Bringing meaning, reasoning and enjoyment to learning to read
“Many children who can understand what they read at a literal
level, find it difficult to understand a writers underlying meaning
and intentions. There is a tendency for them to interpret only
what the words say, not what they mean.”
- Fisher, 1990
Although children with fluent decoding skills may appear to be ‘good readers’, it does not automatically follow that they comprehend what they are reading. Evidence from a number of reading studies in New Zealand, Australia and USA,including recent research in the UK (Stuart, 2003; Thomson & Nixey 2005) shows that many good decoders who have been systematically taught and assessed with an emphasis placed predominantly on the ‘mechanics’ of learning to read, without balancing this with comprehension instruction, may be unaware of the deeper meanings within the text. They may also experience difficulty summarizing or gathering information effectively and accurately – or worse still, ‘may even complete a reading assignment and not realize that they had problems understanding the text’ (Oczkus D., 2006).’
The Think2Read Project (2007) believe therefore, that there is not only an urgent need for educators to include the teaching of reading comprehension skills alongside decoding skills, but to do so effectively - teachers need to have a consistent and accurate measure available to them to assess their student’s comprehension thinking ability, in addition to their decoding ability.
(For further information about Comprehension Assessment focuses and latest available resources visit this site in September, 2009).
©Think2Read, Donna Thomson, May 2007
Fisher, R(1990) Teaching Children to Think, Basil Blackwell Ltd.
Stuart, M, Fine Tuning the NLS, written in response to paper circulated to speakers on 24 Febrauary, 2003, prior to DfES Phonics, Seminar, 17th March 2003
Thomson, D & Nixey, R(2005): ‘Thinking To Read, Reading to Think’, Literacy Today Journal, Sept. 2006,. Issue 49
Oczkus, D. (2006) Reciprocal Teaching at Work, International Reading Association, Newark, USA
Teaching Focus – Analysis of Comprehension Results (what to do next….)
It is easy to see how many ‘good decoders’ whose reading ability has been assessed according to their mechanical reading skills without also being measured for their literal, inferential and evaluative comprehension ability; may have mistakenly been considered to be at a higher reading level (e.g., Sapphire/PM Level 29) than they are capable of.
We now realize that the books students are frequently expected to read, simply because they are able to decode them fluently, are often read without any real understanding of the vocabulary, phrasing of words and author’s intention behind the information in the narrative; because the content is generally beyond the student’s personal experience and understanding.
Without being shown how to meaningfully and independently explore the text using the four comprehension strategies of summarisation, clarification, questioning and prediction, it is clear see how many children might not enjoy and fully appreciate the stories and factual information they are reading at such a high level.
Think2Read Project research (2005) using the 'PROBE' Assessment, Parkin, Parkin & Poole (1999) found the following outcomes common to primary school students who had not received guidance in the four comprehension strategies, (now recommended by the Revised Primary National Strategy, 2006):-
- Some children avoided revisiting text to check their answers for accuracy, because they either couldn’t scan the text easily to gather information, or were unaware of how to search for key information.
They consequently fell into evaluative responses that often bore little relation to the author’s point of view.
- Children who had progressed slowly through the early levels while learning to read, and who’d been considered ‘slow readers’, were shown in the assessments to have a comparable knowledge of comprehension at the same level as their decoding ability as they progressed through the levels – unlike the children who had accelerated at speed through the early levels.
- Children responded more confidently and accurately to narrative text rather than to non-fiction, where they had greater difficulty with inference and evaluative questions that required reference to the text.
- The children were often unsure of how to gather information from two different sources in the text to answer a question.
- The children needed often to explore the text more fully before answering - for accurate and full answers - where they were able to consider the type of question they were being asked and respond appropriately to the question with confidence.
- Many of the boys who did not to refer to text when answering questions gave evaluative answers, from their own experience only – and the girls who made no reference to text, relied mostly on memory of the text and more literal responses.
- Many of the children reading confidently at levels 4 and 5 were still unable to give accurate and precise interpretation of words within the context of a passage.
©Think2Read Donna Thomson June, 2007
Teaching focus from Assessment outcomes - the four comprehension strategies: Summarising/Retelling; Prediciting; Questioning; Clarifying
Emphasis on guiding comprehension by highlighting, clarifying and generally extending vocabulary and phrasing so that the children become used to exploring and interpreting the precise meaning of words within the context of a passage, help to extend the child’s thinking, prediction skills, understanding and responses to subtle inference within text, and enable a greater connection with the author overall.
Also as everyone agrees, it is essential to develop a child’s ownership of his own learning through questioning and investigation by encouraging constant exploration of information and ideas within text – so as to broaden and enrich his own thinking and experience of life – enabling him to articulate and back up his own opinions and views with clarity and confidence. (see Books to Buy for information about resource to support teaching of these strategies)
©Think2Read Donna Thomson June, 2007
