Strategic approaches to content instruction: How do we model understanding?

"(C)omprehension is a complex, interactive process in which readers construct meaning by (1) connecting what they know (schema) to what is written in a text and (2) engaging in discussions with other readers in a variety of contexts and for a variety of purposes."  (Alvermann et al, 2004, p 21)

"(P)roficient reader characteristics represent a marked contrast from former ways of conceptualizing reading comprehension, which was described more as a skill than as an active mental process. Reading was conceived to be the skill of recognizing letters and words, which led to the ability to connect words into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into longer passages that represented various themes or ideas. If a student could recount what was in the text--in other words, reproduce what an author had written--then we concluded that comprehension had occurred. If a student could not recount, than we explained that the student was lacking in reading ability, the student had poor study skills, or the text was too difficult." (Buehl, 2009, p. 6)


Being told I was "skillful" at something had always seemed like a compliment. Hearing that I was a skillful dancer, or adept at reading meant I knew how to dance or read at a high level. However, a concept like "skill" has gotten stuck in the mire of instructional methods. Skills have become things we either have (like a knowledge of our 7's or 8's times tables), or we haven't. This is bad news for any reader who doesn't naturally acclimate to understanding in a content area--what they need is scaffolds that offer them strategic ways to get closer to understanding. 

Acquiring particular skills and tools in a variety of contexts is productive, as long as we know when these skills are needed, and when they are not enough to accomplish a specific task. The same is true of reading content. We know from Alvermann (2004) and Buehl's (2009) review of comprehension research that for many years, students were being tested on their comprehension skills, yet rarely walked through strategic processes for getting at an understanding of the material. Remediation for learners began and ended with decoding practice, merely phonetically unpacking the word--na-tion-al-ize--instead of focusing on its meaning in context of a people's political efforts, or the root word as a clue, or even its part of speech as a verb, an action. In general, students were not taught how to use their prior knowledge with a variety of text genres and structures, how to make connections (text to text, text to self, text to world, how to vizualize, synthesize or even evaluate, instead of passively receiving material.  They received so little modeling and guidance in thinking through these processes with a text, that those already struggling failed to gain independence as proficient readers.  

As Buehl (2009) argues, your readers are your apprentices. So, one of our big tasks this term is to make you, as teachers, more aware of your own reading and writing strategies so that you can model the same to your classroom: "What I think about when I....how I figure this out is...I tend to ask questions and moniter what I understand when..."

This week we will spend half of class thinking about how we integrate these processes into our daily content work with students so they become not only proficient at the language of geometry or English literature, but proficient in knowing what kinds of understanding and thinking processes will aid them in their content inquiry. Benchmarks in the current state standards as well as the CCSS (Common Core State Standards) will provide you some of those expectations for developing reading, writing and thinking skills. For the second half of class, Coleen and an esteemed collaborator Elise Sheffield, Director of Education at Boxerwood Education Association) will be sharing how to integrate environmental science standards, issues and interests, as well as higher levels of comprehension (Alvermann et al, Chapter 11) into content inquiry. 

MORE ON THE BLOG SOON ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION PRESENTATION FROM COLEEN!

A few good related links for reading more about Reading Comprehension research and strategy use within lesson planning:

www.reading.org
www.ncte.org (National Council Teachers of English) 
www.shanahanonliteracy.com (Blog)
www.readwritethink.com


GLOSSARY FOR WEEK 4: 

*Strategies vs Skills: Following the apprentice model, students need strategies as well as skills in order to be successful readers and writers. Skills have a tendency to be overlearned, have simple or single steps, require a high level of accuracy, and be immediate in memory. On the other hand, strategies are more purposeful, giving metacognitive control to the reader so that they may reflect, think aloud or in their head using multiple steps. The scary part of strategic work for some teachers and students is that its inquiry-based nature leaves a probability rather than certainty of success. Still, this is what inquiry and experiment is about!

*Levels of Comprehension: Following Bloome's Taxonomy, Higher Order Thinking Skills or HOTS are measured in our standardized testing to a certain extent; however, teachers tend to get little preparation in working on understanding that reaches beyond the literal fact-finding or summary of what is known. Although these are necessary building blocks for understanding, students need practice in learning to inference, synthesize and evaluate the purpose and efficacy of texts and experiences based on what is know, as well as their own questions and connections.  

*Guided Release of Responsibility: (see Buehl, Fig 1, p 9, and Alv Chap 2 conversation, p 24) Following the apprenticeship model, teachers take a series of steps to guide students to independently use comprehension processes. Step 1) "I show you how I think/ work through this"; Step 2) "Will you help me as we both figure this out?"; Step 3) "Will you show me how to think through this?  I'll help if you get stuck"; Step 4) "Now it's your turn to trying thinking this through on your own or with a buddy" (partners, grps or individually). Buehl comments on scaffolding with simpler strategies first (KWL's, THINK ALOUDS) toward multistep strategies and processes that require students to integrate various levels of understanding.