much less motivating, whereas helping students establish mastery goals can positively impact their will. For example, getting a good grade on an essay (a performance goal) is not likely to increase a student's will to read, but writing a clear and coherent essay that persuades others might serve to increase motivation and engagement (it is also likely to result in a good grade). We have seen students set mastery goals to understand an Emily Brontë novel ("My goal is to understand the ways the author uses the unreliable narrator device in Wuthering Heights") and with science texts ("My goal is to use the information in the main part of the article with what's listed in the diagrams"). But students don't independently generate mastery goals like these-they are the product of success criteria developed by the teacher. Mastery goals that illustrate the criteria for success in the lesson illuminate the incremental progress students are making in their learning.

Another dimension of will in reading comprehension is providing choice. There is nothing wrong with studying particular texts in class, but if you can increase students' choice about which texts to read, you will increase the number of students who actually do the reading. Instead of sending students home to read the whole-class novel, focus on a genre, topic, or theme and create a list of 10 titles that will allow students to master the standards. Then have them select the one they are most interested in. Book clubs and literature circles also work well. Students can choose from a list of possible titles and meet regularly in small groups with fellow readers to discuss their selected book. Students are more likely to engage in the reading if they know that they will have opportunities to talk with peers during class about the text.

Finally, to increase will, ensure that students' learning is relevant. When students understand why they are reading something (and accept the challenge of learning), they are more likely to put forth the effort. Teachers should make connections between the content and the ways that students will use the information inside and outside the classroom. For example, the students in Brandy Ziegler's middle school science class knew that they would use the information they were reading in in their English class to write letters to elected officials about water pollution. In addition, teachers can increase relevance by ensuring that the texts they select honor the range of life experiences, interests, and aspirations of students.

For the Thrill of It

The final phase of our framework focuses on the excitement that students should experience when they comprehend a text. Thrill in this context refers to the ways that students can use the information or the experience of reading and comprehending in service of something else. We discovered this phase when we started asking students, "What does the text inspire you to do?"

Consider the group of kindergarten students who read The Day the Crayons Quit (Daywalt, 2013) with their teacher. This picture book follows the perspectives of different characters, all crayons. Following several readings of the text over the week, the teacher asked the students what they were inspired to do or what they were curious about after finishing the book. One group of students decided to search the internet to figure out the correct color of the Sun (the picture book includes a debate about this). Another group wanted to know if the author had written other books (he had not at the time) and went on a search for additional books about crayons specifically and art in general. Still another group decided to write their own books about what their crayons would say. And one student wrote a book about what her shoes might argue about. Each student was inspired, but not in the same way as their peers. This served to reinforce the idea that reading allows you to do something with the ideas that you gain from the experience.

Students need to experience the thrill of comprehension if they are to accept the challenge of developing their skills and putting forth the will to understand. Richard Anderson, a pioneer in reading research, recently argued that we needed new metaphors for the purpose, or thrill, of reading. He said that students should be speaking, thinking, and taking action and argued that the new roles might be of storyteller, explainer, or arguer.

Imagine the power of writing Amazon.com reviews rather than book reports. Or the impact of presenting information to others and seeing something change. Or debating ideas or engaging in a Socratic seminar. There are many ways that students can be invited into the thrill of comprehension. But all of them involve students becoming producers and sharing their thinking with others.

Next-Level Comprehension

Simply comprehending a text is not the point of comprehension instruction. Too often, educators seem to be stuck at the skill level, working very hard to develop students' strengths in this area and forgetting to introduce joy, curiosity, and purpose into the experience. A more comprehensive framework for comprehension instruction recognizes that skills are not enough. Ultimately, we must show students that reading, and reading comprehension, are not passive experiences. The point of this work is to do something with the information. When the skill, will, and thrill of reading are all developed together, educators can radically change students' learning from texts.

References

Afflerbach, P., Pearson, P. D., & Paris, S. (2008). Clarifying differences between reading skills and reading strategies. The Reading Teacher, 61(5), 364-373.

Daywalt, D. (2013). The day the crayons quit. New York: Philomel Books.

Fisher, D., Frey, N., & Lapp, D. (2011). Coaching middle-level teachers to think aloud improves comprehension instruction and student reading achievement. Teacher Educator, 46(3), 231-243.

Hattie, J. (2012). Visible learning for teachers. New York: Routledge.

Hattie, J., & Donoghue, G. (2016). Learning strategies: A synthesis and conceptual framework. Science of Learning, 1.

Joos, G. (1986). Theoretical physics (3rd ed.). New York: Dover.

Snow, C. E. (2002). Reading for understanding: Toward a research and development program in reading comprehension. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

Thorndike, E. L. (1917). Reading as reasoning: A study of mistakes in paragraph reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 8(6), 323-332.

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The Skill, Will, and Thrill of Reading Comprehension

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February 2020 | Volume 77 | Number 5 Rooted in Reading Douglas Fisher and Nancy Frey Helping students make meaning from texts is critical to their success, and reading comprehension is one of the oldest lines of inquiry in education. Way back in the early 20th century, Thorndike noted that comprehension requires "a cooperation of many forces" (1917, p.

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Aouad, J. and Savage, R. (2009). The component structure of preliteracy skills: Further evidence for the simple view of reading. Canadian Journal of School Psychology, 24 (2), 183-200.

Catts, H., Adlof, S., and Weismer, S. (2006). Language deficits in poor comprehenders: A case for the simple view of reading. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 49, 278-293.

Gough, P., Hoover, W., and Patterson, C. (1996). Some observations on a simple view of reading. In C. Cornoldi and J. Oakhill (eds.), Reading comprehension difficulties: Processes and intervention (pp. 1-13). Mahway, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

*Gough, P. and Tunmer, W. (1986). Decoding, reading, and reading disability. Remedial and Special Education, 7, 6-10.

Hoover, W. and Gough, P. (1990). The simple view of reading. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 2, 127-160.

*Kamhi, A. (2007). Knowledge deficits: the true crisis in education. ASHA Leader, 12 (7), 28-29.

*These articles are short and easy to read.

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The Simple View of Reading is a formula demonstrating the widely accepted view that reading has two basic components: word recognition (decoding) and language comprehension. Research studies show that a student's reading comprehension score can be predicted if decoding skills and language comprehension abilities are known.

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Alvin Irby: How to inspire every child to be a lifelong reader

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According to the US Department of Education, more than 85 percent of black fourth-grade boys aren't proficient in reading. What kind of reading experiences should we be creating to ensure that all children read well?

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How to make reading comprehension instruction engaging with ideas from the book Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst
This post contains affiliate links.

The Problem With Reading Comprehension Questions

The book was thick and heavy with a dark blue cover. The print was small and the pictures were scarce. My 5 th-grade-self sighed as I mustered up the motivation to finish one. more. reading. comprehension. question. This was the weekly ritual. Why do I remember how heavy the book was and how tedious the task seemed, but I don't remember any of the stories?

I don't blame my teacher. I'm sure that he was doing the best he could with the materials that he had.

Fast forward to reading instruction in my own classroom: My students enjoyed reading new stories together. They loved acting stories out. They lit up when telling me a related story from their lives. But the reading comprehension practice questions...eh, those brought on a lot of heads-propped-up-on-palms and calling on kids who weren't that excited to participate.

As teachers, we need kids to understand what they are reading. Unfortunately, traditional comprehension questions listed in basal readers can be incredibly dull.

What People Love About Reading

Take a second to think about times that you've really been engrossed in reading. When I read Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, it changed the way I looked at my food and what it takes to get it from the far reaches of the earth to my table. When I read Scott Westerfield's Uglies with my daughter, it changed the way I thought about beauty standards and conformity. When I read a recent article about gun violence in America, it changed my understanding of motivations behind mass shootings.

In each instance there is a commonality: change. The reading experiences that engage me the most are the ones that change me.

Our students are not too young to have similar experiences when they read. We can transform our reading comprehension practice by showing students how books can change them.

Taking Comprehension Practice from Dull to Meaningful

A hot phrase right now in reading instruction is "text-dependent questions." These are questions that require students to find evidence in the text in order to answer them. In Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters, the authors interview several students about their feelings on reading. When one child asks if he likes to read, he responds, "I did when I was little. Now it is about 'Do you know your reading level?' and 'Can you show me the evidence?'"

Think about it: we're asking kids over and over to go back and extract information from text. But for what? To write an answer on the page and turn it in? But what does it mean to them in their life?

What if we turned reading comprehension on its head and asked kids to connect with text FIRST and then support with text evidence second?

A Powerful 3-Question Frame Work

Kylene Beers and Robert Probst have suggested a framework of three questions that guide students toward seeing what a text really means to their own lives.

The questions are listed here but definitely check out Disrupting Thinking for a complete understanding:

What's in the book? - Ok, so this is the one we're already good at as teachers. When you teach kids to identify character traits, use text features, or follow the arc of the plot, you're helping them identify what is in the book.

What is in my head? - What thoughts are awakened while reading? Students compare the text to what they already know. They may be surprised or their original thinking may be confirmed. They may develop skepticism for what the author is saying based on their prior knowledge.

What is in my heart? - What feelings are awakened while reading? Students examine what the book helps them learn about themselves or others. Maybe the text changes how the students think about the world. Students consider how their actions or feelings will change as a result of reading the text. (There's that word again...change.)

How can this possibly fit in with all the other strategies I'm already teaching?

Think of the three questions above as umbrellas under which other reading strategies fall.

You teach kids to visualize what they are reading so they can understand what is in the book (the first question in the framework). You teach them to activate their background knowledge so that compare the text to what they already know (the second question). You teach kids to make connections between the text and themselves and the world (the third questions).

You don't necessarily need to teach more strategies, just connect the strategies you are teaching to identifying what's the in the book, what is in their kids' heads, and what is in kids' hearts. If you're like me, you may need to adjust so that you're asking "head" and "heart" questions and not just "What's in the book" questions.

So what about text evidence? Students should still be finding text evidence but not for the sake of extracting information. They should find text evidence to support a connection they made, something they disagree with, or something that changed their thinking. Beers and Probst describe this as moving from extracting to transacting.

How to Start Implementing Right Away

*Emphasize to students that reading is not about calling out words or answering questions on a test. Reading can change how we understand things and how we act.

* Encourage kids to be responsive to the thoughts and feelings awakened by a text. Make time for these thoughts and feelings to be shared.

*Make sure your comprehension discussions and tasks include practice with all three of the questions above, not just the first one. Instead of asking only "What does this text say?" also move to "What does this text say to me? How does it change my thinking or understanding?"

*Give students a chance to talk about text with others. If everyone is making connections between the text and themselves, it is enriching to hear the connections and perspectives of others.

*Make sure students know that they don't have to agree with a text. They can question the text.

*Keep in mind that not every text will change a reader. Sometimes a text confirms what the reader already thinks. There is still a thinking and connecting process that goes on to identify that the author and the reader think the same thing.

Author: Hannah Braun

https://www.theclassroomkey.com

Hannah Braun is a former teacher with 8 years of experience in the classroom and a master's degree in early childhood education. She designs engaging, organized classroom resources for 1st-3rd grade teachers.

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Reading Comprehension Practice that Will Have Your Kids Obsessed

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How to make reading comprehension instruction engaging with ideas from the book Disrupting Thinking: Why How We Read Matters by Kylene Beers and Robert Probst This post contains affiliate links. The book was thick and heavy with a dark blue cover. The print was small and the pictures were scarce.

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Supporting students who struggle with reading comprehension

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Supporting students who struggle with reading comprehension

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These strategies can help students who are able to decode well but have difficulty understanding what they read-and they're beneficial for all students.

monkeybusinessimages / iStock

When we think of reading issues, we often imagine children who struggle to decode the letters in text and turn them into spoken language. This type of struggling reader has a very difficult time figuring out what many of the words are and has poor phonological (speech-sound) skills. However, there are also many students who sound like they're reading beautifully but have difficulty with understanding vocabulary and figurative language, inferencing, verbal reasoning, grammatical development, and oral expression.

As children get older, if they are decoding text well we assume they are reading well. Once a person learns to decode, reading comprehension becomes more about language comprehension and focus. At this transition, starting around third grade, teachers may begin to notice some students who decode text fluently but are not understanding.

Since this type of struggling reader is less noticeable than ones who have difficulty decoding, they often slip under the radar until they begin to fail standardized state comprehension tests. Even then, their issues may go undetected for a long time, resulting in middle and high school students who sound like they're reading but understand nothing that they have read.

These struggling readers should be targeted for remediation-the earlier the better. However, remediation consisting of practice passages and questions may be ineffective as it focuses too narrowly on text-based skills.

Supporting Students Who Struggle With Comprehension

Here are five strategies to try out with students who read fluently but struggle to comprehend what they're reading.

1. Target overall comprehension of language: Recent research reveals that reading comprehension difficulties may stem from an underlying oral language weakness that exists from early childhood, before reading is even taught. It turns out that students who have poor reading comprehension also often understand fewer spoken words and less of what they hear, and have worse spoken grammar. So, to address reading comprehension deficits effectively, educators may have to use an approach that teaches vocabulary, thinking skills, and comprehension first in spoken language and then in reading and written language.

2. Teach vocabulary: Because students with poor comprehension often have poor vocabulary skills and understand less of what they hear, it's helpful to teach the meanings of new words through the use of multisensory strategies like graphic organizers, pictures, and mnemonics. Improving their overall language skills increases the likelihood that they will understand the words they encounter in written text. Since it is impossible to know every word one might encounter, students should be taught about the different types of context clues and how to use them to determine the meaning of unknown words.

Discussing or activating prior knowledge,

Developing questions while reading,

Connecting what they are reading to another text, something they have seen, or something they have experienced,

Visualizing or picturing what they are reading,

Making predictions about what will come next in the text,

Looking back for keywords and rereading in order to clarify or answer questions, and

Thinking aloud to model the strategies and thought processes needed for comprehension.

3. Teach thinking strategies: Once students have the vocabulary to be able to make it through a text, they often struggle with the complex thinking or sustained attention required to keep up with all of the important details and to access information that is implied but not directly stated. Teachers can instruct students on cognitive strategies they can use. Many common text reading strategies-such as annotation, SQ3R, and the KWL chart -make use of these thinking strategies, including:

Students can learn and then use the strategies that work best for them depending on the text they're reading. Pulling deeper meaning out of text through the use of thinking strategies can be beneficial not just to reading comprehension but also to writing.

Questioner, who poses questions about parts of the lesson, discussion, or text that are unclear or confusing, or to help make connections with previously learned material.

Summarizer, who sums up each important point or detail from the lesson, discussion, or text.

Clarifier, who tries to address the Questioner's issues and make sure that parts they found confusing are clear to others.

Predictor, who makes a prediction about what will happen next based on what was presented, discussed, or read,

4. Have students practice reciprocal teaching: Once taught, cognitive strategies can be consistently practiced and implemented through the use of reciprocal teaching, which encourages students to take a leadership role in their learning and begin to think about their thought process while listening or reading. Teachers can use reciprocal teaching during class discussions, with text that is read aloud, and later with text that is read in groups. The students should rotate between the following roles:

5. Directly teach comprehension skills: Students should be directly taught comprehension skills such as sequencing, story structure using the plot mountain, how to make an inference and draw a conclusion, and the different types of figurative language. Students should have the opportunity to first use the skills with text that they hear the teacher read aloud, and then later with text that they read independently at their own level.

The comprehension skills and strategies listed above can be used with the whole class, as they closely align with reading and language arts standards for elementary and middle school students. Teachers can help students select reading material with vocabulary that matches their current ability levels so that within a classroom, students are reading text and working on vocabulary at levels that are accessible for each of them.

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5 Ways to Support Students Who Struggle With Reading Comprehension

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These strategies can help students who are able to decode well but have difficulty understanding what they read-and they're beneficial for all students.

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Comprehension: The Goal of Reading

Comprehension, or extracting meaning from what you read, is the ultimate goal of reading. Experienced readers take this for granted and may not appreciate the reading comprehension skills required. The process of comprehension is both interactive and strategic. Rather than passively reading text, readers must analyze it, internalize it and make it their own.

In order to read with comprehension, developing readers must be able to read with some proficiency and then receive explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies (Tierney, 1982).

​ Strategies for reading comprehension in Read Naturally programs

​General Strategies for Reading Comprehension

The process of comprehending text begins before children can read, when someone reads a picture book to them. They listen to the words, see the pictures in the book, and may start to associate the words on the page with the words they are hearing and the ideas they represent.

In order to learn comprehension strategies, students need modeling, practice, and feedback. The key comprehension strategies are described below.

Using Prior Knowledge/Previewing

When students preview text, they tap into what they already know that will help them to understand the text they are about to read. This provides a framework for any new information they read.

Predicting

When students make predictions about the text they are about to read, it sets up expectations based on their prior knowledge about similar topics. As they read, they may mentally revise their prediction as they gain more information.

Identifying the Main Idea and Summarization

Identifying the main idea and summarizing requires that students determine what is important and then put it in their own words. Implicit in this process is trying to understand the author's purpose in writing the text.

Questioning

Asking and answering questions about text is another strategy that helps students focus on the meaning of text. Teachers can help by modeling both the process of asking good questions and strategies for finding the answers in the text.

Making Inferences

In order to make inferences about something that is not explicitly stated in the text, students must learn to draw on prior knowledge and recognize clues in the text itself.

Visualizing

Studies have shown that students who visualize while reading have better recall than those who do not (Pressley, 1977). Readers can take advantage of illustrations that are embedded in the text or create their own mental images or drawings when reading text without illustrations.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Narrative Text

Narrative text tells a story, either a true story or a fictional story. There are a number of strategies that will help students understand narrative text.

Story Maps

Teachers can have students diagram the story grammar of the text to raise their awareness of the elements the author uses to construct the story. Story grammar includes:

Setting: When and where the story takes place (which can change over the course of the story).

Characters: The people or animals in the story, including the protagonist (main character), whose motivations and actions drive the story.

Plot: The story line, which typically includes one or more problems or conflicts that the protagonist must address and ultimately resolve.

Theme: The overriding lesson or main idea that the author wants readers to glean from the story. It could be explicitly stated as in Aesop's Fables or inferred by the reader (more common).

​ Printable story map (blank)

Retelling

Asking students to retell a story in their own words forces them to analyze the content to determine what is important. Teachers can encourage students to go beyond literally recounting the story to drawing their own conclusions about it.

Prediction

Teachers can ask readers to make a prediction about a story based on the title and any other clues that are available, such as illustrations. Teachers can later ask students to find text that supports or contradicts their predictions.

Answering Comprehension Questions

Asking students different types of questions requires that they find the answers in different ways, for example, by finding literal answers in the text itself or by drawing on prior knowledge and then inferring answers based on clues in the text.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Expository Text

Expository text explains facts and concepts in order to inform, persuade, or explain.

The Structure of Expository Text

Expository text is typically structured with visual cues such as headings and subheadings that provide clear cues as to the structure of the information. The first sentence in a paragraph is also typically a topic sentence that clearly states what the paragraph is about.

Expository text also often uses one of five common text structures as an organizing principle:

Cause and effect

Problem and solution

Compare and contrast

Description

Time order (sequence of events, actions, or steps)

Teaching these structures can help students recognize relationships between ideas and the overall intent of the text.

Main Idea/Summarization

A summary briefly captures the main idea of the text and the key details that support the main idea. Students must understand the text in order to write a good summary that is more than a repetition of the text itself.

​K-W-L

There are three steps in the K-W-L process (Ogle, 1986):

1. What I Know: Before students read the text, ask them as a group to identify what they already know about the topic. Students write this list in the "K" column of their K-W-L forms.

2. What I Want to Know: Ask students to write questions about what they want to learn from reading the text in the "W" column of their K-W-L forms. For example, students may wonder if some of the "facts" offered in the "K" column are true.

3. What I Learned: As they read the text, students should look for answers to the questions listed in the "W" column and write their answers in the "L" column along with anything else they learn.

After all of the students have read the text, the teacher leads a discussion of the questions and answers.

Printable K-W-L chart (blank)

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers provide visual representations of the concepts in expository text. Representing ideas and relationships graphically can help students understand and remember them. Examples of graphic organizers are:
Tree diagrams that represent categories and hierarchies Tables that compare and contrast data Time-driven diagrams that represent the order of events Flowcharts that represent the steps of a process​
​

Teaching students how to develop and construct graphic organizers will require some modeling, guidance, and feedback. Teachers should demonstrate the process with examples first before students practice doing it on their own with teacher guidance and eventually work independently.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension in Read Naturally Programs

Several Read Naturally programs include strategies that support comprehension:

Read Naturally Intervention Program

Strategies for Reading Comprehension

Prediction Step

Retelling Step

Quiz / Comprehension Questions

Graphic Organizers

One Minute Reader Live:
A component of web-based Read Live for supplemental, independent reading that develops fluency with support for vocabulary and comprehension.

Take Aim at Vocabulary: A print-based program with audio CDs that teaches carefully selected target words and strategies for independently learning unknown words. Students work mostly independently or in teacher-led small groups of up to six students.

Main idea

Literal

Vocabulary

Inference

Vocabulary: Clarify target words

Vocabulary: Study word parts and review target words

Vocabulary: Apply the target words

Bibliography

Honig, B., L. Diamond, and L. Gutlohn. (2013). Teaching reading sourcebook, 2nd ed. Novato, CA: Arena Press.

Ogle, D. M. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository text. The Reading Teacher 38(6), pp. 564-570.

Pressley, M. (1977). Imagery and children's learning: Putting the picture in developmental perspective. Review of Educational Research 47, pp. 586-622.

Tierney, R. J. (1982). Essential considerations for developing basic reading comprehension skills. School Psychology Review 11(3), pp. 299-305.

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To improve comprehension, students must have some reading proficiency and receive explicit instruction in skills and strategies for reading comprehension.

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Increasing Reading Comprehension for ELL Students

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Increasing Reading Comprehension for ELL Students

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Kids need to be able to learn to read text for meaning ... (and ask themselves) "Do I know why I'm reading this? Do I know what information I'm looking for?" ... We're always delivering the curriculum in a way that draws on language and reading skills.

- Dr. Nonie Lesaux

Do you remember buying used textbooks in college? If you were lucky, you got one that was highlighted by a skilled student, giving you clues to key information from the book that you needed for your coursework. If you weren't lucky, you got a textbook that had practically all words highlighted on each page and you were looking at a sea of neon pink, yellow, or blue, which could be very distracting. My guess is that a lot of high school students head to college without ever having learned to interact effectively with non-fiction texts. Since books are a precious resource in K-12 education systems, students aren't allowed to highlight or mark in them, and may rely more heavily on the classroom instruction and peer interaction than their reading material to grasp the main idea of a lesson.

Of course it's not just a question of highlighting important information - it's a question of learning key concepts and vocabulary by becoming familiar with different kinds of text, by learning to use a textbook's tools and structure, and by monitoring one's own comprehension of non-fiction text. Without ever having developed these skills, students will have a tough time when it comes time for them to learn information independently in more advanced coursework and in college.

This is especially true for English language learners, who are challenged by learning a new language and new content in that language at the same time. Teachers can help prepare ELL students to successfully work with non-fiction, (or expository) text, however, in many ways - and the earlier the better. Starting early is important because if elementary school classrooms have a predisposition towards fictional stories and literature, students may struggle when they get to fourth grade and need to engage effectively with non-fiction texts in order to learn new content.

In Colorín Colorado's Reading to Learn: ELLs in Grades 4-6 webcast, featured panelist Dr. Nonie Lesaux addresses this transition:

There probably is a fourth-grade slump, but the question is whether we're just picking something up in fourth grade that's already been there for a lot of years for a number of kids, and/or whether, in fact, there are differences in the comprehension demands of the curriculum, and certainly that's a question ...(because by fourth grade) we have reading that cuts across a number of areas of instruction, so reading is not just relegated to reading instruction but rather we need to have good reading comprehension skills for math, for science, for other areas of the curriculum.

While some of those challenges relate to reading instruction in content areas, they also relate to improving the instruction non-fiction texts for ELLs so that students can work successfully with content-area material. In this article I will highlight components of non-fiction texts and effective strategies to help ELLs gain the skills needed to not only understand the content, but understand how the text structure works so they will be able to access content effectively throughout their education.

Introducing text

First, let's look at definitions of types of text:

Narrative: The main purpose of narrative text is to tell a story. Narrative text has beginning, middle and end, characters, plot or conflict, and setting. Usually, narrative texts are written from the author's imagination.

Expository: The main purpose of expository text is to inform or describe. Authors who write expository texts research the topic to gain information. The information is organized in a logical and interesting manner using various expository text structures.

To increase ELLs comprehension of non-fiction expository text, teachers need to provide:

1. explicit instruction on how expository text is structured.

2. models of "what good readers do" to get information from expository text.

3. opportunities for practice so that ELLs can identify and interact with the text

4. opportunities for peer interaction with the content of the text in order to increase comprehension.

Let's look at these steps in more detail:

1. Provide explicit instruction on how expository text is structured.

Teachers need to spend some time introducing students to the format of expository text. This is a lesson intended to teach students how to get information from non-fiction text rather than on the actual content of the text. That instruction can be done once students are familiar with the text format and structure.

Help students recognize the structure of expository text. Introduce the various parts of the text, such as the table of contents and the glossary. Discuss how these different parts are used for informational reading, how the text is organized, where different parts will be found in a textbook, and how they compare with one another.

For example, have students compare the index and the glossary, and discuss what they would use each section for. You might try asking a question such as, "If I want to know the definition of a word, will I look in the index or glossary?"

Elements that are important to introduce include:

Although it may seem very obvious to teachers, something as simple as finding bold words and identifying their definition in surrounding text may be new concepts to developing readers. As students are instructed to find different components of the text, ask questions such as, "What does this graphic tell us? Why do you think the author wanted to put that there?" Make it a thinking exercise so the students will internalize the knowledge.

Chapter walk

One way to help students become familiar with new kinds of books is through a chapter walk, which can be used with fiction or non-fiction text. Students preview the chapter before starting their first lesson in a new unit, looking for headings, graphics, pictures, important words, and key information. Students can discuss what they've noticed and what they think will be covered in pairs, groups, or with the entire class. Once students have become comfortable with a new resource, this exercise can be used to preview content for future lessons and activate background knowledge.

This strategy can also be used with fiction books by using illustrations and chapter headings or important words in the text.

Types of text

For older students, teachers can spend some time helping them understand the different types of text they will encounter, such as descriptive, sequence, and cause and effect. This document posted by U-46 School District in Elgin, Illinois provides an overview of five expository text structures, associated signal words, and related graphic organizers.

2. Provide opportunity for ELLs to practice interacting with the text and identifying key components of the text.

Giving the students to practice these skills will build confidence and offer many learning opportunities. Practice activities can be done to demonstrate how to get information from the expository text. For example, ask students to look for the main idea of a text, and then to explain what "clues" they saw that supported their answer. Students might say things such as, "The main idea is usually in the first paragraph." Or, "I saw the summary written on the side of the page." Engaging the class in discussion about these key components will give all students a chance to demonstrate learning.

Other strategies include:

Making predictions: One method is the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DR-TA), which encourages students to be active readers. DR-TA is a process where the students listen to a brief summary of the text, review a few key words or pictures, and then make a prediction about the content of the text. As they begin to read the text, the teacher asks more questions about how their predictions match what they're reading.

Word splash: Students receive handouts with key words and phrases from the text "splashed" randomly across the page. The students spend some time making clusters of information that goes together. They can do this by circling groups of words, highlighting them in different colors, or drawing lines. The class discusses what they've learned from their clusters and what they predict they will learn from the text. Once again, when they begin to read the text they should make note of which parts of their prediction were correct and how they know that based on "evidence" in the text.

Practice highlighting: Students can practice highlighting text on worksheets or by using this method: Give each student a clear plastic overhead sheet and a "write-on/wipe-off" marker. Have the student paperclip the plastic sheet to a page in the textbook and work together to circle new vocabulary words and underline key points. The plastic sheets can be wiped off and used again.

Margin bookmark: One way to allow students to practice making notes is by using margin bookmarks. Prepare scratch paper "bookmark" strips that fit in the crease of the textbook and within the margin of the print, or that can be attached to the outside margin using a paperclip. Students can use these bookmarks to make notes in the margin. Give them specific tasks such as, "Write the definition of one of the bold words in your own words," or "Write one fact, one question, and one thing that is important for you to remember." Provide examples so that students see how they can interact effectively with expository text.

Define the important information: As evidenced by those textbooks full of highlighting I mentioned at the beginning of the article, if a student doesn't know what's important, then everything is important. I like to have the students do an activity I call "Pack the Suitcase" so that they can start identifying the most important information in the text. In order to do this activity, give the students a short text (no more than two paragraphs) and a small envelope with a picture of a suitcase drawn or glued on it. Pass out pieces of scrap paper and tell students that they need to:

1. review the text

2. write "an important point" on each piece of paper

3. "pack" them in their suitcase.

Students can use as many or as few pieces of paper as they want. When the students are finished, tell them they are going on a trip but that they packed too much - they must look in their suitcase and take out half of their items. Students will really have to decide which items (points) are most important to bring on the trip. Finally, have students "travel" to the other side of the room and sit with a partner and "unpack" the suitcases. See if they have the same points, and discuss any differences and how they identified what was important in the article.

3. Model "what good readers do" to get information from expository text.

As good readers, teachers sometimes forget how mystifying and overwhelming text can be for students. I can recall many years of math classes where I looked around at my classmates in puzzlement and wondered how they figured all the answers out! Looking at the textbook didn't help me because I didn't understand what I was looking for. I believe ELLs ofent have a similar experience, but if teachers model "what to do" when approaching expository text, ELLs will become more successful readers.

Here are some strategies to try:

Think aloud*: Read an introductory portion of the text to the class. Pause to model what you are thinking out loud, such as by describing what you know about the text. For example, a teacher may look at a chapter with a picture of a volcano and bold words in the text such as lava, magma, and geothermic. The teacher could say, "Hmmm ... I see this picture of a volcano and I notice bold vocabulary words. The words look very scientific and technical. I bet this will be a reading about science. I think I will learn facts about volcanoes and how they work."

Demonstrate how to figure out vocabulary: As you come to new vocabulary words, pause and think about how you can figure out what that word means. Show how you look for clues such as commas after the word that contain a definition, or show how the word is related to something else you know such as a root word or cognate in another language. Finally the teacher may want to demonstrate how to ask someone next to you for help with the word, or refer to your personal dictionary of new words that you've created for the unit.

Use a graphic organizer: Determine what you need to know in the text and show how to complete a graphic organizer. Talk about how the graphic organizer will help you remember the important information in the text. For example, if students need to determine the characteristics of an active volcano vs. an inactive volcano, the graphic organizer can follow a comparison outline and students fill in the correct information as related to the topic. Be sure to emphasize that this kind of activity can be used in any classroom and with any content. The student just needs to determine what they want to know and make an "organized picture" of the information so they will remember.

Model "fix up" strategies*: Proficient readers know when they "missed" something or what they are reading doesn't make sense. Developing readers tend to "just keep going" hoping that eventually it will all make sense. Of course, this makes it much more difficult to comprehend the content and it leads to frustration. Show students how you "double check" information when you don't understand it or it doesn't make sense. Read a section of the text aloud - especially a complicated portion - and stop to reflect. Say out loud, "What did I just read? That didn't make sense. Let me go back and read it again." If it still seems confusing, ask the students for ideas about how you could "check" your understanding of this information.

Determine if it's "In the Book" or "In my Head": In the Question Answer Relationship (QAR) strategy students are taught to identify if information is in the book (literal) or in their head (inferential). Teachers can demonstrate this by using questions to model how they figure that out. For example, a literal question might be, "What are three characteristics of an active volcano?" An example of an inferential question is, "Are volcanoes dangerous?" This can be a very important skill to develop because many developing readers spend a lot of time scouring the text looking for an answer that is not defined literally in the text.

*Strategies from, "7 Keys to Comprehension: How to help your kids read it and get it!" by Susan Zimmerman and Chryse Hutchins. See Hotlinks for further information.

4. Increase peer interaction with the content of the text in order to increase comprehension.

Giving students the chance to interact with their peers about new content will engage them and offer more opportunities to practice talking, writing, and thinking about what they have learned. You can do this with the following strategies:

Develop study guides to guide ELLs through content area textbook reading. Study guides will focus student attention on the major ideas presented, and can include graphic organizers as described above, key vocabulary, and guiding questions. These study guides can be very helpful in preparing for final exams and students can use them to "quiz" each other. More advanced students can develop their own study guides in partners or in groups.

Assign reading partners. Pair ELLs with friendly fluent readers. Ask partners to read aloud to each other, alternating sentences or pages. After the first student reads, the other student summarizes what they heard. Then the two partners switch roles.

Encourage student engagement. One strategy is the "Say Something" activity. Students take turns reading aloud, and following the reading, each student 'says something,' such as asking a question, making a comment, making a connection to something already read, or responding personally to the text. The exercise also engages students as readers and gets them thinking about the text. For ELLs, teachers may want to have a "phrase wall" displayed so they have a sentence structure to begin their comments. Examples such as, "That reminds me of..." Or "Do you know..." or "That's interesting because..."

Have students re-tell what they have learned. After students read a section of text, have them re-tell it to a partner or write a few summary notes in their notebook and switch notes with a partner. The partner can add notes, questions or comments to the author's notes.

For more tips on supporting reading instruction in the ELL classroom, take a look at our reading tips for teachers, as well as some reading comprehension strategies. You may also find some helpful tips from the AdLit.org Strategy Library.

Spending time working with text structure and guiding ELLs in how to access expository content effectively will have huge benefits for your students now and in the future. Textbooks are like other classroom tools, such as microscopes or computers. Without the proper introduction and practice, the student will only get a fraction of the information the teacher hopes they will gain. As teachers work with students to discover the secrets to using expository text for learning, they will be rewarded by deeper discussions and learning in the classroom. Most importantly, having learned these strategies, your students will be equipped to interact with a multitude of academic texts throughout the rest of their education.

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Increasing ELL Student Reading Comprehension with Non-fiction Text

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Getting information from a non-fiction text can be especially challenging for ELLs, who may not have had much experience working independently with expository texts. This article offers ways that teachers can help ELLs work effectively with non-fiction texts and includes strategies for introducing components, structure, and purpose of expository texts.

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Discussion and Supporting Materials

Thought starters

1. How do Ms. Rodriguez and Ms. Ugalde build off of each other's strengths?

2. What strategies do these teachers use to support ELLs?

3. How do Ms. Rodriguez and Ms. Ugalde analyze student work?

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Collaborating to Plan a CCSS Lesson for ELLs

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Second grade teachers Maricela Rodriguez and Tita Ugalde collaborate to plan a lesson about informational text. They take the CCSS and science standards about soil to plan a lesson where students read and answer questions about an informational text. They look at student work and come up with next steps for instruction.

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February 2016 | Volume 73 | Number 5
Helping ELLs Excel Pages 89-90

Carol Ann Tomlinson

A couple of years ago, I talked with a high school history teacher as we waited for an after-school meeting to begin. He began by saying that he and his colleagues were struggling to help a large population of English language learners (ELLs) who recently arrived at the school. Supporting these students was a new challenge for the staff; teachers had received no formal assistance to prepare them for the role.

I asked him if he'd figured out any approaches that seemed useful. He nodded and explained that he had thought about what it would feel like if he were 17 and trying to make his way through high school in a new country. He concluded he'd feel hopeless if he were expected to take home five heavy textbooks each night and read 20 pages in each of them. "It just wouldn't be possible," he said. "I'd be so slow in translating that I couldn't do the work even if I stayed up all night. There just wouldn't be enough hours."

That reality led him to highlight small sections in his students' history textbooks. He chose text, photos, and graphics that captured the essence of a chapter, thinking these selections would feel more manageable to his students. "It made a big difference," he said. "You could see the students' faces light up because someone cared."

If I were an English language learner, I'd want to be in that class-a class where the teacher put himself in my shoes, imagined the challenges I faced, and did something concrete to help me find my way.

Other Good Places to Learn

I'd want to be in the class of the 5th grade teacher who explained that everyone had to take their own next steps in learning and that there would be several times a week when students worked on their own agendas. During personal agenda time, students worked alone, in pairs, in triads or quads, or with the teacher on everything from academic vocabulary to math. Each student had his or her own work to do but also took some time to help his or her peers because that's what members of really good teams do.

In that class, I wouldn't have felt alone or scared-at least not all of the time. There would have been consistent times set aside for me to learn to read and write in a new language, and maybe even better, the opportunity to talk with classmates in small groups, a space that felt safe for trying out a new language. And I wouldn't have felt even more like an outsider by being singled out for special help. I would have taken my own next steps, just like everyone else.

I would have wanted to be in the 7th grade English class where the teacher believed there were always many sides to a story. In this class, students regularly encountered texts that represented multiple cultures and perspectives on issues like prejudice, friendship, family, and stereotyping. There were opportunities to read in pairs, listen to recorded text, and use translation apps. On other occasions, community volunteers translated for ELLs in whole-class discussions. The teacher often gave students questions the night before a discussion so they could prepare answers. She always told the class how much respect she had for students who had to think and speak in two different languages simultaneously.

Every Voice Heard

I'd have wanted to be in the high school history class whose teacher emphasized the importance of each student's voice and perspective being heard in every discussion. This teacher knew the class was poorer if any voice was silent. During class discussions, she prompted students to summarize the previous speaker's statement and then add to it. When students newly arrived from Somalia were clearly reluctant to speak, she'd say, "A word or a phrase that seems important to you will do just fine."

In a very brief time, students took quite seriously the importance of their voices being heard-and more to the point, that they really heard the voices of others. On a year-end course evaluation, a common response from students was, "When the year began, I thought only some of us in this class were smart. Now I realize how much I have to learn from everyone."

I'd want to be in the math class of the 3rd grade teacher who consistently encouraged students to find varied ways to communicate their mathematical thinking-with numbers, words, drawings, charts, colors, and manipulatives. "There are many ways to speak the language of math," she'd remind everyone. "Let's see how many of those ways can work for us today." Students regularly analyzed and responded to what the teacher called "one another's displays of mathematical reasoning." No student was ever voiceless in that room.

That's really it. None of those teachers was any kind of ELL expert. They were humans who understood the immense challenge of starting over in a strange new place. They sought to contribute to their students' successes and to their sense of belonging. They used common sense to figure out how they might do that a little better each day. They embraced newcomers with hope and a spirit of partnership. They learned about ELLs and from ELLs, as they always had with all their students, so they could teach them effectively.

Ideally, I'd want to be in a class where the collective approaches of all these teachers were common practice-regardless of my background.

Carol Ann Tomlinson is William Clay Parrish Jr. Professor and Chair of Educational Leadership, Foundation, and Policy at the Curry School of Education, University of Virginia in Charlottesville. She is the author of The Differentiated Classroom: Responding to the Needs of All Learners (2nd ed., ASCD, 2014) and, with Michael Murphy, Leading for Differentiation: Growing Teachers Who Grow Kids (ASCD, 2015).

KEYWORDS

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Educational Leadership:Helping ELLs Excel:If I Were an ELL ...

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February 2016 | Volume 73 | Number 5 Helping ELLs Excel Pages 89-90 Carol Ann Tomlinson A couple of years ago, I talked with a high school history teacher as we waited for an after-school meeting to begin.

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Small tweaks that led to break throughs for ELL students

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Small tweaks that led to break throughs for ELL students

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How a Teacher's Small Tweaks Led to Breakthroughs

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Close reading is a strategy where students read a passage multiple times in order to gain a deeper understanding of the text. When I first attacked close reading with my students, there was a lot of complaining. They didn't understand why they had to read a passage more than once and I didn't exactly know what I was doing. It was boring...for me and for them. That's when I decided to dive into some research on close reading and came up with some modifications to make it more enjoyable for us all.

1. Fun Supplies for Close Reading

Who doesn't like using new and fun supplies?! I know I do! Use items you already have on hand and it is easy to incorporate. Or buy some fun, new close reading supplies. Either way, try to make it something they don't use every lesson. Highlighters, , colored pencils, and are some of the supplies you could use

We used highlighters to mark up the text along with markers and colored pencils. It made the text look fun and colorful when we were done. Instead of just using text symbols you could color-code your annotations. Sometimes, we would use to mark each question in a different color. Then during one of our readings, typically the 2nd or 3rd, we would underline or colors the text that helped us answer that question. Other times, we would take our Post-It tabs and mark the different parts of the text with those. The students love it!

2. High Interest Passages

Next, the passage you choose for close reading is very important. It should be a grade level or above text that presents a challenge to the students. My most successful close reading sessions were when using passages that were of high interest to the students. If it's near a holiday, we use the passages found in this Holiday Close Reads Bundle . They provide the perfect practice while engaging students in text about specific holidays and traditions. Lots of students actually don't know the history behind many holidays that are observed. They found these passages to be interesting and they learned something new about some holidays. They also help to clear up some misconceptions some students have about certain holidays. I've even put together for you at the end of this post so you can try them out.

If it isn't near a holiday, choose topics that are of interest to your students. You know them and what they like or dislike. Take their interest into account when choosing a text and it will help them stay engaged with the text throughout the close reading process. Some of the topics I've found that were most interesting to my students were about sports, technology, candy, video games, and even passages about our body. Just talk to your students and figure out what they like. They will be more engaged with the text if it's something they are interested in. Tell me how many times you read something that doesn't interest you. I know I definitely wouldn't want to read it more than once.

3. Choice

Choice is sometimes such an easy way to engage students that I often forget about it. I feel I already have a good handle on what they like but offering them a choice helps to build interest in the text. Offer two topic choices and allow them to decide which they will work on. Let them choose whether they use highlighters, colored pencils, or markers to annotate. Allow them to decide how they will show what they learned in the passage. Any little bit of choice that you can offer them will up your engagement and will be excited to work!

4. Make Annotating FUN!

Annotating isn't always the most engaging activity so mix it up by allowing them to react to the text in different ways. First, start with the most basic annotation marks until they get the hang of close reading. Then offer them other ways to annotate the text. Maybe they could put their annotations with sticky arrows, or to show how they are relating to the text. Check out the picture below to see annotation options to use to have students interact with the text. I've also included them in the free download (Click here).

5. Don't Close Read EVERY Passage

Close reading is not meant for students to do every step on every passage they read. I believe it is very important to allow them reading time where they choose the book and don't have to do anything extra to do with it but read. I allow time for this every day. Close reading practice is important because it will help students have strategies to use when they have to tackle the complicated text. It will help them to better understand the text and give them options for when they don't understand what they are reading. It is not something they will do when reading for pleasure. If you do it all the time, students may get bored and develop negative feelings about reading.

6. Mystery Grid Pictures

My students LOVE mystery grid pictures! They didn't love close reading. That's why I created high-interest passages that covered important reading skills while incorporating mystery grid pictures to keep them engaged. My Holiday Close Read Passages will help you tackle the difficult task of engaging students with close reading. Your students will learn new and interesting facts about the holidays. Each passage comes with a mystery grid picture for students to complete after the 2nd or 3rd read of a passage. Click here to sign up to get the free sample passage pictured below.

Features of each set of mystery grid close reads:

Each set comes with 3 high-interest passages about the holiday. There are 2 nonfiction and 1 fiction text having something to do with the holiday.

Each of the 3 texts comes in 3 different levels for you to differentiate to the needs of your students.

Each passage comes with 10 text-dependent questions. The first five questions are more surface-level questions and meant to be answered after the first read, The second five questions dig deeper and are meant to be answered after
the second read. Also includes a version for using the passages without the mystery grids if you're short on time.

Each passage comes with text-dependent writing prompt for students to complete after reading the passage multiple times.

Each passage also includes a mystery grid picture meant to be completed after the 10 text-dependent questions are answered. Students use their answers to determine how to color the grid.

Each set includes student printables, teacher pages, and graphic organizers.

*You can check out all of the sets of Mystery Grid Close Reads available by clicking here.

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6 Ways to Make Close Reading More Engaging - Fun in 5th Grade & MORE

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Close reading is a strategy where students read a passage multiple times in order to gain a deeper understanding of the text. When I first attacked close reading with my students, there was a lot of complaining. Here are 6 ways to make close reading meaningful and engaging.