The Blues Begin to Rock

In secondary junior school, this text is fairly typical of the material presented to students. It is a high-interest text but it also has a high level of lexical density. In this case nouns and noun groups. Students assessed as reading at Stanine 3 or even Stanine 4 will struggle with the context and the vocabulary. The structure of the text could also cause issues in terms of comprehension.

Read the document here

Here I'm trying to improve the pre-reading discussion. Before the students get the article they are required to make a prediction, to consider a likely topic for the coming reading.

 Students highlight, circle or underline the words as they read.

The text has been chunked into manageable sections.

The text offers the opportunity for a jigsaw reading exercise.

Another option is to use small groups. Each group creates a small summary for a single page. Each group then present their summary on a whiteboard. Ideally, the teacher then gives some feedback on the genre of summary writing.

Another option is to talk students through the process of keyword selection (see words highlighted in yellow). What to include, how to leave out excess detail. How to include a small amount of relevant detail. Put the chosen words on the whiteboard or screen. Ask students to cover the text, then ask students to write their own summary for the whole article.  A good strategy for the teacher would involve saying the summary out loud while pointing to each keyword. Show the students what you do in your head as you create a summary i.e. a think-aloud.  I'd feedback on this process but the teacher has gone abroad.

 The Blues    Begin to Rock

Text for the week. 

The problem with most non-fiction texts is lexical density. A large number of noun groups makes comprehension and summary writing a problem for most readers.  Myself included.

 Summary, Inference and Connections

For many students in Yr 9, these skills and asking questions of the texts need to be taught.

This grid is roughly based on the KWL chart. There is an extra column for the keywords. 

Students are instructed to read the text, The Fur Coat and to highlight the keywords as they read. 

In the first instance, the teacher talks the students through the process so that most students end up with something like the response above.  This is a student exemplar which has been graded at Curriculum Level 5A. The student has inserted the word 'trick'. This word does not appear in the text.

In the first session, making inferences is touched on but is an extension exercise.

Making connections with the wider world or with another text is introduced. This is also an extension exercise. The teacher talks about King Solomon the wise, the first detective stories and the two mothers who both claim the live child.

This format of scaffolded readings is repeated for a period, once a week for a term. This will depend on the class and student needs.

Summary Writing

Summary Writing Reading and summary writing may not be the best way to assess comprehension but it is a vehicle for ensuring students focus on their use of comprehension strategies. On a weekly basis students a given a new text to read, to comprehend and to summarise. The rubric below is not comprehensive but it offers a way for students to monitor their own progress. Students get competitive with themselves and with each other. There is no demand for students to share their results but they regularly ask, why is my summary still judged at a Level 3? Why does she have a Level 4 and I’m still achieving at Level 3? Many of our students find it difficult to write a summary. The rubric has a few flaws in that it has a few negative statements or criteria. So it is not a true indication of Curriculum Levels but it does discourage students from copying sections of the text. Many students avoid risks and persuading them to use real names and place names is a major step forward.

Step 1
Discuss the context of the text and the vocabulary that may cause a breakdown in comprehension.

Step 2
Discuss train compartments and overnight trains and Harry Potter.

Step 3
Reinforce the idea of train journeys in New Zealand and the rest of the world. Glen Innes versus London.

Step 4
Show the students the text they are about to read. Discuss the title and the illustration.

Students do receive a copy of the text at this stage. The focus is on Scanning. If students are allowed the text at this stage many would put their finger to the page and start mouthing the words.

Step 5
Show students the keyword list. Ask students to read the words. Then take them through the process of retelling the story based only on the keywords. Choral fashion. 'Mrs Melrose was on a train, she was going from London to Glasgow, it was three in the morning, she was cold......' Explain how this ability to summarise a text is a very powerful start to comprehending a text.

Step 6
Ask or show students to sort the Keywords onto the Scanning Sheet. Explain the four features of storytelling, characters, setting etc. One, two skip a few. Tell the students that they have looked at the title, looked at the illustration and scanned or considered the keywords. They should now be able to write a Prediction, "I think this story is going to be about......" Have an informed guess. I lie and tell them, I'm not going to mark it. At least half the class will struggle to complete this strategy. Mature readers often think of this skill as automatic. It's like changing gears on a car we don't have to think when we shift the gear stick. For many of our students, this skill is not automatic it must be taught. For many of our students, this basic comprehension skill is weak and it needs to be strengthened. In the past I often waited until a number of texts had been attempted and hoped this skill would improve. Instead of waiting and giving oral encouragement (sometimes even pleading) I decided to add or create a think-aloud. What do I do when I scan a text and create a prediction? I decided to make this explicit by asking, what am I doing that the students are not doing? ‘You can do better than, "it's about a fur coat, Sir.”’

Heat, eat, repeat

Notwithstanding Betty Edwards and her links between comprehension and visual skills, what are the characteristics of a good reader versus that of a less able reader? The list is long and strategies that need to be mastered in order to become an adult reader are complex. As educators, we need to incorporate these strategies into our reading tasks where ever possible.

Whenever a teacher addresses these basic skills they are countering reading avoidance strategies adopted by our students. Student engagement increases dramatically because students, often reluctantly, find they are using their skills. If students are asked to scan a single paragraph and then to find the names mentioned in the text then they are more likely to spend time locating those names. If the teacher uses a prompt that encourages the students to find four different names in a text then the student is more likely to reread the text. With teacher monitoring and encouragement the student will employ that comprehension skill rather than 'give up'. When I'm pacing the room, students who are stuck will often say, "Sir, what's the answer?" To which, I tell them to reread the text, to find it themselves.

My aim with a junior class is to take a leaf out of Julia Westera’s book and to apply a program of reciprocal teaching for each of the Year 9 classes. For each student, I want to embed the idea that they can, in this particular lesson, improve their comprehension skills. We know improving comprehension is a long process. Assessing comprehension is complex and I am unable, on a daily basis, to give scientific feedback in the manner of an asTTle or PAT test but I am able to give feedback on the successful use of comprehension strategies. With this in mind, we start, if possible, with the results of the PAT test and with a based line task. Feedback is given, summaries are graded and progress is monitored over the weeks. This is to show students that if they consistently use reading strategies their comprehension will improve.

The first step is to talk about reading skills. With 9RDy I discuss, what are reading skills. What do we do when we read a text? The students reply, you use your eyes, you look at the words. I prompt them, what strategies must we use in order to understand what we’re reading. With most Year 9 classes there seems to be little awareness of the skills they must use when reading a text. I prompt again, asking what we do when we don’t understand a word. This time a few students will respond and mention an aspect or two of word attack skills. I know students have all the skills on the meta sheet above and I explain that today, we are going to work to strengthen these skills. I do not say this but the comprehension skills are there, they are weak and need to be strengthened. Trust me and we’ll make them work.

Many years ago, I stumble upon a book by Betty Edwards called, Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Although the rightside, leftside of the brain is now contested, Betty demonstrated that you can teach what is often considered by many teachers to be unteachable.

Betty identified four or five skills or strategies used by people who can draw and she made these skills explicit to non drawers. These simple skills can transform most people into artists. What do artitsts do that non drawers need to master in order to become masters.

Edwards claims that in four or five hours she can transform a basic sketcher to a competent draughsman as seen in the images above. One area of my enquiry is how to make the teaching of reading skills advance at a similar pase to Edward's drawing skills.

A focus for my enquiry is to look at ways in which I can make reading skills more explicit and achievable for Year 9 students. Even when reading tasks are supported with scaffolding, students often seem very reluctant to take risks, to commit themselves to a written response. The first question for the secondary teacher to ask is, what skills do competent readers use which less able readers need to master?

A starting point for helping helping students improve their comprehension skills needs to be based on these few simple skills. Lesson design around texts needs to incorporate meta-awareness on improving comprehension. Teachers need to help students to take control of reading tasks by helping them fix comprehension when meaning breaks down, by developing variable reading speeds and by developing awareness of 'fix it' strategies.