Teaching Comprehension with

Narrative/Hybrid Texts

EDC 423

Objectives: You will be able to:

Describe one technique to help students differentiate between fiction, non-fiction and fantasy

Explain the two elements needed to make an inference while reading

Determine when inferences need to be made and identify the two specific pieces needed to make an inference

Use the QAR model to identify categories of questions, respond to questions, and generate your own questions from narrative text

What’s the difference? Fiction Non-Fiction Fantasy

What’s a good a definition of each – for elementary aged children?

Non-Fiction, Fiction, and Fantasy…in 4th grade language

Non-Fiction: (TRUE) a story based on real things that really happened

Fiction: (PRETEND) a story that is pretendRealistic Fiction: a story based on things that

could happen in real life, but didn’tFantasy: a story based on things that could never

happen in real life (magic, time travel)

Question-Answer Relationships (QAR)

Right There: LITERALThink and Search: INFERENTIAL (read between

the lines and think how info fit together)

Author and You: INFERENTIAL (think about author clues and formulate own opinion)

On My Own: EVALUATIVE (what do you think?)

IN THE BOOK

IN MY HEAD

Question-Answer Relationships (QAR)

Albert was afraid that Susan would beat him in the tennis match. The night before the match, Albert broke both of Susan’s racquets.

RIGHT THERE: When did Albert break both of Susan’s racquets?

THINK & SEARCH: Why did Albert break both of Susan’s racquets?

AUTHOR & YOU: What does the author seem to imply about Albert in this passage?

ON YOUR OWN: Why was Albert afraid that Susan would beat him?

Anchor Chart for Inferencing

Making Inferences

Inference that needs to be made

TEXT information (clues) needed to make the inference

BACKGROUND information needed

Albert doesn’t like to lose

Albert was afraid…

Albert broke both racquets

People who don’t like to lose are competitive; in the past, I’ve noticed this can make them do mean things

Albert was afraid that Susan would beat him in the tennis match. The night before the match, Albert broke both of Susan’s racquets.

AUTHOR & YOU: What does the author seem to imply about Albert in this passage?

Let’s take a closer look with The Magic Treehouse text

Designing Questions That Require Inferential

ThinkingReview the text to consider key inferences

that readers should be making to comprehend the important ideas in the story – where are the “in-between the lines” logic connections needed?

Design questions that engage students in activating their prior knowledge and then bring students back to the text for the text-based clues needed to make a logical inference (rather than a good guess based on prior knowledge alone)

PK & TEXT CLUES => INFERENCE Text-based evidence to back up reasoning = Common Core Standards

Designing Questions for QAR

Work with a partner to generate one question for each category Right ThereThink and SearchAuthor and YouOn My Own

How are Question-Answer Relationships useful for students?

How are Question-Answer Relationships useful for teachers?

Objectives: Can you…Describe one technique to help students

differentiate between fiction, non-fiction and fantasyExplain the two elements needed to make an

inference while reading Determine when inferences need to be made and

identify the two specific pieces of information needed to make an inference

Use the QAR model to identify categories of questions, respond to questions, and generate your own questions from narrative text

HomeworkFinish the QAR worksheet if not completed using

your Magic Treehouse text (return next Tuesday) Read Ch. 5 (p. 140-151) – Review of narrative

and expository text structures and the challenges of reading web-based texts Coiro (2005) optional (on the wikispace)

Student Strategy Interview and Reflection due next Tuesday