Developing reading comprehension Introduction The 'simple view of reading’, explained fully in Appendix 1 of the Independent review of the teaching of early reading (the Rose Report) and referenced below, identifies two dimensions to reading: word recognition and language comprehension. Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading but this goal cannot be achieved unless children can recognise the words on the page. This document focuses on comprehension and considers the language skills and cognitive resources that play a part in developing reading comprehension, including the important roles of inference and deduction (reasoning). It also examines how explicit teaching of certain strategies such as summarising and recognising degrees of importance can support the reader's comprehension. This document only briefly touches on teaching approaches that help develop comprehension. However, many such examples can be found in the Primary National Strategy’s set of flyers on reading comprehension and in the guidance on shared and guided reading. Reading comprehension is a highly interactive process that takes place between a reader and a text. Individual readers will bring variable levels of skills and experiences to these interactions. These include language skills, cognitive resources and world knowledge. Any act of reading occurs within a particular sociocultural and emotional context. This consists of elements such as the child’s home culture, their previous experiences of reading and being read to, their expectations that reading should carry meaning, their motivation, their view of themselves as a reader, the purpose for reading the text, the cultural value placed on reading and the reading environments the reader experiences. While the purpose of this document is to concentrate on looking closely at the development of comprehension skills, this broader context and its influences should be borne in mind.
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The ‘simple view of reading’ The idea that reading comprehension depends on oral language skill is captured in the ‘simple view of reading’ discussed in Appendix 1 of the final report: Independent review of the teaching of early reading (March 2006). The ‘simple view of reading’ is shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1: The ‘simple view of reading’
According to this view of reading, reading comprehension is the product of word recognition skills and listening comprehension skills. Recognising (reading) the words on the page is vital to reading comprehension; if a child cannot read the words, then they will quite obviously be unable to extract meaning from the written word. Once written words are recognised they can be understood as long as they are in the child's oral vocabulary. Unfamiliar words that are not already in the child's oral vocabulary start to acquire aspects of their meaning from the context within which they have been read; that is, reading gradually becomes a major source of vocabulary development. Once the words are recognised, they can be input to the language comprehension system to understand what a writer conveys. It is well recognised that children vary in the ease with which they can decode. They also vary in their listening comprehension, and consequently in their reading comprehension. An effective reader has good word reading and good listening comprehension skills, as shown in the upper right quadrant of the figure below. Poor reading comprehension can occur with or without poor word reading, as shown in both lower quadrants of the figure (see Nation, 2005).
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Figure 2. Different patterns of performance
From an educational viewpoint this means that practitioners and teachers must encourage the development of oral language skills in order to safeguard children’s reading comprehension. They also need to encourage the development of specific strategies for reading comprehension and, importantly, they need to encourage children to practise their developing reading skills. Children need frequent opportunities to read during shared, guided and independent reading sessions. Reading comprehension is a highly interactive process; it draws on general knowledge of vocabulary as well as on our experience of the world. This in turn enables us to increase our knowledge in these areas.
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What does listening comprehension entail? Listening comprehension (simply comprehending what you hear) is a good predictor of individual differences in reading comprehension. This is because it draws on many relevant linguistic abilities and cognitive resources. We begin by discussing the linguistic skills utilised by listening (and hence reading) comprehension. We will then discuss the cognitive resources that are required.
Linguistic skills
vocabulary knowledge
grammatical skills
pragmatic abilities
metalinguistic awareness, idioms and figurative language.
Vocabulary knowledge Listening comprehension depends upon lexical knowledge (vocabulary). The meanings of words contribute to the meanings of sentences, which make up much of oral communication. The same skills are used during reading individual words as a foundation for text comprehension. During the Early Years, most children extend their vocabulary at a very rapid rate, possibly adding in the order of 50 to 70 words to their vocabulary base per week. Much of this vocabulary growth occurs as the result of oral conversation. By the time children are five, it is estimated that they have an oral vocabulary of some 14,000 words. Beyond that age, oral conversation is a much less effective means of promoting vocabulary knowledge for most children (although it remains crucial for children for whom English is an additional language). This is because most conversations contain words that everyone uses and understands. The practical issues for teachers therefore are how to:
ensure vocabulary growth continues through the school years
narrow the vocabulary gap between children who enter school with good and with poor language (Beck and McKeown in press, 2006).
When children hear a familiar word, they automatically decode its meaning in what is known as a semantic representation. If a child has good vocabulary, he or she will also be able to work out the meanings of related words in a surrounding network. Therefore children with good vocabulary will be at an advantage during reading for two reasons: first, they know the meanings of the individual words they decode. Second, these words aid in explaining contexts for them, and these in turn help them to develop coherent representations of the text. Since readers can develop richer representations of texts containing familiar words, it follows that direct instruction in vocabulary will enhance reading as well as listening comprehension. Moreover, as we will see, teaching the meaning of a single word can further clarify the meaning of related words and therefore bring about additional benefits. Take the example of a child who knows the words ‘rain’ and ‘snow’. Each word can be defined by that child in terms of its semantic features, for example: rain = type of weather, wet
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snow = type of weather, white. Let’s say the child now learns the meaning of the word ‘sleet’: sleet = type of weather, wet, white. It will be clear that ‘sleet’ shares semantic features with both ‘rain’ and ‘snow’. To avoid confusion between these semantically related words, the child must now alter the way in which he or she pictures ‘rain’ and ‘snow’. Hence: rain = type of weather, wet, not white (because it is not frozen) snow = type of weather, not wet, white (because it is frozen) sleet = type of weather, wet, white (because it is frozen). Thus, adding just one word to the child’s vocabulary has enriched the semantic representation of at least two others. It can be argued therefore that the child has increased understanding of three vocabulary terms, and as a consequence, his or her semantic knowledge of weather terms has been deepened. Teaching vocabulary therefore brings benefits beyond reading comprehension to many aspects of the curriculum. But what words should teachers teach? (And, as a related issue, how should they teach them?) Opinion is divided on this issue. Some researchers believe the focus should be on words that are partially known (by between 20 per cent and 70 per cent of the class). Others believe sophisticated words that are of high-utility should be chosen (Beck, McKeown and Kucan, 2002). Texts vary in the vocabulary they use; the vocabulary used in fiction and non-fiction differs, and vocabulary varies across written styles from the concrete to the more abstract. There are also words that may cause particular problems for comprehension, such as: question words (see box below) words with more than one meaning (polysemous words, such as ‘bat’, ‘minute’) homophones (such as ‘bear’ and ‘bare’). It is easy to take for granted the meanings of question words. Some children find it hard to learn the distinctions between them. For such children, a possible order of teaching question forms is as follows: ‘what’, ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘how’, ‘whose’, ‘which’, ‘how many’/‘how much’, ‘why’. Even more complex are questions that are formed syntactically, for example questions formed by inversion (‘may I...?’) or tag questions (‘You’re in a hurry, aren’t you?’). For information on question forms and strategies for teaching them, see Ripley, K., Barrett, J. and Fleming, P. (2001) Inclusion for children with speech and language impairments. Accessing the curriculum and promoting personal and social development, David Fulton Publishers, London, pp. 73–75. It will be clear that some of the more abstract vocabulary that children encounter (including idioms and figurative language) will require explanation for all children. It is easy, however, to forget that some children do not possess age-appropriate levels of vocabulary. Such children who fail to understand at the word-level can easily be overlooked in the classroom, especially if they can decode well. All children need vocabulary instruction and children whose levels of language are low require additional support
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(http://www.york.ac.uk/res/crl/research.html). There are many examples of contextualised investigative teaching strategies to support vocabulary instruction.
Grammatical skills Comprehension at the sentence level (and beyond) depends upon having good grammatical skills. Grammar is a system of rules that specifies the order in which words can be used in sentences (syntax), and how word order is used to convey meaning. Formally, grammar is made up of morphology as well as syntax. Morphology refers to the basic structure of words and the units of meaning (or morphemes) from which they are formed. For example, the word ‘boy’ is a single morpheme but the compound word ‘cowboy’ can be thought of as containing two morphemes, ‘cow’ and ‘boy’. There is therefore an intimate relationship between grammar and meaning and, therefore, comprehension. Although sentences can be both grammatical and semantically unlikely, for example ‘The fish walked to the bus’, we will not be concerned with such unusual examples here. More usually, the grammatical structure of a sentence is closely related to its meaning so that different grammatical forms generally take particular semantic roles in the sentence. Nouns usually refer to agents or objects whereas verbs refer to actions or feelings. In a similar vein, prepositions signify location while adjectives and adverbs are used to describe nouns and verbs respectively. Almost all children have a grasp of simple sentence structure but more complex structures may cause difficulty through the primary school years. More complex constructions include:
the passive voice: for example ‘The window was broken by the boy.’
embedded clauses: for example ‘The girl with the red hair ran away.’
relative clauses: for example ‘The boy who delivered the news was scared.’.
Successful comprehension depends upon being able to break the sentence down into verb, noun, adjective and so on. Complex constructions can therefore pose an obstacle to comprehension. In a similar vein, children need to know about pronouns and their use in order to understand who or what is being referred to both within a sentence (‘He is in the car.’) and across sentences (‘The boy loved his puppy. He put it in the car.’). (See section on anaphora below.) Morphological skills are also important for sentence comprehension. In English, there are relatively few compound words of the ‘cowboy’ type; however, words like ‘camping’ (camp + -ing) or ‘camped’ (camp + -ed) also contain two morphemes and ‘decamped’ contains three. Inflections are parts of words that cannot stand alone (e.g. -ed, -ing, -un) but when combined with a stem they serve a grammatical function. Verb inflections are particularly important to comprehension: they denote contrasts between, for example, past and present tense, and singular and plural forms.
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In order to use context, children must be able to use grammatical clues in sentences. Children also use clues from grammatical construction to learn the meanings of new words. As with vocabulary instruction, there are many opportunities within a rich literacy curriculum to support the development of grammatical skills through contextualised, investigative and interactive teaching strategies.
Pragmatic abilities Pragmatics is the system of language which is concerned with communication and, specifically, how language is used in context. Efficient communication depends upon the speaker and listener having certain assumptions in common, for example that the communication should be both informative and relevant to the topic under discussion. In addition it should be truthful, clear, unambiguous, economical and delivered in an orderly fashion. Violations of these assumptions include talking at length about topics not directly relevant to the present situation or using an inappropriate register, such as speaking in an overly formal manner for the context. Pragmatic failure commonly occurs when the speaker does not take into account the listener’s perspective and either provides too much or too little information for them to be able to communicate well. The relationship between pragmatic skill and comprehension is complex. Satisfactory listening comprehension depends upon sharing the same frame of reference as the speaker as well as differentiating what is relevant from what is less so. It also depends upon making inferences that go beyond the literal words uttered in order to extract the gist (as well as the detail) of the interchange. One aspect of pragmatic competence that is particularly important for reading comprehension is the ability to appreciate another person’s thoughts and beliefs. This skill is usually referred to as ‘mentalising’ or theory of mind. We cannot see states of mind but we can infer them from subtle indicators present in the interaction. Theory of mind has its roots in the early years when children begin to appreciate the feelings of another person (empathise). However, more advanced understanding is required in order to appreciate communicative acts, such as joking, lying, criticism and irony. Such non-literal themes are often conveyed in stories. A child who lacks theory of mind will, therefore, be able to form only an incomplete understanding of story events. More generally, communication frequently involves looking beyond the precise information stated; it also involves understanding other relevant information that needs to be coded to understand the message being conveyed. These assumptions are often referred to as inferences. Inference-making can be thought of as a process of ‘gap-filling’; inference-making is automatic for the skilled user of language and is important both for listening and for reading comprehension. (See section on inferences below.)
Metalinguistic awareness, idioms and figurative language Metalinguistic awareness develops after basic linguistic competence and refers to the ability to reflect on the structure of language. It could be argued that metalinguistic awareness is required in order to understand non-literal, figurative and metaphorical use of language, as well as for reflecting on author’s style and purpose. Idioms are expressions or parts of speech that cannot be understood from the individual meanings of their elements, for example ‘all mouth and no trousers’. Idioms vary from fairly obvious in meaning, such as ‘hold your tongue’ or ‘up the creek without a paddle’, to less obvious such as ‘beat about the bush’ or ‘about face’. Some idioms are learned as whole lexical units, just as words are, but in order to fully appreciate their meaning some analysis is required. More generally, figurative language departs from literal meaning in order to achieve a special effect in spoken or written language. The most common forms of figurative language are metaphors, for example ‘a thread of understanding’ or similes, such as ‘as fast as lightning’ or ‘as thick as thieves’. It is standard practice to teach children about these abstract aspects of language. Such understanding builds not only upon their basic linguistic competences but also upon theory of mind and inferencing skills. (See http://www.riddles.sussex.ac.uk/.)
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Cognitive resources
reading comprehension
knowledge of and engagement with texts
the important role of inferences.
Listening comprehension is undoubtedly an attention-demanding process. The allocation of attention to different processes is critical to listening (and reading) comprehension and depends upon executive processes. As natural as listening might seem, children have to learn to listen and it follows that some children will need to be taught. This will be particularly true if they come from a background where conversation is limited or storytelling infrequent. In addition to this, some children have limited attentional resources, perhaps because they are preoccupied with worries or anxieties. The Qualifications and Curriculum Authority/Primary National Strategy Speaking, listening and learning materials and the Primary National Strategy Social, emotional aspects of learning materials offer teaching ideas to support these areas of development. http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary/publications/literacy/818497/pns_speaklisten062403hbk.pdf http://www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/primary/publications/banda/seal/pns_seal137805_guidance.pdf A fundamental aspect of comprehension is the ability to sequence information and to understand the order of events. The skills that underlie time and sequence are not well understood. Sequencing is a thought process that comes to some children easily and to others not at all. Children with sequencing problems need support to understand and to follow sequences of events, both in oral language and when reading stories. There are many teaching strategies to support the development of sequencing skills, such as getting children to retell familiar routines or stories using sequencing cards or getting children to create sequential story maps (or flow diagrams for information texts) and story boards. Teachers can encourage children to recognise sequencing in other areas of the curriculum, such as ordering numbers in mathematics or working out a sequence of movement in PE. The working memory system has limited capacity and therefore it is important to combine the products of comprehension processes as soon as they become available (online). For example, it is not efficient to remember either individual word or sentence meanings once these have been integrated into meaningful chunks. Such detail has to be suppressed (or inhibited) to allow new incoming material to be processed. This process is sometimes referred to as instantiation. In the classic example of instantiation, the reader reads a text which states explicitly that ‘the swimmer was eaten by the frightening looking fish’; later the memory representation contains the single element ‘shark’. Another control process that is required to ensure good understanding is comprehension monitoring. Organisational processes including comprehension monitoring come into play to ensure that the language processed is coherent and makes sense. Children vary in their working memory capacity and their organisational skills; hence, there is a strong relationship between verbal working memory skills and comprehension abilities. Listening and reading comprehension also differ in the demands they place on working memory. In reading there is a permanent record that is not present when listening. A written text offers the child strategies, such as the ability to look back, that are not feasible in an oral situation.
Reading comprehension Reading comprehension is a much less natural act than listening comprehension. Moreover, language use differs between oral and written language with a tendency for more complex forms to occur in writing.
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Therefore, while reading comprehension depends on listening comprehension ability, it also requires that additional strategies be brought to bear. In formal terms, successful reading comprehension depends on the construction of a rich and elaborate mental model of the text that is read. This is often referred to as the situation model (Kintsch and Rawson, 2005). The situation model can be thought of as an integrated summary of the contents of the text, which can be scrutinised in response to questioning. The following are the steps in the construction of a situation model:
decoding of words and sentences
extraction of explicit meaning
merging of topics to form a logical structure
organisation of key topics or themes (often requiring the generation of inferences)
what is understood as an integration of meaning elicited from text and prior knowledge that is activated as reading progresses.
There are many teaching strategies for building and activating prior knowledge before and during reading. It is clear from this perspective that reading comprehension depends on the linguistic competences we have already discussed, boosted by specific strategies for reading comprehension that are developed through reading experience.
Knowledge of and engagement with texts In oral language, effective communication depends on pragmatic skills. There are parallels in text comprehension. In order to read for meaning, children must both understand the purpose of the activity and the goals of the author. If not they will become confused. They must have a positive attitude towards reading and be motivated to read. Such motivation is critical to the development of a personal standard of coherence for comprehension. In short, children must not be satisfied with incomprehension. They must be motivated enough to monitor the meaning of what they are reading and to look back with the purpose of selfcorrection when something does not make sense. Furthermore, comprehension will be better when there are shared frames of reference so that the child can identify with the story theme and form a relationship with the characters. Knowledge of story schemas and of different written styles (genres) aids successful comprehension. Story schemas can be thought of as templates or protocols depicting typical story structures. At a very basic level, a story consists of a beginning (e.g. ‘Once upon a time’), a middle and an end (e.g. ‘They all lived happily ever after’). A more detailed story schema would include the characters and the setting, the event, its resolution and the end of the story. Well-known story schemas may depict common experiences, such as a birthday party, a trip to the zoo or a day at school. Such schemas are a kind of road map that can be used to guide comprehension processes. In the early years, stories typically relate to familiar themes that children will have heard when read to or in oral stories. In later primary years, children need to appreciate that authors may portray events in different ways, sometimes reordering time sequences and veering from expected endings. Such appreciation depends on print experience: fluent readers who practise a lot (and hear lots of texts read aloud) will develop this awareness; poor readers, or children who do not read much, will be at a disadvantage. Similarly children can recognise the road maps of non-fiction texts and build a schema of typical non-fiction text structures. As with story texts, children enrich this schema by reading non-fiction texts and having non-fiction texts read to them. Research suggests that explicit discussion and teaching of story structures and information text structures supports children in developing text schemas.
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The important role of inferences Inferences are fundamental to successful reading comprehension. Research has shown that children as young as four years old can generate certain types of inferences during reading; generally these are causal in nature (e.g. what causes a physical action). Children become more adept at inference generation with age and older children tend to generate only those inferences that are necessary for text comprehension.
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What is the difference between reasoning and inferencing skills? There are some differences between reasoning and inferencing but the distinction is not clear-cut. Reasoning (including deductive reasoning) is typically a clear task that requires thinking one’s way through a problem to come to a logical conclusion. It therefore requires conscious effort and strategic processing. To some extent, generating inferences can be considered a form of deductive reasoning. This is because in order to generate an inference, it is necessary to process the information available and draw a conclusion that is either logically possible or logically necessary. However, generating inferences is perhaps less constrained than other forms of reasoning. Certain types of inferences are made automatically during reading (that is to say, the reader is not necessarily conscious that they are making the inferences). On the other hand, to evaluate the validity of what has been read, or to determine whether or not you agree with it, requires reasoning skill. This is sometimes referred to as making an evaluative inference.
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What kinds of inference are there? Broadly there are two categories of inferences:
coherence inferences
elaborative or extending inferences.
Coherence inferences Coherence inferences are necessary to form a consistent and intelligible mental picture of a text. They can be classified in two ways: either as those that use cohesive devices or as those that are knowledge-based.
Cohesive devices These are commonly used to maintain textual integrity. For instance, consider the following examples: ‘John asked Pam if he could borrow some money.’ To understand this sentence, the reader would need to determine that the pronoun ‘he’ refers to ‘John’ in order to produce a complete representation of the sentence. This is known as pronoun resolution. ‘The ship left the harbour in a storm. The vessel lurched as a wave hit the bow.’ In order to form a meaningful and related representation of the two sentences, the reader would need to infer that ‘the ship’ referred to in the first sentence was the same object as ‘the vessel’ referred to in the second sentence. This is known as anaphoric reference: the vessel refers to the same thing as the ship. As such, anaphora is used to aid in the construction of a situation model. Thus, cohesive devices can be used to resolve incongruities or ambiguities in a text, and aid in the construction of a coherent representation. Whether or not the use of these types of cohesive device can be classed as a form of inference generation is not without dispute. However, there is clearly some interdependence between the use of cohesive devices and more basic grammatical competence; it follows that children who have difficulty in working out the referents of different words in a sentence will find texts containing anaphoric reference difficult to comprehend. Knowledge-based inferences These are commonly used to bridge a gap in the text by applying real-world knowledge to the explicit information that is given. Such inferences form a link between the ideas that are clearly stated and those that are left implicit. They are also frequently termed bridging inferences. The most commonly studied bridging inference is that which is generated to explain the cause of an event. For example, consider the following text: ‘The campfire started to burn uncontrollably. Tom grabbed a bucket of water.’ In order to understand why ‘Tom grabbed a bucket of water’, it is necessary to relate the second sentence to the first, ‘The campfire started to burn uncontrollably’. Readers generate the inference that Tom was trying to put the campfire out. To do this it is necessary to first activate the mediating idea that ‘water puts out fire’ from real-world knowledge. Without generating this inference the two sentences remain disjointed and do not form a coherent whole. In this example, therefore, knowledge of the real world is used to forge a link between the two explicit sentences by generating an explanation of Tom's actions. The explanation is left implicit in the text itself.
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Causal bridges are the most widely recognised type of knowledge-based inference consistently included in a reader’s text representation. However, other types of bridging inference include:
temporal inferences (requiring the relative timing of actions to be inferred)
emotional inferences (requiring inferences to be made about characters’ feelings and emotions)
spatial inferences (requiring inferences concerning the spatial location of the objects and agents involved).
It should be noted that coherence can be maintained both locally, i.e. across sentences that are close together in a passage, and globally, i.e. across the passage as a whole. The examples given so far are concerned with local coherence. However, global coherence is vital if the reader is to understand the meaning of the passage in its entirety and not just isolated parts of the passage.
Elaborative (or extending) inferences Elaborative inferences differ from cohesive inferences. Although elaborative inferences are not required for textual coherence, they serve to enrich the mental representation of the text and therefore make it more memorable. Elaborative inferences are generally knowledge-based. They include inferences about the consequences of an action, predictions about forthcoming events, speculations regarding the instrument used to perform an action and suppositions about the physical properties of characters and objects. By way of illustration, consider the following passage: ‘The knight lunged towards the dragon and pierced his shining scales. The dragon turned towards the knight and let out a fiery roar.’ It is possible to make many elaborations from this short passage. It could be inferred that the knight attacked the dragon with a sword because that is the usual tool of the knight and is implied by the verb ‘pierced’. However, this is not necessarily the case since the knight could have been using any other sharp object had he not been in possession of his sword. Furthermore, it could be assumed that the knight was wounded by the dragon’s fiery breath. However, it may be the case that the knight was able to avoid the dragon’s attack. Although these elaborations enrich the model of the text, none of them is necessary in order to form a full and intelligible representation. As such, a clear distinction can be drawn between these and the more necessary inferences required for logical understanding. The preceding discussion makes clear that inferencing is an active process that requires engagement with the text. Inferencing requires children to direct attention to the meaning of what they are reading. Some children have difficulty allocating attention in this way. This could be for a number of reasons: for some children, basic reading is still such an effort that little processing capacity is left free for comprehension; other children fail to engage with the text, perhaps because they are poorly motivated with regard to the content of what they are reading (indeed, most people have had the experience of reading a section of text without following it, particularly when tired). Finally, some children may have more significant limitations both in sustained attention and executive control processes (see http://www.cafamily.org.uk/). During shared and guided reading sessions, teachers can model and discuss the inferential processes employed by skilled readers. They can encourage children to reflect explicitly on inferences during independent and individual reading sessions.
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For more information regarding inference types and the two main theories of inference generation, see: Graesser, A., Singer, M. and Trabasso, T. (1994) ‘Constructing inferences during text comprehension’, Psychological Review, 101 (3), pp. 371–395 McKoon, G. and Ratcliff, R. (1992) ‘Inference during reading’, Psychological Review, 99 (3), pp. 440– 466
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Comprehension strategies According to the USA National Reading Panel’s (2000) report on the teaching of reading, five strategies should be taught to ensure good reading comprehension. These are: prediction, questioning, clarifying, imagining and summarisation. To varying extents, these skills draw upon linguistic and cognitive resources. In concert they can be used to ensure that children are able to build coherent mental models of the texts they read.
Prediction It could be argued that the ability to predict what a text entails is the first step to successful comprehension. A reader obtains the first clues to what a text is about via its title. Together with the opening sentences this can help the reader decide if the text is appropriate to their purpose (in the case of non-fiction) or to activate a story schema (in the case of fiction). The good reader then actively looks for cues to enrich their mental model of the text as reading proceeds. In turn, the developing representation of the text can be used to set up expectancies at the word, sentence and text levels. This will facilitate reading fluency and deepen understanding.
Questioning and clarifying An actively engaged reader can use self-questioning to monitor their reading comprehension and to help clarify points that they fail to understand. Closely related to this is the use of the look back strategy to find information that is needed to resolve ambiguities. A successful comprehender knows how to generate pertinent questions, and can fall back on their mental model of the text to know where to locate relevant information.
Imagining Imagining refers to the use of mental imagery to enhance text comprehension by enriching the mental model of a text. Many successful comprehenders translate the story they are reading into a series of images, almost like a film that can be replayed during story recall. Children who do not do this spontaneously can be taught to use the strategy to incorporate the details of what they read around a central theme.
Summarisation The process of summarisation is perhaps most closely allied to the development of the situation model. Summarisation involves the extraction of the gist and main themes of what is read (while putting aside the irrelevant details), and integrating the details into a coherent whole. Additional processes may include the evaluation of style and mood and making generalisations. Summarisation depends on basic language skills, inferential abilities and knowledge and engagement with texts. Reciprocal teaching (Brown and Palinscar, 1985) is a classic method for teaching reading comprehension strategies. Children are first shown how to apply the strategies by their teacher who models the process. Children then read a piece of text, paragraph by paragraph, and they learn to practise the strategies of:
generating questions
summarising
attempting to clarify word meanings or confusing text, and
predicting what will happen in the next paragraph.
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The teacher supports the student while they practise, giving feedback and additional modelling (guiding) as necessary. Gradually it is intended that the guided practice becomes a dialogue in which groups of students work together with a text, asking questions of one another, commenting on answers, summarising and improving the summary. In a similar vein, activities can include helping one another to infer the meaning of a word or to reason about story events.
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Why do some children have reading comprehension difficulties? There are three main reasons why children will fail to progress in reading comprehension:
inefficient word-level reading skills
poor oral language skills
lack of print experience and/or negative attitudes to reading.
When trying to understand a particular child’s difficulty, teachers should ask themselves a simple set of questions, as follows. Is the child able to:
read the text at the independent or easy level
complete the task when listening but not when reading
understand and follow the instructions given
complete the task at a more simple level or with an easier text
demonstrate a concept or strategy but not be able to explain it adequately
complete part of the task but not be able to orchestrate a final full answer
complete the task at a slower rate
complete the task when provided with a model or supported step by step
detect where an error has been made?
Note: ‘task’ is used in the above list to cover a wide range of possibilities, from understanding a simple set of instructions to understanding a complex theme running through a novel. It does not imply only comprehension exercises. More specifically, in order to set up teaching targets, the following set of questions should be applied.
Which part of the task is the child not able to complete accurately?
What are the small steps needed to complete the task: can the child complete any of the steps?
What vocabulary might the child need to complete the task: has the child got the appropriate vocabulary?
Teachers then need to match teaching strategies to identified areas for development. For example, a child who is failing to recognise another person’s feelings in the text could be supported by completing an emotions graph for the character. In this way children can be encouraged to acquire a range of known comprehension building strategies that they can then apply when they experience a failure in comprehension. This supports them in becoming strategic and intentional learners.
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The nature of the text may also affect children’s comprehension.
Is it too dense?
Are there too many unknown or difficult words?
Is the author’s style accessible?
Is the genre familiar?
More specific causes of reading comprehension failure follow from an understanding of the cognitive and experiential prerequisites of progression through the literacy framework. These are detailed in Progression in comprehension.
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References and further reading Beck, I. L. and McKeown, M. G. (in press, 2006) ‘Increasing young low-income children’s oral vocabulary repertoires through rich and focused instruction’, Elementary School Journal Beck, I. L., McKeown, M. G. and Kucan, L. (2002) Bringing words to life: Robust vocabulary instruction, The Guildford Press, New York Brown, A. and Palinscar, A. (1985) Reciprocal teaching of comprehension strategies: A natural program for enhancing learning, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Gough, P. B. and Tunmer, W. E. (1986) ‘Decoding, reading and reading disability’, Remedial and Special Education, 7, pp. 6–10 Kintsch, W. and Rawson, K. (2005) ‘Comprehension’, in The Science of Reading: A Handbook, eds M. J. Snowing and C. Hulme, pp. 209–226, Blackwell, Oxford Nation, K. (2005) ‘Children’s reading comprehension difficulties’, in The Science of Reading: A Handbook, eds M. J. Snowing and C. Hulme, pp. 248–266, Blackwell, Oxford National Reading Panel (2000) Report of the National Reading Panel: Reports of the subgroups, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Clearing House, Washington, DC Perfetti, C. A., Landi, N. and Oakhill, J. (2005) ‘The acquisition of reading comprehension skill’, in The Science of Reading: A Handbook, eds M. J. Snowing and C. Hulme, pp. 227–247, Blackwell, Oxford
Primary Framework for literacy and mathematics Primary National Strategy © Crown copyright 2006
Guidance Curriculum and Standards
Understanding Reading Comprehension:1
Primary headteachers, literacy coordinators, Key Stage 1 and 2 teachers
What is reading comprehension?
Status: Recommended Date of issue: 03-2005 Ref: DfES 1310-2005
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Understanding Reading Comprehension: 1
Reading comprehension As children learn to read they are able to decode the text by orchestrating a range of cues. To become fluent readers they must also understand or comprehend what they read. To help them do this they need to be taught a range of reading comprehension strategies and be encouraged to reflect on their own understanding and learning. Such an approach helps children go beyond literal interpretation and recall to explore the complex meanings of a text using inference and deduction. They can begin to learn these strategies from the earliest stages of learning to read. This leaflet will help you to understand how readers make sense of what they read, review the research evidence and suggest ways to teach reading comprehension strategies. There are two further leaflets with ideas for practical activities to use in the classroom.
What is reading comprehension? Comprehension is an active process that involves all these strategies and behaviours:
Comprehension – making meaning from texts understanding the text making connections with existing knowledge
engaging with the text
critically evaluating the text
reflecting upon responses
monitoring own understanding making decisions about which strategies will help clarify understanding 2
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What can we learn from research on reading comprehension? Research Over the last decades there has been much research into reading comprehension. Past research (1945–80) was characterised by attempts to:
identify the sub-skills of comprehension;
establish a hierarchy of skills;
teach these skills in a progressive order.
Teachers may be familiar with comprehension exercises based on this approach from their own experience at school. Recent research is based on seeing the child as:
actively engaging with the text to create meaning;
acquiring strategies whilst engaged in authentic reading rather than as a separate set of skills;
applying cognitive, interpretive and problem-solving strategies;
influenced by differences in their own experience and in their wider socio-cultural context.
There is growing consensus about the kinds of experiences children need to develop their reading comprehension, the teaching model to support this and the range of strategies that might be helpful.
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Evidence from research overviews The major research-derived strategies for improving reading: encourage extensive reading; teach decoding, with an emphasis on morphology; provide explicit work on sight vocabulary; teach the use of context cues and monitoring meaning; teach vocabulary; encourage readers to ask their own ‘Why?’ questions of a text; teach self-regulated comprehension strategies, for example: prior knowledge activation; question generation; construction of mental images during reading; summarisation; analysing text into story grammar and non-fiction genre components; encourage reciprocal teaching (teacher modelling of strategies + scaffolding for student independence); encourage transactional strategies (an approach based on readers exploring texts with their peers and their teacher). (From Pressley, 2000) A further examination of 230 research studies on reading identified three important factors in the effective teaching of reading comprehension:
References
Learning about words: vocabulary development and vocabulary instruction play an important role in understanding what has been read.
National Reading Panel,
Interacting with the text: comprehension is an active process that requires ‘an intentional and thoughtful interaction between the reader and the text’.
National Reading Panel,
Explicitly teaching strategies for reading comprehension: children make better progress in their reading when teachers provide direct instruction and design and implement activities that support understanding.
Government Printing
(From National Reading Panel Report, 2000)
(2000) Report Of The Washington, DC: Office. Available at www.nationalreadingpanel.org Pressley, M. (2000) ‘What Should Comprehension Instruction Be The Instruction Of?’ In Kamil, M. et al. (eds), Handbook of Reading Research, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
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Research findings Extensive reading Research indicates that the most recent developments in improving comprehension have taken place in classrooms that promote extensive reading. This creates an environment where high quality talk about texts can be encouraged.
The critical role of the teacher The model of teaching advocated by research is a balance of direct instruction along with teacher modelling and guided practice leading to independent practice and autonomy. The role of the teacher is crucial in explicitly encouraging the use of comprehension strategies. Comprehension improves when teachers provide explicit instruction in comprehension strategies and when they design and implement activities that support understanding.
Vocabulary development Research stresses the importance of work to develop children’s phonic skills, their vocabulary and teaching them about words. Children who can decode quickly and accurately and have a sight vocabulary of known words, can autonomise some of the reading process, freeing up more mental capacity to think about the meaning of what they read. (See Leaflet 3, p. 2 ‘Semantic strategies’ for practical ideas.)
Metacognitive awareness Metacognitive awareness involves ‘self-awareness’ and an ability to reflect on one’s understanding and learning. Research highlights the importance of metacognition in learning to read: Younger and poorer readers often do not recognise when they have not understood a text and they are therefore unable to make an autonomous decision to use a strategy to enhance their understanding. More experienced readers show a greater awareness of their own level of understanding. They stop when a text does not make sense to them and some will go on to select a strategy that might help them to overcome their problem. Teachers can model for children how fluent readers monitor their understanding and use strategies to clarify their own understanding. (See Leaflet 3, p. 6 ‘Helping children to monitor their own understanding’ for practical ideas.)
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When do we teach reading comprehension? We want to encourage children to become enthusiastic, autonomous and thoughtful readers who not only decode the text but understand and engage with what they are reading. Teaching is central to this. The structure of the literacy hour provides the context for direct teaching and application of reading comprehension strategies across the primary age range. The strategies can be applied to picture books as well as more complex texts. The wider reading environment in the classroom and school provides further opportunities for extensive reading.
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The teaching sequence
Within the literacy hour
The wider reading environment
Teacher modelling
Shared reading
Encourage extensive reading: ensure regular opportunities for independent, extended reading; provide access to a wide range of quality reading materials; provide opportunities and resources to read for a range of purposes across the curriculum; plan a read aloud programme for all ages; provide story props, puppets and artefacts for retelling stories; plan opportunities for children to use the class collections and the school library; promote reading at home; organise a regular author focus in each class; organise special events, for example book weeks, author visits, storytellers, book sales, book awards, etc. celebrate personal reading achievements, e.g. book awards, reading heroes and advocates, displays, etc.
Demonstrate how to use a range of comprehension strategies: model active engagement with the text, for example rehearsing prior knowledge, generating mental images, making connections with other texts; plan opportunities for children to interact and collaborate, for example ask ‘why’ questions, make comparisons between texts; demonstrate how fluent readers monitor and clarify their understanding, for example encourage reciprocal teaching (See Leaflet 3, p. 7 for further information); plan opportunities to interpret and respond to the text, for example teach strategies for using inference and deduction. (and Word level work) Plan direct instruction so that children can: develop a wider vocabulary; understand why words are spelt in a particular way; learn to read and spell an increasing number of words by sight.
Guided reading Guided practice
Support children as they: apply word level learning to decode words; actively engage with the text; monitor their own understanding and prompt them to utilise different strategies when solving reading problems. Scaffold opportunities for children to use different reading comprehension strategies, for example using the strategy modelled in the shared reading session and applying it to a new text. Encourage children to explain how they solved a word problem. Encourage personal response and reflection.
Independent practice and autonomy
Independent reading Expect children to: use word level learning independently; monitor their own understanding and choose an appropriate strategy when necessary; engage with and respond to texts, for example in a reading journal.
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Copies of this document may be available from: DfES Publications Tel: 0845 60 222 60 Fax: 0845 60 333 60 Textphone: 0845 60 555 60 e-mail:
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Ref: DfES 1310-2005
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THE COLOURWORKS 03-2005
© Crown copyright 2005
Guidance Curriculum and Standards
Understanding Reading Comprehension:2
Primary headteachers, literacy coordinators, Key Stage 1 and 2 teachers
Strategies to develop reading comprehension
Status: Recommended Date of issue: 03-2005 Ref: DfES 1311-2005
Understanding Reading Comprehension: 2
Strategies to develop reading comprehension Reading comprehension is an essential part of the reading process. Children need to be taught a range of reading comprehension strategies to help them fully understand texts. This is the second of a set of three leaflets about reading comprehension. Leaflet 1 introduces evidence from research and gives a sequence for teaching. Leaflets 2 and 3 give practical suggestions for teachers to use in their own classrooms. This leaflet has information on a range of cognitive strategies. This information will help teachers to: become aware of a wide range of strategies to encourage reading comprehension; know when and how to use them in shared and guided reading; know how to model the strategies to children; know how to encourage children to use the strategies themselves in shared, guided and independent reading.
Activating prior knowledge Activation of prior knowledge can develop children’s understanding by helping them to see links between what they already know and new information they are encountering. Here are some ideas for collaborative activities. They will encourage children to bring to the forefront of their minds knowledge that relates to the text they are about to read or are reading. Start with the title, chapter heading or picture on the front cover. Ask children what it makes them think of. Collect ideas orally, using drawings or by making brief notes. Select a key word from the title or an artefact. Ask children to think of memories associated with it. Give sentence starters such as This reminds me of …, It makes me think of … Record ideas using a concept mapping or mind-mapping to show the links between ideas.
Prediction Stopping to predict what a text or part of a text might be about makes readers pay more attention when they begin to read. They need to consider the reasons for their predictions, look for evidence in the text and revise their initial predictions if necessary. Demonstrate how to read the text a section at a time, explain what is happening and predict what will happen next and how it will end. Read on and point out the explicit and implicit evidence that supports or confounds your predictions. Demonstrate how to revise your initial ideas and suggest a hypothesis based on the new evidence.
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Involve children in this process as part of shared reading. Model how to make written notes of your predictions and display these, for instance as you read a class novel aloud. Encourage children to add their own notes based on what they have heard. Support children as they make written predictions and revisions relating to guided or independent reading, using their reading journals.
Constructing images Creating visual images using visualisation, drawing or drama helps children to make links between their prior knowledge and new ideas. These activities will encourage children to go back to the text to check or look for more details, thus deepening their understanding. Visualisation Model the process in shared reading: read aloud from a fiction or non-fiction text; talk about the ideas that you had while you were reading; ask children to think of the picture that they have in their heads. Then read another passage; children work in pairs describing their image to one another. Drawing Ask children to draw a character based on information gathered from the text. You could do this early in the story and then return to it after reading. Ask children to tell you if they have learned anything new about this character. Draw a map of a quest or journey based on details from the story. Draw a diagram to represent an instruction or explanation text. Make a model based on the description of a particular place in a story. Drama Select the key sentences from a text or chapter. Children work in groups to create a still photograph (drama freeze frame) of the moment. Take a photograph using a digital camera and put it on the computer. Children can then add thought bubbles giving each character’s thoughts at that moment in the story.
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Questioning Skilled questioning will develop children’s understanding of texts but the questions need to be carefully thought through and planned. Closed, factual questions test children’s ability to recall knowledge but do not encourage them to use inference and deduction or to engage closely with what they have read. These practical ideas will help you to plan questions that will deepen children’s understanding of the text.
Generic questions and questions relating to particular texts Some questions may be asked of any text while others relate to particular texts or text types. Children need to become familiar with this type of questioning as a regular part of shared and guided reading sessions and to move towards asking these questions themselves as they read independently. Examples of questions Generic questions What do you think and feel about what you have read? Who is this writing intended for?
What is the purpose of this writing? Who wrote this and when? What is the form of this writing?
Have you read any other texts like this one? Did anything puzzle you?
Fiction and plays
Poetry Poetry
Non-fiction Non-fiction
Who is the narrator?
What do you see in your mind when you read this?
How can we locate information quickly in this text?
What is the effect of the rhyme, rhythm and line length?
Why does the author use diagrams?
Who is the most important character? What do we know about the setting? Why does the writer use dialogue?
Children generating their own questions Active reading should generate questions in the reader’s mind. It is important to model explicitly this kind of questioning to young and inexperienced readers, thus making visible to them what is usually an internal monologue for expert readers. Generating questions: Select a text and make a note of any questions that come into your mind as you read. Focus on questions you are asking of yourself rather than questions you would ask children. Reread the text and try to think of at least two different answers for each of the questions.
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Demonstrate this process during shared reading and note question starters, for example Why is this …? If this is true, then why …? What if …? Is there a reason for …? Hot-seating: Take on the role of a character from the text. Invite children to create questions for the character and give answers in role. Encourage children to move beyond factual questions to probe more deeply into motives or consequences. Involve individuals in working in role themselves and answering questions made up by other children. Talk to the author: Read a text in shared reading and then demonstrate how to note any questions that you would like to ask the author, for example Who was this? Why did this happen? Children can then try this for themselves. Discuss what you have found out about the difference between fact and opinion and any signs of bias. Focus journals: Children read part of a text independently before their guided reading session. Write a focus question on the board, for example What seemed important to you in what you learned about x? The children read the focus, reflect on their response and write in their journals. This then serves as a basis for discussion. (See also Leaflet 3, p. 6 ‘Helping children to monitor their own understanding’.)
Questioning at different levels Questions can operate at different levels, taking children deeper into texts and requiring different levels of thinking. An effective strategy is to ask questions that make increasing cognitive demands on children moving from simple recall, through inference to questions that ask for evaluation and response, following Bloom’s Taxonomy. Higher- and lower-order levels of thinking Bloom’s Taxonomy, starting from the simplest behaviour to the most complex: 1 Knowledge – for example Who? What? Where? When? How? 2 Comprehension – for example What do we mean by …? Explain … 3 Application – for example What other examples are there? 4 Analysis – for example What is the evidence for …? 5 Synthesis – for example How could we add to, improve, design, solve …? 6 Evaluation – for example What do you think about …? What are your criteria for assessing …?
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Questions to develop children’s understanding of the text should promote thinking at three levels: 1. Literal questions ask children to recall information that is directly stated in the text. 2. Deductive or inferential questions ask children to work out answers by reading between the lines, by combining information found in different parts of the text and by going beyond the information given by drawing on their ‘world view’. 3. Evaluative or response questions ask children to go beyond the text by, for example, thinking whether the text achieves its purpose, or making connections with other texts. At any stage of reading development children should be expected to be able to think about the text at all three levels.
Alternatives to questions Asking too many questions can discourage children from giving elaborate or thoughtful answers. Alternative strategies can provide more thinking time, allow more children to respond and open up deeper discussion, for example: Discussion starter: Select a key sentence from a text, such as a cliffhanger at the end of a chapter or one character’s opinion of another. Read it out and use it as the starting point for a discussion, encouraging alternative responses: Who has a different point of view? Further information Read pp. 61–73 in the unit Conditions for learning in Excellence and Enjoyment: learning and teaching in the primary years for more information about questioning. See also leaflet Talking in Class available as part of the pack Teaching and learning literacy and mathematics in Year 3 (DfES 2003).
Text structure analysis Research suggests that readers use their growing knowledge of stories to help them predict and understand what is happening and is likely to happen in new stories. This can also be applied to the structure of non-fiction texts. Story maps, story shapes and story charts After reading, demonstrate how to draw a ‘map’ of events in a story. Involve children in recalling and retelling the story. Ask children to work collaboratively to map other stories and make comparisons between them. Use story mapping to make the structure of particular stories explicit, for example a circular story or a journey from ‘A to B’. Structural organisers: Demonstrate how to map the content of a non-fiction text onto a structural organiser grid, for example point and evidence grid; cause and effect grid; argument versus counter-argument list. (See ‘Non-fiction fliers’ – download or order from: www.standards.dfes.gov.uk/ literacy/publications/text/63353/)
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Sequencing texts Children can learn to apply their knowledge about texts and reading when carrying out sequencing activities. The text is jumbled up and then readers are asked to reorder lines of a poem, or paragraphs of a fiction or non-fiction text. Poems: Demonstrate how to look for clues for the correct order of a jumbled poem, for example matching rhyming words at the ends of lines; assembling lines into verses of the same length; thinking about the meaning and checking that it makes sense; identifying lines that suggest a beginning and a conclusion. Give groups of children a similar activity and compare the sequences. Talk about the effect of any differences in order. Recount or instructional text: Jumble paragraphs from a chronologically sequenced text. Demonstrate how to look for a logical order of events and make use of connectives such as first, later, next, finally. Comparing texts: Look at a range of examples and discuss texts that have several possible orders. Involve children in suggesting which texts have only one possible sequence and why.
Summarising Children need to learn how to identify the main idea in a text. Effective summarising involves children in evaluating a text and deciding which elements of it are most significant. Teacher modelling: Demonstrate how to skim read a text and then give an oral summary. Support children as they skim read and summarise short passages. Go through a text paragraph by paragraph, highlighting the key sentence(s) in each. Demonstrate how to restructure key information into a non-prose form, for example producing a labelled picture using the information in the text. Guided practice: Stop at regular points in shared and guided reading and ask children to summarise the section you have just read. Challenge them to summarise within a given word limit. Ask children to write a brief summary at the end of each chapter outlining key events and further insights into character and plot.
DARTs (Directed Activities Related to Text) A group of activities for developing reading comprehension were developed in the 1980s by Lunzer and Gardner. They are known collectively as DARTs and include: Prediction (see p. 2). Text analysis and text marking activities: underlining, highlighting or numbering parts of the text. Cloze activities: words or phrases are deleted from the text and readers work out what the missing words could be through the use of contextual and syntactic cues. Sequencing activities (see above).
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Copies of this document may be available from: DfES Publications Tel: 0845 60 222 60 Fax: 0845 60 333 60 Textphone: 0845 60 555 60 e-mail:
[email protected]
The content of this publication may be reproduced free of charge by schools and local education authorities provided that the material is acknowledged as Crown copyright, the publication title is specified, it is reproduced accurately and not used in a misleading context. Anyone else wishing to reuse part or all of the content of this publication should apply to HMSO for a core licence.
Ref: DfES 1311-2005
Produced by the Department for Education and Skills www.dfes.gov.uk If this is not available in hard copy it can be downloaded from: www.standards.dfes.gov.uk
The permission to reproduce Crown copyright protected material does not extend to any material in this publication which is identified as being the copyright of a third party. Applications to reproduce the material from this publication should be addressed to: HMSO, The Licensing Division, St Clements House, 2–16 Colegate, Norwich NR3 1BQ Fax: 01603 723000 e-mail:
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THE COLOURWORKS 03-2005
© Crown copyright 2005
Guidance Curriculum and Standards
Understanding Reading Comprehension: 3
Primary head teachers, literacy coordinators, Key Stage 1 and 2 teachers
Further strategies to develop reading comprehension
Date of issue: 03-2005
Status: Recommended
Ref: DfES 1312-2005
#
Understanding Reading Comprehension: 3
Further strategies to develop reading comprehension Reading comprehension is an essential part of the reading process. Children need to be taught a range of reading comprehension strategies to help them fully understand the text. This is the third of a set of three leaflets about reading comprehension. Leaflet 1 introduces evidence from research and gives a sequence for teaching. Leaflets 2 and 3 give practical suggestions for teachers to use in their own classrooms. This leaflet has information on semantic strategies, interpretive strategies and monitoring understanding.
Semantic strategies Clarifying the meaning of words and phrases in the text enhances comprehension. Children who can decode fast and accurately are free to think about the meaning of what they read. Where children struggle to work out words, and frequently misread them, these difficulties can get in the way of understanding. Children have regular phonics/word level teaching as part of the literacy hour and learn how to apply this knowledge in shared and guided reading. Work on semantic strategies can be done before, during and after reading a text.
Previewing vocabulary Before a shared or guided reading session, identify unfamiliar words or phrases in the text. Provide a list of words relating to the book or topic and discuss the meanings of the words before reading.
Building banks of new words In shared reading, demonstrate how to make a note of any new words or words where the meaning is unclear. Involve the children in suggesting ways to work out the meaning, for example root, morphology and so on, and note the meanings once they are understood. In guided reading, support children to do the same as they read independently, making a note of words to check in a vocabulary journal or on sticky notes. The group then discusses the meanings of words and makes notes. They could add a visual cue to remind them of the meaning.
Word tracker and oral thesaurus Focus on a particular group of words or phrases, for example words to do with appearance. During shared reading demonstrate how to track and list these words. Discuss the list and suggest alternatives, considering whether or not a different word would change the meaning of the text. Challenge children to track other groups of words as part of guided reading sessions.
Making dictionaries and glossaries Identify words whose meanings are unclear and demonstrate how to track these words in the text as part of a shared reading session. These could be technical words, dialect words, slang and so on. Investigate the meaning of the words and model how to put together a dictionary or glossary for that text. Provide opportunities for children to make dictionaries or glossaries in the same way for guided reading texts or texts used in other areas of the curriculum.
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Interpretive strategies Children need to be taught strategies that will enhance their critical understanding and inform their reflections on what they have read. These practical ideas will help you to plan opportunities for children to structure their responses to texts they have read. They can be used with children from the earliest stages of learning to read. The ideas can be modelled in shared reading for children to use subsequently, with support, as part of guided reading sessions. As they become familiar techniques children use them during independent reading sessions.
Character development These strategies will help children to make explicit their response to and knowledge of a character. They can be used with a range of texts from picture books to longer children’s novels. The strategies involve:
imagining how a character might feel;
identifying with a character;
charting the development on a character over time (in a longer text).
Feeling graph or map: show how emotions develop throughout the story. Journal entries: record the reader’s response, or written in role as the character reflecting on events in the story. TV interviews: compile a list of questions to ask the character in an interview. This can lead on to hot seating so that the interview is conducted with the character. Drawing characters: surround the drawing with phrases from the text that relate to that character. Thought bubbles: write a thought bubble for a character at a key moment in the text when they are not actually speaking. Relationship map: record the relationship between different characters using evidence from the text. Relationship grid: list each character along the top and down the side. Each cell represents a relationship to be explored. Speculation: ask questions that focus attention on actions and motives, such as Why did …? What if …? Character emotions register: create a five-point scale of emotions for the possible range of reactions at certain specific points in the story, for example ‘mildly irritated’ to ‘incandescent with rage’. Rate the characters on this scale justifying decisions with implicit and explicit evidence from the text.
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Identifying themes or information These ideas can be modelled by the teacher as part of shared reading sessions before the children work more independently. The author's chair: A child takes on the role of the author. Other children ask them questions about the book and the ‘author’ responds, explaining and justifying what ‘they’ have written. Diagrams: Identify specific information within the text and then present it in the form of a diagram, grid or flow chart. Cartoons and story boards: Draw a strip cartoon or story board that identifies four or five main points from a story or information text. Highlighting: Identify and highlight specific words or phrases within the text that link together to build a picture of a character, mood or setting. Blurb: Write a blurb for the book that summarises the story or theme and will persuade people to read it, for example by using rhetorical questions or quotes. Fact and opinion: Focus on a particular subject, incident or character within the text. Identify facts and opinion and consider how they are woven together.
Reading for multiple meanings These strategies will help children to understand that readers can respond to texts in different ways and that it is possible to make meaning from the text in more than one way. Character ranking: List all the characters from a story and then rank them according to different criteria, for example most powerful to least powerful, kindest to meanest. Discuss the differences between the rankings and ask whether different criteria give different insights. The roles we play: Draw an outline of a character. Children then record all the different roles they play in the story, for example daughter, friend. Illustrations: Identify and discuss any differences or additional information to be found between the text and illustrations. Text or pictures: Give the text only or pictures only from a multi-layered picture book and ask children to tell the story or read the prose story before reading the complete book. Discuss any changes in their perceptions and responses after they had seen the complete book. Minor characters: Select a key scene from a story. Retell the scene from the point of view of a minor character within it. How does this change the reader’s perception of events? Villains: Discuss children’s responses to the villain in a particular story. Challenge them to justify the villain’s actions. Are there any changes in their response after this? Do they have more sympathy with the villain? Problem solving: Stop at the point where a character faces a problem or dilemma. List alternative suggestions from the group. Consider the consequences of each suggestion. Arrive at a group decision or prediction before moving on.
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Looking for or challenging a consistent point of view Genre exchange: Ask children to transpose something from the genre they have just read into another written genre. Story comparison charts: Read several versions of the same story, for example a traditional tale such as Cinderella. Devise a comparative chart to note the similarities and differences between different versions. Criteria rating: Assess certain scenes from a story at a crucial point and rate them according to criteria such as mostly likely to happen/least likely to happen, mostly likely to be true/least likely to be true.
Relating texts to personal experiences What would I do?: Stop at key points in a story and ask children to imagine what they would have done themselves. Would they make the same decisions as the main character? The best bit…: Ask children to chose the funniest, scariest, or most interesting moment from a story or information book and justify their choice. Children could compare their individual responses with a shared group reading text. Response journals: Children keep a personal record of their thoughts as they are reading, recording questions that occur to them as well as their response to particular characters or key events. When reading longer books the journal can be used to record their changing responses. Comparisons: Relate to other books by the same author or on the same topic, read by the group or individual. Discuss similarities or differences.
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Helping children to monitor their own understanding Fluent and experienced readers have the ability to check continually that they have understood what they are reading. When they are unsure of something they use an appropriate strategy to clarify their understanding. Children need to learn these skills as they develop as readers.
Teacher modelling Show children how fluent readers monitor their understanding and use strategies to clarify their understanding: Explain your thinking as you use semantic strategies for an unfamiliar word, for example This is similar to a word I know …, It has the same root as …, I recognise this word ending …, It usually means … Speculate about the plot, theme or an aspect of character using tentative language, for instance I wonder whether she did that because …, Perhaps that information was included so that …, Maybe the author will return to that theme later … Challenge the author if you think something is wrong, for example I don’t agree with that because I know ..., I would like to check that ...
Questioning Plan to ask probing questions that require children to consider how they know some information from a text and to encourage metacognitive reflection, for example Can you explain …? Why do you think that …? How do you know …? Invite children to elaborate, for example Tell us more about … Support children in making alternative responses based on their own reading, for example Is there any evidence to support a different point of view?
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Primary National Strategy
DfES 1312-2005
Understanding Reading Comprehension: 3
Reciprocal teaching This process trains children to monitor their own understanding and can be used in guided reading sessions. The teacher models the process initially and then the children in turn take on the role of group leader as they work more independently.
Predict Group leader predicts what the next part of the text will be about, and asks the group to read a section (for example a paragraph). Readers read the text to themselves.
Clarify Group leader asks if anything in the passage is unclear, and the group clarifies any points raised.
Question The group leader calls for any questions that the passage has raised in the readers’ minds, and the group discusses them.
Summarise The group leader summarises what the section just read was about, and then hands over to another group member, who begins the process again.
© Crown copyright 2005
Primary National Strategy
DfES 1312-2005
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Ref: DfES 1312-2005
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THE COLOURWORKS 03-2005
© Crown copyright 2005
