Comprehension Strategies: Knowing What is Right and When It's Right

There are many different types of instructional strategies that can be used to aid in student comprehension. The trick is to make sure that the right strategy is used for the right situation, the right lesson. When it comes to using prediction as a comprehension strategy, the question is the same as any other time as to whether this is the best strategy to use for this particular lesson.

For a sixth grade literature lesson, reciprocal teaching would be a useful strategy to use, especially when the lesson is to include the skill of prediction. According to Gunning, reciprocal teaching is a form of cooperative learning with four important reading strategies for students to learn and utilize. The four strategies need to be used in order to gain the maximum level of comprehension and they are: predict, question, summarize and clarify. A hugely, positive benefit to using reciprocal teaching is that is allows for a "built-in" monitoring technique that aids the teacher to gauge the students understanding and application of the strategy. When introducing the reciprocal teaching method, the teacher should also explain the four primary steps clearly and discuss its application in the manner that it should be used. The first step is the lesson focus skill of prediction; this step will require the student to think about what the story may be about based on headings, illustrations, or short introduction paragraph, especially at the start of selection. Later in the selection, predictions can be based on the information that is gained from previous readings. Prediction also gives the students a reason to read because they will be interested in reading to see if they guessed the story correctly. Next, they will be told to question the selection; to find the information in the selection that is important to use to ask good questions in order to find a better clarification and understanding of the selection. The third step would be for the student to clarify what they are reading. Students need to find the words, terms and concepts that cause then confusion and cause them to not understand what they are reading. Once these points of confusion are found, students and teachers will discuss them to find a clear meaning. The purpose of discussion is to not only clear things up for one, but for the others that are also confused and too shy to speak up. The last of the four steps in reciprocal teaching is to summarize what has been read. This allows for a retelling of the reading selection with focus and highlights on the important pieces of the story that allows for review and monitoring of comprehension. All of these steps can be used throughout reading of the text selection from beginning to end and can be a valuable tool for teachers to gauge a student's level of comprehension.

In Virginia, basic prediction skills are introduced in the third grade; they are elaborated in the fourth grade, reviewed in the fifth and expanded in the sixth grade. Literature is introduced with one or two selections in fifth grade, and sixth grade is when literature becomes a focused issue. Reciprocal teaching is appropriate for a sixth grade literature class because of its use of the prediction strategy, as well its use of the questioning, clarifying and summarizing. The textbooks, used in Virginia, offer a pre-reading selection that relates to the topic which will prelude to the larger selection. Through the use of the introductions and colorful illustrations, students will be able to gain some insight towards creating sensible predictions (Virginia Language Arts Standards of Learning 3.5c, 3.6d, 4.5a and 5.6a) as what the author's purpose is for writing the story. The students will then continue with the steps of the reciprocal teaching strategy by questioning what they have read for better comprehension and understanding of the information they used to create their prediction (it is taught as Ask and Answer in Virginia Language Arts SOLs 3.5f, 4.5b, 4.6a and 5.6c). They will clarify the information that they found in the selection by reading forward, backwards and around the text that they are unsure of looking for (this is taught as Context Clues in Virginia Language Arts SOLs 3.4d, 4.3a and 5.4c). Through it all the students will also prove their complete knowledge of the selection with a correct summary of all of the important details in their own terms and phrases (Virginia Language Arts SOL's 3.5i, 3.6f, 4.5f and 5.6f). Using reciprocal teaching for literature lessons would be effective because of the simple fact that much of literature can be classified as fiction, and many of the other comprehension strategy tend to focus on the attainment of factual knowledge and this strategy allows for the versatility of use in fiction and nonfiction selections without limitations. Many of the comprehension strategies have limitations for the type of selections that they can be applied to. For instance, the KWL strategy requires students to think of what they already know about a topic, what they want to learn and what they did learn. In a fictional literature selection, KWL would be difficult to apply because it is hard for students to determine what they know about a selection that is a work of fiction from the imagination of the author. What they know of the topic would be hard to determine as well, because the reader has to read the story to get an idea of the topic. Predictions would prove to be a difficult challenge when the students will have to read the selection in order to get a fairly comprehensible sense of the topic and by that time, they could be a good distance into the selection and a prediction, a good prediction, is pointless. The purpose will be close to its reveal, if not already revealed to the readers.

In a sixth grade reading class, I would use reciprocal teaching early on in the lessons. In fact, the first lesson, early in the year, would be an introduction of the steps and application of the strategy. For this first lesson, I would prepare a short story handout on the backside of a note/worksheet that details the process/steps of the strategy. I would feel that the use of overhead transparencies for both sides of the worksheet would be useful for me to visually show the students of the locations to which they need to focus their attention on their worksheets for each step as we discuss them. I would also recommend the use of highlighters to make sure each of the points stand out to the students. Each of the four steps would be defined or explained and then space would be left for the students to use the story, under guided practice, to draw examples to demonstrate how it is to be used. For the application process, I would first read all of the steps and discuss them with the students, leaving room for them to ask questions or offer thoughts on the topic being discussed. After all of the steps are discussed, we would then flip over the page to the story selection, highlighting and discussing the possible purpose of the title and illustration in relation to the story, and determine from these parts our prediction of what the author wrote the story about and/or why. Once we have reached a correct and logical decision, we would write it in the space under the prediction step; I would write mine on the overhead while the students would copy it onto their note/worksheet. A student would be chosen to read the first paragraph and we would then move on the questioning step where the students would look through the paragraph and question as to what they have read thus far supports our beginning prediction and does it require adjustments. We would write any questions that we had at this point on the overhead/worksheets and continue. All the while, paying careful attention to any details that we may have missed or not understood along the way. Using our skills of clarification and context clues to aid us in determining their meanings for better comprehension of the selection. As we find these trouble areas, we would highlight and make note of them in case the information is found in upcoming areas or to make sure that we remember them for our final review. Another thing that we would do at the end of reading each paragraph would be to quickly describe what has been read so far, in as few words, or sentences, as possible to give a quick summary and jot that information under the summary step to expand upon as we continue our reading. As we progress through the short story, we will be able to build upon the steps together. This will also allow for me to have the opportunity to monitor student understanding through discussion and observation as I circle the room monitoring on task behaviors. This note/worksheet would be put into the students' language arts folders for later reference.

After the initial lesson of the strategy steps, the next lesson using the prediction and review skills would be a quick discussion of the steps with the students opening to their note page. Subsequent lessons would be a bit less involved each time; a mention of the steps and reminder to check their note page, then a reminder to use the steps (and to check notes for references, and finally reminders that I will be checking for the strategy being used properly as a hint that they are to use the steps on their own (I would still be checking for application in all of the lessons).

Proper use of reading and comprehension strategies are all base upon the proper teachings. If the strategies are not taught properly, then they cannot be used properly and if they cannot be used properly then it can lead to poor comprehension skills in our students. To know how to use them and when to use them is the key, for teachers and for students.

REFERENCES:

Gunning, T.G. (2000). Creating literacy instruction for all children (3rd ed.) (Chapter 5). Boston: Allyn and Bacon.

Virginia Department of Education. Retrieved June 16, 2008, from Standards of Learning Currently in Effect Web site: http://www.doe.virginia.gov/VDOE/Superintendent/Sols/home.shtml