Literacy,

Leora Heitlinger 

Literacy Learning Specialist.

Good afternoon CJC community.

Good afternoon everyone,

Today’s topic from the Big 6 is ‘Comprehension’.

What Does Comprehension Look Like in Reading?

When successful, students…

• Use a range of strategies to take meaning from ttext including retelling, summarising, predicting,visualisation, questioning, making connections, inferring, synthesising, analysing, evaluating
• Can share these understandings through conversation and in Reading such as a reader’s Notebook (reading responses)
• Derive a mental model from a text
• Use cohesive ties in sentences to aide comprehension
• Use knowledge of text structure to aide comprehension.

When having difficulties, students…

• Struggle to retell key events from the story
• Are unable to recall key information from a text (characters, settings ect)
• Have difficulties inferring information such as character feelings
• Can become disengaged with reading due to struggling to engage with the text.

Teaching Tips

It is important for teachers to provide explicit instruction in comprehension strategies using strategies such as modelled reading and thinking aloud. It is important to note that commercial read and answer the question type sheets or cards, test comprehension rather than teach it.

• Use mind mapping tools for students to record their thinking about texts.
• Provide multiple choice polls with your reading classes

1. Polls could be conducted at the beginning of reading, during and after, to monitor student understanding.

• Teachers and students meet for Literature Circles, Reciprocal Teaching or Guided reading groups. Students can record their thinking collaboratively.
• Try *Close reading- repeated reading and analysis of a rich text in collaborative groups.

*Close reading is a careful purposeful rereading of a text.