Making the Trip More Meaningful:

Deeper Comprehension

The Next ChapterSession 9

Barb Mick - COOR ISDJackie Fry - COP ESD

Time for a roadmap check…

We’ve introduced assessment, thought about our literacy histories and those of our students, looked at the developmental progression of readers and how to determine the level of our students, and taken a deeper look at comprehension. We looked at writing from a number of angles, and began to practice assessing our students’ writing. We’ve looked more closely at formative assessment and goal setting, and practiced using tools to score our students’ writing and confer with individual writers. We’ve been down the path of oral language and talked about talk as the foundation of comprehension. We looked more closely at phonemic awareness, phonics, spelling, and vocabulary and examined the Digging Deeper Tools

Tonight we will complete our journey with yet another look at comprehension through the continuum: the earliest acquisition of comprehension to the deepest levels of understanding.

Your Turn…

1. Appoint a time-keeper at your table. (You will have 15 minutes total for discussion, so make sure everyone gets a chance to share.)

2. Talk in your group about the results of your Spelling Inventory. Talk about ideas for teaching “what’s next” for your case study students. Talk about how you think you might manage the different spelling levels in your classroom.

3. Show the group the other assessment you chose to use and discuss why you chose that particular one. What did you learn from it?

Goals for Session 9

1. Understand the connection between the stages of literacy.

2. Learn (or review) how to use the Sulzby Storybook Classification Scheme.

3. Understand the importance of retelling in comprehension assessment, and learn to use assessments that inform our instruction.

4. Understand deep comprehension and learn to use the Profundity Scale for Narrative and Expository for assessment.

A Continuum of Comprehension

Reading Conventionally

Three inseparable components during early elementary:

Comprehension

Letter-Sound Relationships (Alphabetic Principle)

Fluency

Reading Emergently

The Reading (and Writing) Concepts and Behaviors that Precede and Develop into Conventional Literacy (Sulzby, 1996)

Three Aspects that Develop Emergently and Come Together in Conventional Reading:

Comprehension/Understanding

Letter-Sound Knowledge (AP)

Concept of Word

When a child begins to read conventionally, he or she uses all three aspects FLEXIBLY and in a COORDINATED way in order to interpret text.

The Sulzby Classification Scheme of Emergent Storybook Reading

Comprehension entails linking what is being learned to what is already known.

It is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction between a reader’s existing knowledge, the information suggested by the written language, and the context of a situation in which the learning is taking place.

WHAT: An assessment measuring the rudimentary forms of written language comprehension.

WHY: Allows us to understand how literacy is developing, up to conventional reading.

WHEN: Preschool and Kindergarten

A Pre-Reading Activity for Non-fiction

(an alternative to K-W-L)

Equador

10 year olds

banana tree

sharp, heavy knives

poor country

harmful chemicals

250 million kids

banning child labor laws

12-hour days

as little as $27 a week

no longer attend school

forced to work

Questions you could ask at this point to “score” their work:

Do you have 5 sentences?

Did you use all the words and phrases?

Are they all nonfiction?

Each question receives a or a +, or do again.

Remember…

RIGOR is the energy and attention you bring to the text. Until someone wants to

know, it doesn’t matter.

This activity builds relevance.

Rigor without relevance is JUST HARD!

Retelling

Definition:

A retelling is an oral or written recount of a text in a child’s own words.

It is an assessment and an instructional strategy that provides information on comprehension, sense of story, and oral language.

Rationale

Retelling builds comprehension skills in students

Provides teachers with insights on how students organize and process text

Shows how students interpret and comprehend text

A retelling can reveal a particular element that confuses or interferes with a child’s comprehension

Retellings can enhance both comprehension and oral reading proficiency

Children naturally love to share stories or information they have read or heard

Remember the GRR…

Webb’s Depth of KnowledgeLevel 1: Recall; Level 2: Skill/Concept;

Level 3: Strategic Thinking; Level 4: Extend Thinking

Profundity

a theoretical construct (developed by Sargent, Huus and Anderson- 1970)

Two Profundity Scales

…are explicit teaching tools to

develop deep thinking in:

Narrative readings

Expository readings (a distinct skill in Content reading)

Steps to Deeper Understanding for

NARRATIVE Text

Steps to Deeper Understanding for

EXPOSITORY Text

Why bother with Profundity?

It is an explicit series of strategies to take students from simple to abstract.

It starts by reducing complicated things to simple principles.

It allows for the realization that 2 different ideas can share attributes.

It transforms thinking into themes and universal truths.

Your Assignment

1. Do at least one lesson from the Profundity Scale heuristic for both Narrative text and Expository text.

2. Assess your case study students’ depth of comprehension using the Narrative Profundity Scale and the Expository Profundity Scale.

3. Fill out the TNC Student Summary Data and Analysis packet for ONE of your case study students. Bring this, along with the artifacts you have been collecting throughout the course, to our final session. Be ready to share with colleagues.

4. Bring all of your Reflections Sheets from the previous sessions.

Ticket Out the Door & Wrap Up

Make sure to clean up your area and recycle your water bottles.

Please complete your Exit Ticket and turn it in as you leave.

Our next meeting will be: Destination Achieved! Sharing Our Journey

Thank you for your hard work, thoughtful contributions, and professionalism.