Predict: Mirror, Mirror, on the Wall

The fifth strategy is prediction. When I first started teaching prediction and inference, I had trouble helping my students discern between the two.  In fact, I have noticed that even reading teacher instruction books do not make a big distinction between the two.

Both inference and prediction invoke similar thinking skills, but the difference is in perspective.  Inference is making decisions and gaining insight into event and character information that has already been written in the text.  Prediction is taking what has happened so far, based on clues, foreshadowing, and evaluating the characters’ character, and then deciding what the next logical scenario might be. Inference mostly involves judging characters, and prediction involves future events.

Pauses in reading help us think about what we have read which is a key element of comprehension. It gives us time to reflect upon or summarize what has happened so far, and it allows us time to evaluate what we have read with what we know to be true, to determine what might happen next.  Some authors such as O. Henry like to play with us and twist the ending, but most preschool stories are fairly predictable even for the youngest preschooler.

To start implementing this strategy, begin with a picture walk.   A picture walk through a book is just what it sounds like. Take a book and predict what the story will be about just by looking at the pictures. Then read the book. The interesting thing about predicting is you can only use this strategy once per book because after the mystery has been revealed, there is nothing more to predict. 

Another way to use this strategy is to read a book with a simple plot, and before you get to the ending, have your child predict the ending. Predicting forces us to think about what we are reading, and that’s what comprehension is all about.  Imparting reading comprehension strategies to children is not an enigma if you know a few tricks of the trade.

This is the School Marm,

 Ringing her bell. 

School’s out!

INFER: What Do You Mean By That?

The fourth comprehension strategy that all good readers use is inference, a life skill we must all develop.  In everyday life we use body language, expression, and gestures to determine the true meaning of what people say.  This is just part of maturity in communication. Without these skills, adults “just don’t get it.” Inference is a crucial skill in reading, but without body language, expression, or gestures, we must learn to interpret the meaning and implications of phrases appropriately to completely understand text.

What does inference look like to a preschooler?  Let’s begin with pictures.  Choose pictures from anywhere:  family albums, coloring books, books, or just random pictures.  Have children determine emotions or judgments based on the pictures.  The people are happy, sad, lonely, excited, naughty, helpful, etc.

As your preschooler develops this skill include text.  “Goldilocks knocked at the door of the Three Bears house.  Nobody answered, but since the door was unlocked, Goldilocks entered the house anyhow.”  What does this tell you about Goldilocks?  Later, add vocabulary:  What can you infer about Goldilocks from her actions?  This is a skill called indirect characterization which is crucial to understanding characters in stories.  Good readers need to be able to judge the content of characters’ character from their actions and words, not just from the direct text that is specifically stated by the author.

Remember, this is not just a reading skill; this is an important life skill.  Children need to be savvy in their development of reading people on a day-to-day basis, not to walk around criticizing and judging others, but to be able to make wise decisions in choosing friends, discerning appropriate behavior, and eventually understanding how to respond appropriately in conversation, whether it involves “chit chat” or resolving conflict.

Language arts are built on four components: listening, speaking, reading, and writing.  All four skills must interrelate and interact to produce communication synergy.  No matter what path your child chooses in life, proficient communication skills are paramount to success.

This is the School Marm,

 Ringing her bell. 

School’s out!

          

Connect: You’ve Gotta Have Connections

A third comprehension strategy is connecting to the literature.  Connecting to emotions and senses enhances comprehension skills because the reader can identify with the characters or situations in the text in extremely personal ways and make comparisons. There are three ways to connect: 1) Text to Self   2) Text to Text   3) Text to World

I never would have thought about this being a preschool skill until I was at a conference where the presenter described how these three connecting strategies were being implemented by kindergartners.  After she read a story, the kindergartners were able to connect the story all three ways, verbalizing the correct terminology.

To illustrate this strategy I will use the story of “The Three Little Pigs.”

1.      Text to Self

a.       I visited a farm and saw pigs

b.      I saw a wolf at the zoo last week

c.       I had a ham sandwich for lunch lol

d.      I was frightened by a big kid chasing me once

e.       I protect my brothers and sisters

f.        I live in a brick house

2.      Text to Text

a.       There is a bad wolf in “Little Red Riding Hood.”

b.      “This little piggy went to market …”

c.       I read the book Hamilton Pig. He got rid of the bad wolf, too.

d.      I read Walter the Wolf, but he was a good wolf.

3.      Text to World

a.       Bad wolves are like bad people.  They should be punished.

b.      Just like the first two little pigs should have taken more time to build their houses, we should make sure we take the time to do things right the first time.

Children, not unlike the rest of us, are totally egocentric.  If they learn to personalize the text they read, they will have better comprehension.

This is the School Marm,

 Ringing her bell. 

School’s out!

VISUALIZE: Picture this!

                                     

                                                              O

                                          O

                                          O                 

The second of the six strategies that all good readers utilize is visualizing.  Visualization of text is simply making pictures inside your mind about what is being read.  Comprehension cannot be realized without visualizing the setting, characters, and action of the story.

Television and movies create pictures for children, aiding understanding of literary elements, and picture books can scaffold children to reach the concepts from text to picture, but there comes a point when children must develop the ability to visualize for themselves.

§         Start out with simple phrases.  Have your child close his/her eyes and picture a person or place you describe with words. She was a little girl with brown eyes and brown hair. 

§          Perhaps your child will connect with what they know if you describe a pet or someone you know and let them guess the identity.

§         Riddles can also help your child visualize. What has black and white stripes and looks like a horse?

§         Finally, write simple text and allow your preschooler to illustrate it.



This is the School Marm,

 Ringing her bell. 

School’s out!

Question: Kids Are Naturally Inquisitive

We have all been worn down by preschoolers’ incessant questioning, but now we need to realize that we can exploit this quality to help children improve their reading comprehension.  Simple questions can teach literary elements such as characters, setting, and plot by using who, where/when, and what.  Higher-level thinking begins with questions such as why and how.

Let’s see what this would look like in a simple tale, Goldilocks and the Three Bears:

Where/When?  Once upon a time, there was a little cottage in the woods. Who? Three bears lived in the cottage. They were: Daddy Bear, Mommy Bear, and Baby Bear. What?  Every morning, they cooked a big pan of lovely porridge for breakfast. Why? One morning, the porridge was too hot, so they decided to go for a walk while it cooled down. What? They went out into the woods, but they left their door open. While they were out, Who? a little girl walked up to the cottage. She had long blonde hair, so everyone called her Goldilocks.  Why? She was lost. …

Get the idea?  As your child progresses, you can introduce terminology such as: characters, setting, plot including rising action, climax, and resolution. (I teach my sixth graders that the climax is what happens right before the commercial.  They always leave you hanging at the most exciting part.)

To cement these literary terms, you may want to use this questioning strategy when you watch movies together on Friday Movie Night.

The other important strategy your child is learning is to think about what they are reading.  Stop and think.  Reading is not just a decoding puzzle.  Help your child at a young age to realize print has meaning.  It’s not really reading if comprehension does not occur.

It seems to me that we have a tendency to over complicate everything.  Do you see how easy understanding literary elements can be?  Take the time to give your child a boost! Maybe it will pay dividends in a college scholarship someday.

This is the School Marm,

Ringing her bell. 

School’s out!

QVCIPC: Six Reading Comprehension Strategies

I am trying to address this blog to laypeople, but I need to preface the next several blogs with some explanation of research, so please bear with me.  You are welcome to skim over it if you please, but I think it is important to understand where I’m coming from, and I think it is important for you to be educated so that you are able to evaluate the quality of education your child is receiving at home and/or in the classroom.

The present trend among educators is research-based teaching strategies. This only makes sense that teachers would implement proven, effective methods of instruction. One crucial piece of research in the 70’s and 80’s revealed that teachers were not teaching students specific comprehension strategies.  Traditional classroom comprehension instruction consisted mostly of asking questions after a story had been read. Evidently it was assumed that decoding words and answering questions equaled proficient comprehension..

As further research was obtained, experts realized that good readers employ specific reading strategies, and struggling readers can benefit from specific comprehension instruction. Here’s an example of what the results looked like in academia.

One important type of reading comprehension research has focused on the characteristics of good comprehenders. Duke and Pearson (2002) summarize what good readers do, and this is the summary of their summary. Good readers:

• are active and have clear goals in mind.
• preview text before reading, make predictions and read selectively to meet their goals.
• construct, revise and question the meanings they are making as they read.
• try to determine the meanings of unfamiliar words and concepts.
• draw from, compare and integrate their prior knowledge with what they are reading.
• monitor their understanding and make adjustments as needed.
• think about the authors of the text and evaluate the text’s quality and value.
• read different kinds of text differently, paying attention to characters and settings when reading  narratives, constructing and revising summaries in their minds when reading expository text.*

*Research on the Components of a Comprehensive

Reading and Writing Instructional Program

Patricia M. Cunningham, Wake Forest University

James W. Cunningham, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Richard L. Allington, University of Florida

[DRAFT September 11, 2002]

In lieu of this research, educators designed teaching methods that researchers found effective to instill these strategies into young readers.  Some of these methods included:  modeling, think aloud, picture walks, and rereading.  These and other strategies will be the subject of the next several posts, but I will script the information for laypeople.  Correct reading instruction does not have to be complicated.

In my classroom, I employ a method Donna Moore has devised, the QVCIPC Strategy, that can be remembered by using the mnemonic device: “QVC Is Pretty Cheap.”

·         Question

·         Visualize

·         Connect

·         Infer

·         Predict

·         Conclude

Comprehension.  It’s what reading is all about.  I will spend the next several blog entries helping you guide your child through comprehension strategies that will make your child the best reader he or she can be!

This is the School Marm

Ringing Her Bell

School’s Out!

Get a Clue!

Just as nobody can possibly know every word in the English language, so your beginning reader will come across words she may know orally, but has not learned to read.  That is why word attack clues can help children identify unknown reading words. 

Mature, proficient readers use context clues.  If I made up a word and used it in a sentence, you could figure out my intended meaning: The beautiful kydhyoiuel entered her carriage on the way to her castle. Using context clues you were able to figure out that a kydhyoiuel was some sort of queen or princess.

Many times early readers can use clues to crack an unknown reading word because it is already a familiar spoken word.  As they associate and connect word reading to their spoken language, they will begin to put the pieces together to solve the puzzle of reading, the key to the world of learning.

Here are six word-attack strategies that will help your child to begin to decode unknown reading words.

1. Use picture clues.  In beginning children’s books, most words can be found somewhere in the illustration.

2. Say all the sounds you know in the word.  Even if it’s just the beginning sound, make the sound then read the rest of the sentence.  What makes sense?

3. Look for words within a word.  Maybe you have the word bandaid.  You know the word and, add a b at the beginning, say band, then say a, then d.  Does the word make sense?

4. Think of a word you know that is like the word you are trying to read, or look for familiar chunks within the word. Phonemic awareness comes in very handy here.

5. Reread the sentence.  What word would make sense in that sentence?  Does this word sound right with those letters?

6. Keep reading.  Even if you miss one or two words, you can probably still figure out the story.  Think about what you know and what would make sense in this situation.

A really useful word attack bookmark is available at this website.  http://sites.google.com/site/mrsburesh/phonics/word-attack-bookmark

This is the School Marm

Ringing Her Bell

School’s Out!

PEE WEE HERMAN?

Does anyone remember the Saturday morning TV show starring Pee Wee Herman?  That show featured a word of the day, and any time someone would say that word, everyone would scream real loud and act crazy.

Why not try this with your preschooler?  Each day write a word on several colorful note cards, and display the word in different places throughout the house. Phonics is great, but many of the most frequent reading words are not phonetic, and even if a word is phonetic, to attain fluency for comprehension, children must master instant recognition of words. As an adult you would soon give up reading if you had to sound out every word in a text you were reading.  As most words are instantly recognizable to us, we only occasionally stumble across a new word which requires our phonetic skills.  Reading a passage at a “phonic's pace” is totally frustrating, and detrimental to comprehension.

It is fascinating to me that one hundred high frequency words make up about half of all written materials.  Think of how empowered your child could be if he or she could instantly recognize these one hundred words!

                                        The First 100 Words

These are the most common words in English, ranked in frequency order.
              The first 100 make up about half of all written material.

the                    or                        will                       number

of                      one                      up                         no

and                    had                      other                     way

a                        by                       about                    could

to                       word                    out                       people

in                       but                       many                    my

is                       not                       then                      than

you                    what                    them                     first

that                   all                         these                    water

it                       were                     so                        been

he                      we                       some                    call

was                   when                    her                       who

for                     your                     would                   oil

on                     can                       make                    its

are                    said                      like                       now

as                      there                    him                      find

with                   use                       into                      long

his                     an                        time                     down

they                  each                      has                      day

I                       which                    look                      did

at                      she                       two                       get

be                      do                       more                     come

this                     how                    write                     made

have                   their                     go                        may

from                     if                        see                       part

Not only could you have a word of the day, you could even have fun phrases of the day.  If there were more people, what would we do?

Whatever you do, make it fun.  Games are always more fun than school. (This is coming from someone who has spent over thirty-seven years in school.)  Maybe one day you could hide the word of the day, or make it a treasure hunt with clues to find it. Play school and let your preschooler be the teacher to teach you the new words. After a while, write your own stories and books using your high frequency words.

They’re only little once, and they have been put in your trust. Love them wisely.

                                                                              This is the School Marm      

Ringing Her Bell     

School's out!