With the launch of the Scholastic Literacy Framework, the “Science of Reading in Practice” webinar series continues to provide educators best practices for implementing evidence-based strategies into their reading instruction. In the series, six literacy experts share evidenced-based strategies rooted in classroom experiences that build the foundational skills and language comprehension skills students need to become successful, confident readers.
In this fifth installment, Meredith and David Liben, co-authors of Know Better, Do Better: Comprehension, explore reading comprehension through the lens of cognitive science.By delving into the realms of knowledge, vocabulary, and comprehension, the Libens help deepen educators' understanding of how the brain makes sense of text. This webinar offers educators strategies that enhance students’ reading abilities and help them understand the crucial importance of seamlessly integrating foundational skills into their reading habits.
Keep reading below to discover teaching practices that can be implemented immediately in the classroom!
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Build Knowledge by Reading Aloud Together
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Knowledge has a greater impact on text comprehension than decoding skills or general comprehension skills. Two of the most effective practices to help build knowledge include conducting frequent read-alouds in the early grades and increasing the volume of reading overall.
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By reading together and grouping a coherent sequence of knowledge-rich texts together, students can begin to understand a complex text about the topic and also begin to grow their vocabulary. This practice teaches students the crucial idea that they must use the knowledge they have gained from one text in understanding the next.
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Additionally, students can and will build knowledge on their own if they have access to a series of texts on a topic. Research shows that readers of all proficiency levels perform as well or better on passages about topics they’re familiar with than high-ability readers who are not familiar with those topics.
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Expand Vocabulary Breadth and Depth
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Cultivate the habit of paying attention to words by focusing on two elements of vocabulary: breadth and depth. Breadth means the total number of words a reader knows, while depth relates to how well they know the word.
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Depth and breadth of vocabulary crucially correlates with comprehension and likewise supports different elements of comprehension. Encourage your students to read a volume of text on connected topics to both grow vocabulary and knowledge.
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While you’re teaching, quickly ‘drop-in’ the definition of words that are critical for understanding that you suspect the students don’t already know, but don’t spend too much time here because students often will know a synonym for that word.
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However, do spend time on words that are more abstract and are critical for understanding, especially words that are part of a semantic family or that are likely to appear in other related texts.
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Understand the Model of Comprehension
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Comprehension is represented in the mind as a set of understandings and can be modeled in the mind at three interacting levels: the surface level, the textbase, and the situation model.
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To begin at the surface level, students need to decode the words and punctuation successfully and be able to do this fluently at the earliest point of instruction which is why solid foundational skills are critical.
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Kids should see that reading is about making meaning, which brings up the next level of mental representation: the textbase.
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This portion is made up of two distinct parts of the text: the macrostructure and the microstructure.
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The macrostructure is the overall structure of the text, or how it is organized. This includes the setting, protagonists or characters, problem at hand, the intentionality of the characters, and the overall outcome of the story. It is important to recognize the text structure and overall organization because this supports meaning-making.
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The microstructure is the text’s line-by-line units of meaning and how they interconnect. Each separate idea presented is called a proposition. This is where the hard work of meaning-making comes into play, for students must now begin bridging the ideas and inferences together.
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There are countless ways those bridges might connect to propositions and to the relevant knowledge the reader brings with them to the text. To be successful in the textbase, readers need to be able to connect the propositions and ideas presented in the text.
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Once students have successfully made connections within the textbase, their understanding travels to the situation model, which is the richest, most complete understanding of the text the reader can form and is shaped by the reader’s knowledge, experience, and emotions.
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The primary difference between the textbase and the situation model is the presence of the student’s existing background knowledge and personal experience, which enriches the overall understanding.
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Additionally, unlike the surface level or textbase, readers will use the situation model when recalling the text in the future.
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A helpful metaphor for conceptualizing the process of comprehension is to think of a kaleidoscope. Each presented text can resemble a kaleidoscope – presenting its own combination of features and unique degree of challenge for each reader.
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Engage Critical Thinking Skills with Close Reading
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Engaging in close reading practices daily is an important practice for all readers – regardless of ability – and all readers deserve access to rich and engaging grade-level text.
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Providing opportunities for close reading allows kids to practice pointing to evidence for developing conclusions and inferences. This is hard work, but it gives robust support for students as they build strong comprehension skills.
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Plan to read assigned texts multiple times for different purposes. After students have read the text each time, give them correlating and culminating assignments so they can see for themselves how much they have learned over the course of each reading.
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As students find answers to text-dependent questions, be sure to always ask them to explain their answer so that they are continuously encouraged to develop a high Standard of Coherence, the reader’s expectation that they will understand what they read and are willing to work for that understanding.
Check out the full webinar and stay tuned for more tips and strategies from our “Science of Reading in Practice” webinar series! Be sure to follow @ScholasticEdu on X for more engaging educational content.
See all of Scholastic's Foundational Reading Skills resources.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS
David and Meredith Liben have taught, written and collaborated together for the past 38 years. Their teaching and work has spanned every grade and most school types, though it has been predominantly in urban centers (mostly in Harlem). Both David and Meredith have worked in rural schools and in community college and teacher prep programs as well. They coordinated the project designed to provide the best information and tools to educators around questions of defining the text complexity and range of reading called for by the Common Core State Standards during the first decade they were in widespread use. During the past several years, the Libens have been working to support teachers, students, and instructional materials makers by teaching about the practical implications of reading research. Most recently, their collaboration has resulted in two books: Know Better Do Better: Teaching the Foundations So Every Child Can Read and Know Better Do Better: Comprehension–Fueling the Reading Brain with Knowledge, Vocabulary and Rich Language.
