3. Cognitive Strategies
Surface Structure Systems Deep Structure Systems
Grapho-Phonic:
Letter/sound knowledge, phonemic
awareness, decoding
Semantic:
Word meanings/associations, precisions
in word usage
Lexical:
Visual word recognition, visual memory
for words
Schematic:
Constructing meaning at the whole text
level; prior knowledge that governs
storage and retrieval of information
Syntactic:
Language structures at the word,
sentence and text level
Pragmatic:
Social construction of meaning, reading
and writing for specific purposes and
audiences, adopting the social mores of
a reader/writer, reading and writing
habitually
Mosaic of thought
4. A Balanced Approach to Literacy
Reading to Children Reading with Children Reading by children
Modelled Reading
Reading Aloud
Shared Reading
Guided Reading
Literature Circles
Independent Reading
Literacy Centres
Word Study
Phonemic awareness, Phonics, Spelling, Punctuation, Vocabulary
Writing for Children Writing with Children Writing by children
Modelled Writing Interactive Writing
Guided Writing
Shared Writing
Independent Writing
Writing Workshop
Speaking & Listening to
Children
Speaking & Listening with
Children
Speaking & Listening by
Children
Modelled Speaking & Listening Group and pair discussions Literacy Centres
Student-to-student
conversations
Daily Oral Language
5. • Our goal is to explicitly teach a repertoire of thinking
strategies that are used to deepen our understanding.
• We need to show our students how we think when we
read.
• We must model what we want children to do to help
them construct meaning.
Gradual Release of Responsibility
Modelling
Guided Practice
Independent Practice
Application of the strategy
Explicit Teaching
10. Successful Readers...
Monitor their comprehension to
ensure that they understand
what they are reading
Use their existing knowledge
(or schema) to make sense of
new information
Can identify the important
ideas.
Create sensory images.
Synthesize new information to
create new thinking.
Ask questions as they read.
Draw inferences from the text.
Use ‘fix-up’ strategies when
meaning breaks down
11. Making Connections- Schema
Does this remind you of
something?
Has this ever happened to
you?
Do you know someone like
him/her?
Have you ever felt this way?
What do you already know that
will help you understand what
you are reading?
Is this information the same as
what you have read in other
books?
Good readersconnect what theyare readingto their own life(t-s), to anothertext
(t-t)or to the world (t-w).
14. Now it’s your turn!
Read the extract
from the book. When
you are finished
reading, see if you
can make any ‘t-s’ or
‘t-t’ connections with
the text.
15. Predicting and Inferring
What do you think will happen
next?
Look at the cover...what do you
think the book will be about?
What does the
title/heading/picture make you
think?
Although the author hasn’t told
you this, what do you think?
What clues has the author given
you?
What message do you think the
author wanted you to
understand?
Good readers think about what’s
going to happen and make
predictions based on what they
know and what they have read.
Readers think about and search the
text, and sometimes use personal
knowledge to construct meaning
beyond what is literally stated.
19. Riddle Time!
Read through the riddle with your
group. Can you use your inferring
skills to try and work out the answer
to the riddle?
20. Visualising
Good readers picture what is
happening whilethey read.
• What picture are you
getting in your mind?
• What do you hear,
taste, smell, feel?
• What does this
character look like in
your mind?
• Do you have a movie
playing in your head?
• What are you feeling
right now?
23. Questioning
Good readers ask themselves
questions whentheyread.
What is the author saying?
Why is that happening?
Why did this character...?
Is this important?
What does this make you
wonder?
How does this information fit
with what you have already
read?
24. Monitoring
Good readers stop to think about their readingand know what to
do when they don’t understand.
Does this make sense?
What’s going on here?
Do you need to re-read?
How do you say this word?
What does this word mean?
What clues can you use?
25. Determining Importance
Good readersidentifythe most
important ideas and restatethemin
their own words. Theyalso determine
the difference between what theyneed
to knowand what is just interesting.
What is this
book/chapter/paragraph
mainly about?
How is it organised?
What are the author’s most
important ideas? What is
he/she trying to tell you?
How does the text
organisation help you?
What are the key words?
26. Responding to Reading
• Diverse,open endedresponses tellus most about
what childrenunderstand.
• Oral, written, artistic, dramatic
• StickyNotes!
• Whiteboards!
• Think sheets/ graphic organisers
‘Our students need to be transformed
by great literature as well as given
opportunities to explore their passions,
interests and questions to bring the
world into focus.’
(Harvey and Goudvis, STW)
Lucy Calkins:
“I’ve just finishedreading
this great book. I thinkI
mightgo downstairs and
make a diorama!”
Take a couple of minutes to write down your thoughts.
Look up book for more explanation
Discuss pedagogy – teaching methodology.
Talk about the different schools of thought:-
The phonic approach
The whole word approach
The language experience approach
It Is My Ox.
This is a sample of decoding – what is the point, where is the comprehension? This is a combination of sight vocabulary and phonic approach.
Jump.
Jump, jump.
Oh, oh, oh.
Oh, jump.
Run.
Run Dick.
Run, run.
See, see.
See Dick run.
Here is a sample from the Happy Venture books that were used in the 60s and 70s – “a whole word approach” to reading.
Students learned the words in isolation, then once they could “read” the words from flash cards, they were given the book to read – reading being viewed as successful if they could “decode” or “bark at the print”.
Was there any comprehension going on? Its hard to say, but as the books really had no story line, its difficult to imagine that children could retell story lines (there weren’t any!)
Ask parents to chat to each other... Who is a successful reader that you know? Why? Who is a successful writer that you know? Why?
Activate Relevant Prior Knowledge
Make connections before, during and after reading
Check that what they read ‘sounds right’
Fit the text into their own experiences
Relate to the text
Determine the most important ideas
Don’t get distracted
See the ‘big picture’
Use clues such as headings, bold text
Determine the most important ideas and themes
Ask questions..before, during and after the reading, of themselves, the author and the text
Visualise and create sensory images..create and share mental images of the text
Infer
Use prior knowledge to draw conclusions about the text, the author or a character
Laugh at the funny parts
Synthesise
Retell a story
Sort through the ideas in a text to understand it
Reflect on the meaning of a text in connection with their own experiences
Use fix-up strategies
Monitor, re-read, review what they have read, ask a class mate, check one source of information against another
Used to repair comprehension when it breaks down
We use our personal experience to construct meaning.
Who can read this?
It was fairly easy even though some letters weren’t there.
Why?
We don’t read every letter or word to get the meaning. Good readers guess or “predict” when they are reading.
Children can only monitor reading well if they are reading books that are not too difficult. If they have to do too much decoding, all their energies go into this task.
They need a ‘just right book’ – not too many strategies that they have to apply. If they spend too much time on surface features, they lose all sense of meaning.
SHOW SLIDE:
Explain why the pictures are important – what information can be gleaned from them.
The way reading material is carefully constructed so that the picture plays an important role in the early books, but become less supportive as reading skill becomes more proficient.
This summarises what we have just talked about. We integrate these strategies or sources of information or cues when we read. But what about young children?
Use these source of information when we read. Clearly it is easier to read a familiar text rather than a unfamiliar text. Reading an unfamiliar text forces us to rely more heavily on the visual or phonic cues slowing down the reading process.
What can you as parents do to make reading easier and more enjoyable for your children?
List ideas
Reading is ‘problem solving’ on the text. It needs to reader to set up expectations, make predictions and sample from the print, while drawing on one’s knowledge of the world and of language (in both the oral and written forms).
