Reading Comprehension and Fluency in Early Years

Introduction

• This lecture teaches reading comprehension and fluency in early years (up to year two), useful throughout primary school. It highlights the basic skills kids need to become good readers, which helps them in school and life.

• Later units will cover older kids, building on what's learned here to handle harder reading and understanding strategies.

• Objectives: Learn to teach and test reading comprehension and fluency. This means understanding the ideas behind reading comprehension, how to teach it, and how to check students' progress.

Reading Comprehension

• Definition (Dolores Durkin):

  • It's not just about reading words, but really thinking about what they mean.

  • There are many ideas about what it means to understand reading.

  • Reading is about thinking carefully about texts.

  • Focus on understanding the meaning of the text.

  • Meaning comes from the text and what the reader already knows. Good reading means connecting new info with what you already know.

  • Reading comprehension means making sense of the text by connecting with it. It's a back-and-forth where you change your understanding as you read.

• Simple View of Reading:

  • Reading needs:

  • Word recognition (decoding): Being able to sound out words.

  • Language comprehension (understanding): Knowing what words mean, which helps you understand what you read.

• Scarborough's Reading Rope:

  • Two main parts:

  • Language comprehension: Knowing words, background info, and how texts are structured. These help you understand the text.

  • Word recognition: Reading words easily and automatically. This helps you focus on understanding instead of just reading.

  • Good readers use both parts together. They practice and use what they know to read well.

  • Knowing how to learn is key but often forgotten. Teaching kids how to summarize or ask questions can really help them understand better.

• Levels of Comprehension:

  • Literal: Understanding what the text says directly.

  • Example: If it says, "The lion was green," you know the lion is green. This is the simplest level.

  • Inferential: Reading between the lines; understanding what's suggested but not said.

  • Example: "The lion was the color of daffodils" means the lion is yellow. You have to guess based on what you read.

  • Evaluative: Judging the text's quality, what the writer chose, etc.

  • Also called evaluative/appreciative/critical. It's about thinking deeply and judging the text.

  • It means judging the text and what the writer was trying to do. Readers think about the writer's purpose and how well they did.

  • Inferential comprehension can be hard to teach and learn because it needs more thinking and guessing.

• Comprehension Processes (Thinking Processes):

  • Making Connections:

  • Text to text: Linking what you're reading to other texts. This helps you see the bigger picture.

  • Text to world: Linking the text to what you know about the world. This helps you relate to the text.

  • Text to self: Linking the text to your own life. This makes reading more personal.

  • Questioning the Text: Asking questions as you read. This makes you think more.

  • Building Mental Imagery/Visualizing: Making pictures in your head as you read. This helps you understand and remember.

  • Note: Some people can't visualize, so they might need other ways to learn.

  • Determining Importance: Finding the main ideas and supporting details. This helps you focus on what matters.

  • Making Inferences: Guessing based on the text and what you already know. This means going beyond just the words.

  • Synthesizing the Text: Putting everything together, summarizing, and retelling. This helps you make sense of it all.

  • Fix-Up Strategies (Self-Monitoring): Knowing when you don't understand and doing something to fix it. This might mean rereading or asking questions.

Teaching Strategies for Comprehension

• Shared Reading:

  • The teacher reads aloud, showing how to think about the text. This gives students a good example to follow.

  • Using learning strategies before, during, and after reading. Like guessing, asking questions, and summarizing.

Current Research on Reading Comprehension (Neil Duke)

• Fluency is key for understanding. If you struggle to read smoothly, it's hard to focus on what the words mean.

• Background knowledge matters. The more you know about a topic, the easier it is to understand.

• You need to be able to switch between sounding out words and understanding their meaning. This helps you change how you learn based on the text.

• Knowing lots of words is important. A good vocabulary helps you understand what you read.

• Knowing about word parts (morphology) helps. Understanding prefixes and suffixes can help you figure out new words.

• Teaching comprehension early is important, including listening comprehension. It's important to start building these skills early.

• Balance teaching phonics with reading aloud and talking about the meaning. It's important to have a mix of activities to become a good reader.

Reading Comprehension in the Australian Curriculum

• Three parts: Language, Literature, and Literacy. These all work together to make you a good reader.

• Important parts for reading comprehension:

  • Text Structure, Organization, and Features: Understanding how texts are put together for different people and reasons. This means knowing about different types of texts.

  • Literature and Context: Understanding how texts are shaped by history, society, and culture. This helps you understand different views in the text.

  • Engaging with and Responding to Literature: Connecting with the text personally. This makes you think about the text and your own life.

  • Examining Literature: Looking at how stories, characters, and ideas are shown in texts. This helps you understand the text better.

  • Text and Context: Understanding how characters are shaped by their world. This means knowing about the things that affect what characters do and believe.

  • Analyzing, Interpreting, and Evaluating: Using skills to understand complex texts, whether they're written, online, or videos. This helps you judge what you read and see.

• Analyzing, Interpreting, and Evaluating (Example: Year 2):

  • Know the purpose and who it's for of stories, information, and persuasive texts. This helps you understand why the writer wrote it and who they wanted to read it.

  • Read smoothly, using phonics, words, and grammar, and check if you understand as you go. This means staying involved in the reading.

  • Use ways to understand like imagining, guessing, connecting, summarizing, asking questions, and figuring things out. These help you make sense of the text.

Gradual Release of Responsibility

• Ways to help:

  • Modeling/Direct Instruction (Teacher does). The teacher shows you how to do it.

  • Guided Practice (We do). You and the teacher practice together.

  • Independent Practice (You do). You practice on your own.

• Modeled Reading: Teacher reads aloud, thinking aloud about how to understand the text. This shows you how to handle hard texts.

• Shared Reading: Teacher and students read together; do activities before, during, and after. This lets you be part of the reading.

• Guided Reading: Small groups work on specific skills like guessing, reading smoothly, or summarizing. This gives extra help to those who need it.

• Interactive Read Alouds: Talking between the reader and kids during reading; talking as you go. This encourages you to think and ask questions.

• Repeated Interactive Read Alouds:

  • First reading: Teacher asks questions, talks about words. This builds your understanding.

  • Second reading: Kids guess and explain. This makes you think more.

  • Third reading: Kids retell, rebuild, and explain the story. This helps you remember and understand.

• Reciprocal Teaching: A way to teach guessing, asking questions, clarifying, and summarizing. Students take turns being the teacher and leading the discussion.

Scaffolds for Comprehension Strategies

• Sentence starters for:

  • Predicting: "I think because…" This helps you guess based on the text.

  • Questioning: Who, what, where, when, why, how questions. This makes you ask about the text.

  • Summarizing: "The text is about…" This helps you find the main ideas.

• Fact four: guessing, asking questions, clarifying, and summarizing

• Research shows reciprocal teaching really helps because it makes you involved and work together.

Reading Fluency

• It's linked to understanding. If you read smoothly, you can focus on what it means.

• Focus on reading aloud smoothly in early years. How well you read aloud shows how good you are at reading.

• Word Level Fluency: Reading words quickly