Check for Understanding: Post after ZOOM Meetings (by 11:59)

Directions: Please record bulleted highlights, questions, and/or concerns for each of the items below. Please be prepared to use this sheet for
talking points in the instructor led ZOOM meetings.

Assigned Reading: Assigned Viewing:

Background knowledge and Reading Comprehension Strategies

- While Joan agrees that prior knowledge and building
background are important, she disagrees with Willingham and n/a
sees much benefit and success in teaching comprehension skills
and strategies. Joan Sedita says, this is the reason why she
combines the two, by focusing on training content teachers of
all subjects to insert strategy instruction and guided practice
into learning using text with real content.
- In the article by Natalie Wexler, it is stated that while most
people have treated reading comprehension as only a set of
skills, it in fact depends mostly on what the reader already
knows (prior knowledge). Wexler describes reading
comprehension in classrooms as daily random practice of skills
and strategies to supporting reading comprehension, instead of
thinking about the text’s content and the instructional
consistency.
- Willingham, a literacy expert convened by the NAEP, mentions
that the best way to boost students’ reading comprehension is to
“expand their knowledge and vocabulary by teaching them
history, science, literature, and the arts, using curricula that
guide kids through a logical sequence from one year to the
next.” “He suggests that reading comprehension strategy
instruction does not actually improve general-purpose
comprehension skills. He feels this strategy “represents a bag of
tricks that are useful and worth teaching, but are quickly
learned and require minimal practice.”

Reading Rockets Article: Comprehension

- Comprehension is the understanding and interpretation of what
is read. To be able to accurately understand written material,
 children need to be able to (1) decode what they read; (2) make
connections between what they read and what they already
know; and (3) think deeply about what they have read.

- What teachers can do to help at school: ask them open-ended

questions, teach students the structure of different types of
reading material, discuss the meaning of words as you go
through the text, teach note-taking skills and summarizing
strategies, use graphic organizers that help students break
information down, encourage students to use and revisit
targeted vocabulary words, teach students to monitor their own
understanding, teach children how to make predictions and how
to summarize, having a sufficient vocabulary, or knowing the
meanings of enough words. 

Reading Rockets Article: Seven strategies to teach students text

comprehension
- Effective comprehension strategy instruction can be
accomplished through cooperative learning, which involves
students working together as partners or in small groups on
clearly defined tasks.
- Graphic organizers can help readers focus on concepts and how
they are related to other concepts. 
- Students who are good at monitoring their comprehension know
when they understand what they read and when they do not.
They have strategies to "fix" problems in their understanding as
the problems arise.

Assigned Handouts: Discussion Forum Highlights:

n/a

n/a
Instructor Led Zoom Session Notes: Other:

n/a
- Prior knowledge makes a HUGE difference in students’ ability
to understand the text- compared to their reading level
- Trying to incorporate more (reciprocal teaching, modeling what
good readers do, predicting, inferencing, comprehension
monitoring, asking questions, questioning the author, SILPS,
activating prior knowledge, building background knowledge

- The components to balanced comprehension instruction are: a

supportive classroom context, a model of comprehension
instruction
- Good comprehension instruction includes both explicit
instruction in specific comprehension strategies and a great deal
of time and opportunity for actual reading, writing, and
discussion of text.
- This is something I need to remember – applying it to text and
giving ample opportunities for actual reading!