Well, we are including this episode as one of the combinations of a series about reading science. And we really broke down, you know, the other side, quote, the other side of the reading rope and we went beyond phonics. So I'm hoping that you could start us off with what is comprehension, just a quick overview for those listening. Yeah.

Well, I think that's a great place for us to start. I think for many of us, when we think of comprehension, we think about it in a very solitary way, in an isolated way. And I think it's important for all of us to begin thinking about the fact that it's quite complex. So I want to invite your listeners immediately to start thinking about how do they define comprehension so that they can make connections as we have this conversation this morning. When I think about comprehension, of course, I turn to the literature. I turn to the research to the science. And one of the individuals whose work I greatly admire is you, cats. And recently he has spoken to this issue in terms of its complexity. And he and colleagues have described it as one of the most complex behaviors that we engage in as human beings. So I think that's important to keep in mind. And then to move from there and to be thinking about, well, how does the literature really describe comprehension? You know, when I work with educators, oftentimes what they surface for me is something that they're teaching. For instance, finding the main idea. That's what comprehension is. That's a product of comprehension. But I think we need to go broader than that because comprehension is not just a single skill or strategy. It really is the result of multiple skills and knowledge. So I would like to share then the fact that the reading study group described it as extracting and constructing meaning. And I think that's that's the focus. But it's much more than that, I think as well. But did you want to ask me something look like you wanted to ask me something?

Well, I was just thinking like I love the idea of thinking of comprehension as complex right from the get go often it. You know, I think that we know that, but sometimes it. It feels I think more simple than it is when we're. I don't know when we're like thinking about how to teach it, but it's really not something that I think you can necessarily teach. I think it's something you can help students think about, right? Like constructing that meaning. So I'm just wondering if you want to react to that or say more.

Yeah, well, first of all, I think right on that we need to always be thinking about the complexity because for many of us, if we're skilled readers, when we come to text, it feels effortless. It doesn't feel as if it takes a great deal of energy and thought. We just automatically move through the text. But the reality is it is quite effortful for many of our readers. And in terms of the complexity and teaching comprehension, I think in order to do that, we have to understand, you know, what does it entail? All right. And I turn to castles and colleagues description of comprehension. It really guides most of my work in thinking and they talk about the fact that it's not a single entity. So we have to think about the fact that there are multiple models that we can turn to that identify the multiple contributors to comprehension. That's the first piece, I think. And then secondly, they talk about the fact that it's the orchestrated product. Right. And we'll talk some more about product in a moment, I think. It's the orchestrated product of multiple, multiple linguistic and cognitive processes and skills. Right. So there's a great deal that's going into comprehension. And then lastly, they speak to the fact that when we are working with text and when we're teaching our students to work with text, we have to keep in mind that this is interaction that goes on between the features of the text and what the reader is bringing and what the purpose is that we're setting. So that's a lot. Right. So like, you know, all of that needs to go into our thinking about comprehension. And I don't think we can teach comprehension per se. It's not a skill. All right. But we can teach our students and help them develop the contributors to comprehension, particularly the language comprehension contributors that are necessary to make meaning. So I hope that helped or clarified maybe the perspective that I'm using, using what the science is telling us about comprehension and its complexity.

Yeah. I'm wondering Nancy, if we can jump into that products and processes because I can't. That you're really confusing. I know that I can think about reading comprehension is like, okay, when I'm reading, I am comprehending, right? That's what I'm trying to comprehend when I'm reading. But then also there's that end product of I have comprehended what I read. Right. As a teacher, it's hard to think about it in both of those ways. Do you want to dig into that? Yeah.

And I think this is a different way to think about it as an educator. I think oftentimes what we're thinking about is the product. All right. Yes. Can we can we get our students to a place where they can indicate that they understood what they read? All right. So the product is really the end result. It's really what is it that the reader is taking away from the reading of the text or multiple texts. All right. If we think a little bit about the oral response that we expect from students when we ask them a question or the written response. So if they're listening to, for instance, if they're listening to read aloud early on, like stand up Molly Lou melon. Some of you know that little book, which is about a little character who has many, many differences. And her grandmother is really her advocate. And so if we ask a question like, what was her grandmother's message? The response is the product. It indicates whether or not the student, the reader is walking away with an understanding of what that text was conveying. That's a little different than the processes because, you know, when we have a product, if we think even about a production line, right, how do we get the product? Will you get it through multiple processes or contributors to that to that product? So what are the processes? We're talking here about multiple language and cognitive processes. So what does it take? All right. To be able to respond to even if we were asking students something about why did the founding fathers have to compromise if we were reading, let's say, a middle school text about American democracy, right? So how do we get there? Well, Cain and Oak will tell us that in order to get there, we have to, we have to process the language of the text. So first of all, we want our students to be able to read the words were recognition important. But now let's think a little bit about language comprehension. So we want them to be able to do what? Access the meaning of the words. So there's our vocabulary. All right. We want them to be able to work out the syntactic sense of the sentence. That sentence comprehension. We want them to be able to integrate the meanings within and between the sentences. All right. That's a special type of inference. And we want them to be able to incorporate incorporate a background knowledge so that they can arrive at what's not explicitly stated in the text. So the overall goal here is for the student to have that product and it could be different types of products, but an overall goal, the ultimate goal is a mental construction of meaning, a mental model, an overall understanding that we take away with us. Right. I can go. I don't want to keep going. If you want to ask me a question, I was going to go a little further, but I'll stop.

I was just going to jump in and say, I always felt as a teacher, this was the hardest part for me because it all happens in their brains and you don't know what's happening.

I know. It's invisible.

So yeah, you get that product of whatever the answer is, right or wrong, but you have no idea what what which one of those many things you just listed Nancy kind of may have tripped them up if they got it wrong. You know, you could be so many things.

And this and this is why when we begin to design instruction and when I thought about instruction, I designed the blueprint because it's an overall picture of what does the teacher have to consider as they plan for instruction, of course, always taking into account the read of the task, the text and the context. The other thing I want to say about this is in terms of what's going on in their mind, because when we talk about processes, we're talking about these language processes and skills, but we're talking about, you know, what's happening cognitively. Well, they're identifying idea units. So they're looking at the meaning of the words. They're looking at the sentences. They're figuring out the who in the do. All right. What does this sentence tell me? At the same time, what do they have to do? They have to integrate the information within and between the sentences. So if I'm talking about dinosaurs and then in the next sentence, I say it and it reference backs to to a specific type of dinosaur, I have to understand that that I'm still talking about the dinosaurs. So there are clue words. And then of course, we want the reader to be monitoring and thinking about does this make sense to me? All right. And if it doesn't, what are the strategies? What are the fix up strategies I can use to kind of get over that hurdle? And then of course, the incorporation of background knowledge. So, you know, processing on a larger level here, you know, we talk about integrative. We talk about now a collaborative processing in which the reader is, you know, incorporating that background knowledge and then finally arriving where at that mental model. So this is quite complex, but an understanding of this. Gives us a kind of a bird's eye view into that brain into what's actually happening in the mind of the reader and what might go wrong. And there is research that supports that when they have difficulty with the product, oftentimes it's not the product. It's the processes that are faulty.

And it's even more complex because it's different for right. Each child's bringing something different to that text and then every text that they encounter is different. Right. So the vocabulary is different. The knowledge is different for the students and the texts. And so, you know, it's not going to be the same every time you read a book.

Not at all. And so this is why I'm very much an advocate and I believe you are too of using the text that the students are reading in order to develop these processes, skills, the knowledge that's necessary to work with the text. This is not isolated skill work, but this is actually looking at what is my reader bringing and what is this text demanding? Yeah. Yeah.

What am I asking them to do? Yeah. And it is so complicated. Like going back to that example that you gave Nancy just very practically thinking about the dinosaurs and the the word it in the next sentence and referring back to the dinosaurs and having an understanding that the word it is referring back. I mean, when you ask the question, right? Like, what is it referring to? The student has has an opportunity to show that product, but it could be a guess. They could guess right. We don't know. Like there's so many invisible things. We don't know their prior knowledge about dinosaurs or, you know, or it's dinosaurs a familiar term to them that they're even being able to connect it and a dinosaur or is that confusing to them? And many other factors as well, right? The I just keep thinking about the five pillars and how in the pillars, it seems so neat and clean in terms of like, these are the five things they need, but comprehension really seeps over into all of the other ones. So it's almost like it should be a foundation instead of

a pillar. Like I want to put it at the bottom of the building. Yeah. Well, it is the goal. Yeah, I know. It is the goal. And certainly, I mean, when you think about the reading rope, I mean, if you just think about that reading rope and you think about those strands of word recognition and then the strands of language comprehension, they all do need to come together in order for the reader to be able to not only read the words, but make meaning simultaneously. So yes, I think it's you cats in the article on rethinking comprehension that spoke to this very topic. You know, it's not a skill and why have we been thinking about it as a skill and that separation out, certainly the work of the national reading panel was incredibly important, but everything evolves. And we have to continue to be thinking about the fact that comprehension is not equal to or the same as vocabulary or those other pillars that are represented. It is the end goal. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.