Engaging Students with Comprehension Strategies

The Tao of Pre-reading

Appreciate, learn from, and work with whatever happens in everyday life

EDCI 40101/18/10

How prior knowledge affects reading (a synopsis of research in chapter 6):

– What the reader brings to the page is more important to comprehension than what is on the page or even student ability (intelligence).

– What teachers do before reading to prepare students can be more effective in promoting comprehension than what is done after reading.

– Before reading, teachers should try to activate students’ prior knowledge, assess the sufficiency and accuracy of that knowledge, and build appropriate background knowledge when necessary.

The importance of activating and building background knowledge, or priming, has long been established as critical to the reading process and content area learning. Yet, other factors impacting comprehension include: knowledge of language, reading and study skills, knowledge of the world, interest, motivation, attention, purpose, and the use of strategies.

Good pre-reading activities, a type of instructional priming, support all of these factors!

Everyday Examples of Priming• Mowing the lawn• Home Improvements such as

painting and preparing concrete

Instructional priming relies on implicit memory and can influence new learning, retention, and decision-making.

So, just what is priming for academic & professional contexts?

(ENGINEERING) – the explosive used to ignite a charge

(MEDIA) – the associative process by which certain ideas and their desirability are brought to the forefront

(AGRICULTURE) – form of seed preparation in which the seeds are pre-soaked before planting; this results in an overall advantage because these seeds have shown a faster emergence time (the time it takes for seeds to rise above the surface of the soil), a higher emergence rate (the number of seeds that make it to the surface), and better growth (a good root system goes down early)

(PSYCHOLOGY/NEUROLOGY) – activating particular representations or associations in memory just before carrying out an action to enhance (or even sabotage) consciousness and/or performance

(Studio Art) - an absorbent coating which provides the paint a porous, reflective surface to adhere itself to. The gesso will not seal or create a barrier; just the opposite, it is absorbent. This type of priming is also called 'ground' or 'gesso.'

Get student neurons firing through “priming” activities

Reading with “porpoise"

Reading with “porpoise”

Try The House

People read and write for different purposes, and instruction should reflect an awareness of these differences. Reader’s purpose and author’s purpose are interrelated but different.

To read well (comprehend fully), a reader must have more of a purpose than simply finishing a text.

Setting a purpose for reading impacts what is considered important and what a reader remembers. Determining a purpose for reading affects speed of reading.

Beyond Time and Place: Setting as Background Information

• Contextual information reflects the existing conditions (cultural, ideological, political) that impact why something was written or produced and how it is understood

• Spheres of influence (PERSIA)

• Introduces conceptual understanding to show how things fit together or are grouped by key characteristics

Some Pre-Rdg Activities

• Predictions, e.g. Probable Passage • Using Images to Introduce

Information• Text Preview/Scavenger Hunt• Brainstorming for Prior Knowledge,

e.g. List-Group-Label• Anticipation Guides (multiple

formats)• Determining Purpose• Questioning

Engaging Students with Comprehension Strategies• Classroom Routines that Develop

Understanding

– A great deal of time spent preparing to read texts

– A great deal of time spent “reading” from diverse texts (chapters, blueprints, articles, diagrams, maps, figures/tables, film, illustrations, web pages)

– A great deal of time spent talking about texts

– A great deal of time spent writing texts for others to comprehend