The Teacher Toolbox » Reading Comprehension

Reading Comprehension – Interpretation

Adrian — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 09:15:53 +0000

One of the great things about working in so many schools is that I get to meet some really talented teachers. Sometimes I can convince them to make their resources available to the world. Tonight’s reading comprehension resource comes from a particularly talented STLD (Support Teacher Learning Difficulties) who works tirelessly to bring the joy of reading to her students.

Thanks a heap sister!!!

Reading Comprehension – Interpretation Question Stems

3 Level Guides – Hidden Question Stems

Adrian — Fri, 01 May 2009 00:40:41 +0000

Here is the first installment of my ‘Hidden’ Question Stems from the Three Level Guide comprehension strategy. This resource covers ‘Inferring Word Meaning from Context Clues’ as well as having a few ‘tips and tricks’ for young readers. I’ve made the resource available as a Word document so you can add your own stems as well as a Acrobat Reader file in case you don’t have Word.

Cheers

Adrian

PS I’ve also added a Youtube video that might be worth a look if you are new to teaching the skill.

More Personal Learning Network (PLN) Tools

Adrian — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 08:33:06 +0000

A friend of mine recently asked for a few ideas on using ’synchronous communication tools’ for her personal professional development. (Ok, it’s a Uni assignment rather than a general inquiry)

Firstly she cooked up a nice lunch and poured out some wine. (Always a good start to any professional development session!!!) We signed up for Twitter as CINDY BURGE, installed Twitterfox and threw it out to the Twitterverse to welcome her. Which they did. Thanks all!

Next we installed Second Life and I took her around the ISTE Island to check it out and do a few screen dumps. She had a little trouble sitting on the chair (not the wine) & I hooked her up with the ISTE website. We then headed off to the Discovery Educator’s Network Second Life blog for a bit of a look around. After that I mentioned Jokaydia as an excellent resource to explore on her own time.

Lastly we dropped all the screen dumps from our session into Comic Life as a creative way to demonstrate a little of her learning.

Now her challenge as a second year uni student is to build her personal learning network to a point where online tools become a natural part of her learning. AND… the same goes for ALL teachers who don’t laminate their lesson plans

3H – Hidden – It Begins :-)

Adrian — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 09:22:51 +0000

Every week I get requests to create resources for people. This week I’ve had 23 requests to get the ‘Hidden’ question stems for the 3H strategy online.

Tonight I’ve started drafting, ‘Inferring Word Meanings From Context Clues’ and aim to have it online by next Sunday.

cheers

Adrian

Top 11 Educational Downloads – October

Adrian — Mon, 03 Nov 2008 08:36:56 +0000

October was another HUGE month for adrianbruce.com. 82 979 individuals made 124 869 visits to my site viewing 480 456 pages. They downloaded 46 973 Word resources and 16 953 Acrobat files. Widen those doors people, it’s time to truck my head through. hehehehe

The most popular downloads were -

1. Printable Snakes & Ladders – this is a blank template for making reading games.
2. Change 3 - a printable word card game for learning about long vowel sounds.
3. 4 in a Row - a printable word game that kids love. Includes a blank template.
4. 3d Shape Game - a printable concentration game that focuses on the properties of 3d shapes.
5. Reciprocal Reading Cue Cards – my modifed teaching prompt cards for this powerful comprehension strategy.
6. ‘Here’ Question stems – for the 3 Level Guide Reading Strategy
7. Place Value Charts - (I really should finish the decimals charts)
8. The T Puzzle - a problem solving activity but please stop asking for the answer. I’d hate to rob you of the ‘A-ha’ feeling
9. Square Pyramid Net – I’m sure this was all the Uni students out on prac
10. Phonics Posters – A Few Things for Word Walls
11. Symmetry Webquest – A Visual Reference for Learning About Symmetry

I’m thinking that this translates to a lot of time saved by teachers and a fair amount of learning of skills on the part of students.

Head Questions – Author’s Purpose / Intention

Adrian — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 06:58:55 +0000

Today I finished off my collection of ‘Head’ questions relating to author’s intention and purpose.

Feel free to print them out and slip them into the pigeon holes of those who you think can use them.

cheers

Adrian

Reading Comprehension – Head Questions

Adrian — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 02:43:11 +0000

Three level guides (also known as the ‘Here, Hidden, Head’ reading comprehension strategy) are a huge part of my group reading sessions with students.

I’ve had the ‘here’ questions stems available on my website for a while now and recently I’ve had a few emails requesting the ‘head’ stems. So here they are! I’ve just uploaded a collection of thinking stems that focus on character.

The question stems are now available for download as a Word or Acrobat file over on my site.

cheers

Adrian

Improving Reading Comprehension with 3 Level Guides

Adrian — Wed, 17 Oct 2007 10:44:00 +0000

When running guided reading sessions I like to have this collection of question stems beside me to improve reading comprehension. Personally I use this resource to prompt me to ask ‘better’ or maybe ‘a better variety’ of questions about a narrative text.

There are 3 pages of prompts available here so feel free to download them as a little professional development on knowledge based questions

One day soon I’ll find my prompts for the ‘Hidden’ and ‘Head’ aspects of of the strategy

cheers

Adrian

Comprehension Activites

Adrian — Mon, 30 Apr 2007 05:37:00 +0000

This morning I wrote a little something about my thoughts on ‘Teaching Comprehension’ to a newsgroup I belong to. I then thought I’d make it my blog post and maybe soon get around to making a webpage for the other two strategies.

(Adrian B mounts his soapbox)

Hi All,

In my experience ‘comprehension activities’ often amount to worksheets that require students to ‘find answers’ on the page. (yes I know that all generalisations are evil).

http://www.adrianbruce.com/motivational_posters/
motivation5/motivation5.htm

I propose that teachers need to be aware of 3 main strategies that actually
teach children how to comprehend what they are reading and what they have read.

1. Reciprocal Teaching – http://www.adrianbruce.com/reading/room4/recip/index.htm
(you can download the cue cards here to make this an independent activity)

This is an excellent resource for teaching in information texts. It is a bit dry but if you discuss the metacognition behind it you get good results. The kids also like to ‘race’ who can find a fact/place/definition fastest between traditional atlases/ dictionaries etc and Google Earth, Wikipedia etc

2. Three Level Questioning – I use the terms ‘Here Questions’ – you can put your finger on the part of the text where the answer is. ‘ Hidden Questions’ where the answer is often hidden in the text but you will have to think about it a bit’ NB ‘Hidden’ often involve inference – ‘not stated but highly likely’ and ‘Head Questions’ – the answer is in your head.

Found a pfd on a quick search
http://www.dynamiqconsultants.co.uk/DynamiqPDFs/The%20three%20level%20technique.pdf
but there is a fair bit more to it.

Get the kids generating the questions for their classmates – I use, ‘I want you to generate a Head question’ etc and then have the children ask their question to the rest of the reading group.

3. My modifications to Visualising / Verbalising programs – fantastic for narrative texts – Mmmm, can’t find a quick article – crux is – you discuss how visual images in your mind are much more powerful than text in your mind – explore how people visualise – some lucky people see whole movies in their mind. Continuous and in colour. Myself, I see the images as brief flashes but in colour. It is said that some people see the images in black and white but this is getting less since the advent of colour TV and some people see no images at all, but these are a very small minority. Discuss pulling up those images and using words to describe them.

Over the next few weeks I read for 15 minutes every morning and have the kids have their eyes closed with the intention of using clues from the text to build vivid images in their minds. I then spend 15 minutes discussing the images from chapter level, to page level to paragraph level all the way to sentence level.

Each day after the 15 minute reading I get the students into pairs and they must retell the mornings reading. I then get one pair to stand and do a paired story of the morning’s reading. (this keeps them on their toes and stops them having a little sleep) I sometimes give different question stems that the groups have to make questions for.

(Adrian dismounts his soapbox and feels somewhat cleansed)

cheers

Adrian B

PS Make sure you ask, ‘Am I teaching them how to comprehend or simply testing if they can find answers in a text?’