Join Nancy Hennessy, a reading comprehension expert and acclaimed author, as she discusses the intricate processes of reading comprehension and the complex interaction between a reader's knowledge, the text, and the author's intent. Discover how the Reading Comprehension Blueprint revolutionizes instructional design and learn about the importance of planning for instruction, teaching strategies, setting goals, and evaluating reading comprehension skills. Reflect on curriculum and support students in developing complex comprehension skills.
Comprehension is a complex behavior involving multiple skills and linguistic processes.
The Reading Comprehension Blueprint provides a framework for planning and teaching comprehension.
Background knowledge and vocabulary are crucial for enhancing comprehension and should be developed alongside linguistic skills.
Deep dives
Understanding comprehension as a complex process
Comprehension is a complex behavior that involves multiple skills and knowledge. It goes beyond simple skills like finding the main idea and involves extracting and constructing meaning from a text. Comprehension is the mental construction of meaning, incorporating language processes like vocabulary, sentence comprehension, and background knowledge. It is not just a single entity, but an orchestrated product of multiple linguistic and cognitive processes. Teaching comprehension involves developing these contributors to comprehension and helping students develop the necessary language comprehension skills.
The Reading Comprehension Blueprint: A framework for teaching comprehension
The Reading Comprehension Blueprint, developed by Nancy Hennessy, provides a big picture framework for teaching comprehension. It serves as a master plan, guiding teachers in planning for comprehension instruction. The blueprint focuses on identifying critical understandings, setting content and literacy goals, selecting appropriate texts, and addressing the contributors to comprehension, such as vocabulary, sentence comprehension, text structure, and background knowledge. The blueprint emphasizes the importance of ongoing instruction, deliberate vocabulary teaching, developing sentence comprehension skills, and helping students make connections between texts and background knowledge.
Teaching Strategies and Skills for Comprehension
Effective comprehension instruction involves teaching strategies and skills that support students' understanding of a text. These strategies are not standalone skills but are taught as a means to an end, helping students interact with and understand the text. Strategies like main idea identification and rereading are important for developing a product of comprehension, while skills like vocabulary and background knowledge contribute to the language comprehension process. Teachers should differentiate between strategies used by teachers for instruction and those taught to students for independent reading. By teaching strategies and developing contributors to comprehension, teachers can help students develop the skills needed to construct meaning from texts.
Building Background Knowledge and Vocabulary
Background knowledge and vocabulary play crucial roles in comprehension. Background knowledge helps students make connections and understand the context, while vocabulary allows them to access the meaning of words in the text. Teachers should provide opportunities for students to engage with a variety of texts, including primary sources, videos, artifacts, songs, and other authentic materials that build background knowledge and reinforce vocabulary. It is essential to develop students' linguistic knowledge, including semantic and syntactic understanding, to enhance comprehension. By expanding students' background knowledge and vocabulary while addressing linguistic skills, teachers can promote deeper comprehension.
The Importance of Incremental Learning and Transfer
Learning comprehension is an incremental process that takes time and occurs in increments. Just as vocabulary knowledge grows over time, comprehension knowledge is built incrementally through exposure to various texts and experiences. Transfer of comprehension skills and background knowledge is vital for students to apply their learning to different contexts and texts. By providing opportunities for students to express their understanding, practice processing skills, and revisit related topics, teachers can help students develop the ability to transfer their knowledge and apply comprehension skills in different situations.
What if the key to unlocking your students' reading comprehension could be found through a deeper understanding of the intricate processes at work in their minds? Prepare to have your teaching world transformed as we journey with reading comprehension expert and acclaimed author, Nancy Hennessy. Together, we’ll map out the cognitive and linguistic processes that underpin comprehension, and navigate the complex interaction between a reader's knowledge, the text itself, and the author's intent.
As teachers, we play an integral role in shaping the reading journey of our students. Witness how the Reading Comprehension Blueprint can revolutionize your instructional design as we discuss how to thoughtfully consider the task, text, and context. Learn how to integrate prior background knowledge and foster mental models of understanding. Be part of our examination of comprehension as an essential pillar of reading and join us as we demystify the science behind this crucial skill.
Finally, imagine having a blueprint that offers a flexible framework that aligns seamlessly with the science of comprehension. Listen as we delve into the importance of planning for instruction, pinpointing the key takeaways for your students, and exploring types of texts and text sets. Learn how to identify the contributors to comprehension and teach your students to become masters of their own understanding. Buckle up and get ready to revolutionize your approach to teaching reading comprehension.
