Summary of Content Knowledge

Comprehension is essential to a student's success in reading. The building blocks of comprehension are word recognition, decoding, and fluency. Some examples of skills that can be taught to improve comprehension include: summarizing, sequencing, inferencing, comparing and contrasting, drawing conclusions, self-questioning, problem- solving, relating background knowledge, distinguishing between fact and opinion, and finding the main idea, important facts, and supporting details. Every book has a different level of text complexity. This can be determined by levels of meaning, structure, language conventionality and clarity, and knowledge demands. It is also determined by word frequency and sentence length. It is important that a student is reading a book that is at the appropriate level for them. If a student is reading a book that is too complex, they most likely will not be able to comprehend majority of the story. Alongside, text complexity is readability. Readability refers to the ease with which a reader can understand a written text. Text structure and organization also plays a big role in student comprehension. It is important to go over the way a text is structured with students before reading, so the students are familiar with the flow of the story. Comprehension also includes: pre-reading, during reading, and post reading. The first is pre-reading which is focusing on activating prior knowledge, vocabulary, preview informational text structure, and predicting what will be learned. During reading includes activities like word strategies, click or clunk, clarify, summarize, and predicting. Post reading includes asking clarifying questions, inferencing, retelling, etc.

Apps

Inference Ace: Reading Comprehension Skills & Practice

This app builds reading comprehension skills in a fun, game-like environment. Students begin by learning and practicing different types of inferences. They then generate multiple inferences per sentence. This app uses great positive reinforcement for students to encourage their learning. It also includes excellent reporting materials for teachers to monitor student progress.

I have experience with using this app and my student improved greatly in her comprehension skills. In the future, I plan on using this app as a tool for struggling readers, as well as a center activity. Students may also continue practice with this app in their own homes for further development.

Main Idea: Short Texts Reading Comprehension Skills

With this app, the main idea of a text is built visually step-by-step for students. The supports that are available to students are gradually removed as students improve in their skills. This app also uses positive reinforcement to encourage student success and learning. Along with, reports for teachers and/or parents to use to monitor student progress.

In the future, I plan to use this app alongside the inferencing app mentioned above. Practicing these two comprehension skills together can vastly improve a child's reading comprehension.

Fact or Opinion: Reading Comprehension Skill Builder

While using this app students learn how to identify a fact or opinion by learning and identifying clue words. Students then think about how to prove facts and how to back up their own opinions. This is an app that is great to use when students are learning to differentiate between fact and opinion in every day real life situations. Students are encouraged through positive reinforcement. This app, just as the others, has a great reporting aspect for teachers to monitor student progress.

Artifact

Close Reading steps are a great tool for students to use when reading to gain a deeper level of understanding and comprehension. By following these steps, students are able to analyze the text at a deeper level. This is a great tool to have posted in the classroom for student reference at any given time.

Strategies

Make Connections

Have students make connections as they read. Students can make text-to-text, text-to-self, or text-to-world connections to help further their understanding. Encourage students to create multiple connections as they read. Model this for students by reading a book and pausing throughout to make different types of connections. Once students are familiar with how to make connections, have them practice and use this strategy in their own reading. Examples:

This reminds me of a time when I
I know about this topic because I
The setting of this book is just like
This book is something like
What's going on in this book is just like what's happening in

Ask Questions

Have students ask before, during, and after reading questions. Also, model this strategy for students so that they can get ideas of different types of questions to ask throughout their reading. Students may also generate their own questions about what they have read. Examples:

Before I read this text, I wonder about
While I'm reading, I try to figure out
After I read, I ask myself
I wonder why
What does this word mean?
Why did ____________ do that?
What is going to happen next?
Why did the author put that part in there?
I have questions about this part because it doesn't make sense. I need to make sure I read it right. If I reread and fix a mistake, that might answer my question.

Visualize

Have students visualize as they read their texts. Students may do so by using key words from a story that describe a certain event or problem. Examples:

The author gives me a picture in my mind when he or she describes â€¦
I can really see what the author talks about when he or she â€¦
I can draw a picture of what the author describes.

Make Inferences

Encourage students to infer what may happen next in a story. Give students different examples of ways in which to make inferences. Some examples may include:

The author says this, but means
If I read between the lines, the author tells me that
The clues to prove my inference are
Because of what the author said, I know that
From the clues or information the author gives, I can conclude that
I think that ____________ will happen next because the author says ____________.

Synthesize

Have students think about the text on a deeper level by asking and/or answering higher level questions. Encourage students to include their own opinion as well when discussing these questions with textual evidence to back up their opinions. Students may be asked to answer questions like:

This story or passage is really about_____. My views on this are
My opinion of _________ is
I first thought ________ about the topic. Now I think _______.
I've read a lot of information. Let me stop and think about this for a minute.
My judgment of this information is
From this information, I can generalize that

RAFT

RAFT is a writing strategy that can also influence comprehension. RAFT stands for role, audience, format, and topic. It is easy for students to use the RAFT format to write about his or her understanding of text that they read.By using the RAFT format, teachers will easily be able to tell if the student comprehended the text.

QAR

The QAR strategy is a comprehension strategy that allows students to be able to answer a variety of different questions. These questions include, Right there questions, search and think questions, author and me questions, and on my own questions. This strategy basically helps the students recognize that not every single answer to ever single question will be found in the text.

Anticipation Guide

This strategy is a comprehension strategy that is done prior to reading. Before reading, students will be able to read several different statement relating to the text. They will then be able to say if they agree or disagree with the statements and provide an explanation. After the story is read, then students can go back to see if they agreed and disagreed with statements that were referenced in the text.

Interactive Reading Guides

The main purpose of an interactive reading guide is basically to help students follow the chapter and to make sure they are understanding the main ideas. Teachers are able to make up guided note sheets that cover the main points of the book, chapter, section, etc. for the students to be able to focus on while reading and allowing them to understand what they are reading.

Listen- Read- Discuss (LRD)

Prior to reading, the teacher will give a short description of what the text is going to be about.After that, the students will read the text on their own. Once everyone has finished reading the text, the class discusses what they read.

Website

http://webquest.org

WebQuest is an extremely informational and interactive website in which students can continually develop comprehension skills. Students are able to read stories and complete different activities that assess their comprehension. These activities are fun and engaging for all students. I plan to use this website as a resource tool in my future classroom. This will be great to use with students who need to build comprehension skills. Students are able to make great progress through a fun center activity!

References

https://lexile.com/using-lexile/lexile-measures-and-the-ccssi/defining-text-complexity/