Comprehension [Grades K-12]. Douglas Fisher

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Название Comprehension [Grades K-12]
Автор произведения Douglas Fisher
Жанр Языкознание
Серия Corwin Literacy
Издательство Языкознание
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781071840740



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      Skilled reading versus strategic reading

       All of us spend a lifetime acquiring what Paris calls the unconstrained reading skills of vocabulary and comprehension.

      The question remains: Which skills (or strategies) need to be taught? Importantly, some skills have a finite stopping point, and others do not. In the research world, it’s the ceiling effect. For example, once you learn the names of all of the letters, there are no more to learn. You have reached the highest point possible. However, it is unlikely that any of us have reached the top end of our vocabulary development. Just the other day, we learned the word ganked from our high school students. (It’s to steal something and has replaced jacked in the popular vernacular.) By the time you read this, that word will probably be dated, and we will have learned countless new words.

      Constrained and Unconstrained Skills

      Constrained and unconstrained skills

      However, the ability to decode and read text fluently is not the final destination. If that were so, we wouldn’t need to do much instruction beyond elementary school. But true reading is much more than accurate word calling. All of us spend a lifetime acquiring what Paris calls the unconstrained reading skills of vocabulary and comprehension. Unlike constrained skills, there is no endpoint. Your vocabulary is better today than it was five years ago, and your reading comprehension will be better five years from now (see Figure 1.3).

      A figure illustrates the key factors in the growth of constrained and unconstrained skills in reading comprehension.Description

      Figure 1.3 Constrained and unconstrained skills in reading comprehension.

      Effective reading instruction involves both constrained and unconstrained skills development. No responsible primary teacher would limit attention to constrained skills only while ignoring vocabulary and reading comprehension. But constrained skills do have a shelf life, in that once they are learned, there is no further benefit to continuing to teach them. Therefore, attention to constrained skills instruction does fade after the first years of school, as students acquire them. In turn, vocabulary and reading comprehension take on an even more prominent role than in the primary years. We include this information because we believe that the skill of comprehending, the focus of the next chapter, requires all of the constrained and unconstrained skills.

      Is Comprehension Enough?

      Thus far in this chapter we have reviewed the known. In other words, we have attempted to summarize what the experts tell us about comprehension and comprehension instruction. But we are left with a nagging feeling that, although this is all important, it’s not sufficient to ensure that students become readers who choose to read and engage with the world. Several years ago, we started saying that it was time to move reading comprehension instruction from a place of passive reception to active production. Students need to understand what they read, but they need to do something with that understanding. After all, Amazon and Yelp reviews and the countless number of blogs, not to mention YouTube postings, suggest that we all want to share our thinking with broader audiences.

       It is time to move reading comprehension instruction from a place of passive reception to active production.

      We had been thinking about this when we attended P. David Pearson’s retirement party. As part of the event, scholars were invited to share their thinking. At one point, Pearson shared his thinking. We won’t get every word right, but in essence he said that teaching students to read includes

       Phonemic awareness, which may be importantif it is on the pathway to . . .

       Phonics, which may be importantif it is on the pathway to . . .

       Fluency, which may be importantif it is on the pathway to . . .

       Vocabulary, which may be importantif it is on the pathway to . . .

       Comprehension, which may be importantif it is on the pathway to . . .

       Critical reasoning and problem solving, which may be importantif they are on the pathway to . . .

       Action in the world. Changing something that matters.

      As we thought about this more, engaged teachers with these ideas, and explored the research base, we realized that comprehension instruction needed a new model. Hattie and Donoghue (2016) suggested instructional strategies could be organized along a continuum across skill, will, and thrill, which sparked our thinking about reading. As we noted in the introduction, we believe that there needs to be a model for comprehension instruction. Our model, based on the framework developed by Hattie and Donoghue, is deceptively simple, and includes three dimensions:

       Skill. This aspect focuses on the development of the skills necessary for students to comprehend. As we have noted, this includes both constrained and unconstrained skills that are taught to the point of automaticity. This area is probably the most comfortable for most of us, as we have spent decades learning how to teach students the component parts of comprehending texts.

       Will. This aspect concerns motivation and engagement. We all know people who can read but don’t. They have developed the skills necessary to read yet not the will to do so. There is a lot of evidence for the value of attending to the will of reading as well as evidence about how to develop this aspect.

       Thrill. The final aspect focuses on what readers do with the information that they gain from reading. To our thinking, understanding a text should be exciting, especially when there are consequential things that you can do with the knowledge you have gained. Unfortunately, this is rare for most students. They do not find reading to be a thrill, and they see little relevance in reading, as evidenced by the decline in out-of-school reading all of us, students and adults alike, are doing.