Powerpoint presentation from the webinar presented as part of the Tawa literacy pilot course.

1. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
WEBINAR
November
10th,
2010

2. Webinar Agenda
1. Introduction and overview
2. Teaching the comprehension strategy of drawing
inferences using the metacognitive model
3. Strategies that ‘go’ with drawing inferences:
a) Making connections
b) Visualising
c) Asking questions

3. Webinar Agenda
4. Scaffolding – the research evidence – how we can
accelerate achievement for diverse student groups –
Māori, Pasifika, ESL students, and students with
special needs
5. Matching students and text – a ‘content literacy’ view
6. Grouping but not as we know it…
7. Inquiry learning within comprehension teaching

4. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
1.
IntroducBon
and
overview

5. Introducing
Neale
Pitches
ONZM,
BA,
MEd
Admin
(Hons),
Dip
Tchg
Forty
years
in
educa@on:
-­‐
English
and
history
teacher,
Hillmorton
and
Dunstan
-­‐
DP
Wellington
High
-­‐
Principal
Onslow
College
-­‐
CEO
Learning
Media
-­‐
Co-­‐founder
South
Pacific
Press
and
LiL
Educa@on

6. The
issue:
Comprehension

7. 2008 NEMP
The Results for reading and writing show no improvement in
reading comprehension (and some small performance declines)
for year 4 and year 8 students in the last 8 years
(Crooks, Smith and Flockton, 2009)

8. 2005/6 PIRLS
Pacific achievement decreased between 2001 and 2005/6
(Chamberlain, 2007)

9. In General
The weakest average achievement is for Pasifika and Māori
boys, along with Pasifika girls
(Generalised from NEMP and PIRLS)

10. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
2. Teaching the comprehension
strategy of drawing inferences
using the metacognitive model

11. What is the metacognitive model?
A way of teaching where the students learn
the concepts and content being taught and
how they think and learn as they work
through the learning.

12. MetacogniBon
It
is
important
that
students
are
ac@vely
taught
to
be
aware
of
what
literacy
exper@se
they
are
using
and
how
they
are
using
it
…
this
metacogni@ve
awareness
enables
them
to
become
independent
readers
and
writers.
(Literacy Learning Progressions 2010)

13. The
MetacogniBve
Model
Think
3x3x3
–
gradual
release
Whole-Group
Instruction
Co-operative
learning
Independent
Application
Model/think-aloud/read-to, student interaction, reflection
Before, during, and after reading

14. 3-5 different
Classroom
experiences
Known concepts
Knowledge structure
New conceptsWorking memory
Integrating
Elaborating
Evaluating
Selecting
Sorting
Long term memory
(Nuthall, 2007, p.71)
The
metacogniBve
learning
model
Include
all
students

15. The
New
Zealand
“landscape”
Explicit
instruc@on
of
comprehension
strategies
include:
•
An
explicit
descrip@on
of
the
strategy
•
Modeling
of
the
strategy
•
Scaffolding
students
•
Students
ar@cula@ng
what
they
do
as
they
use
the
strategy
•
Students
applying
and
reflec@ng
on
the
strategy.
(Effective Literary Practice, Years 5–8)

16. How?
For
prac@cal
purposes
when
we
first
teach
a
strategy
we
model
the
strategy
on
its
own
so
we
don’t
confuse
kids…but
quickly
move
on
to
introduce
addi@onal
strategies
so
kids
build
a
repertoire
of
strategies
and
use
them
flexibly
to
understand
what
they
read”.
(Harvey
and
Goudvis,
2007,
p
34)

17. Teaching
Comprehension
The
purpose
of
teaching
comprehension
is
to
teach
strategies
as
tools
to
expand
and
deepen
understanding.
We
best
do
this
by
…
teaching
kids
a
repertoire
of
strategies
they
can
use
flexibly
in
many
circumstances
and
with
many
texts.
(Harvey and Goudvis)
Comprehension
strategies
are
specific,
learned
procedures
that
foster
ac@ve,
competent,
self-­‐regulated
and
inten@onal
reading.
(Trabasso and Bouchard, 2002)

22. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
3. Strategies that ‘go’ with drawing
inferences:
a) Making connections
b) Visualising
c) Asking questions

23. Making Connections
Effective teachers helped readers make connections between texts
they read and their personal lives and experiences
(Sweet and Snow, 2002, p44)
By modeling, interaction and reflection
By analogy

26. Making Connections
Researchers have identified three kinds of connections that
proficient readers make as they read:
Text-to-self – connections to own experiences and knowledge
Text-to-text – connections to other ‘texts’ – books, films, TV, songs
Text-to-world – connections to knowledge of the world, their
communities, cultures, world views

27. Making Connections
Also help students to make connections to the type of text
they are reading and how it is constructed.
“…students of all ages, from elementary to high school, have
difficulty comprehending the structure of informational text”
(McGee, 1882; Meyer, Brand and Bluth, 1980; Taylor, 1880)

28. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
3. Strategies that ‘go’ with drawing
inferences:
a) Making connections
b) Visualising
c) Asking questions

29. Visualising
The most well-established effect of visualising is that
students remember more of what they read.
(National Reading Panel, 2000)

30. Visualising
Model to, and encourage students to use all of their senses
when ‘visualising’. Readers visualise by using their background
knowledge along with text and other visual clues on the page
Visualise on non-fiction and fiction texts – visualising is part of
active reading

32. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
3. Strategies that ‘go’ with drawing
inferences:
a) Making connections
b) Visualising
c) Asking questions

33. Asking Questions
Proficient readers ask questions before, during and after
reading. They question the content, the author, the events,
the issues and the ideas in a text.
(Harvey and Goudvis, 2007, p18)
Asking questions promotes engagement, invites prediction,
creates reasons to read, and fosters comprehension

34. Asking Questions
Effective teachers ask high level comprehension questions,
requiring students to make inferences and think beyond the
text.
(Sweet and Snow, 2002, p44)

35. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
4. Scaffolding – how we can
accelerate achievement for
diverse student groups - Māori,
Pasifika, ESL students, and
students with special needs?

36. ‘Scaffolding’
 Giving
all
students
access
to
on-­‐year
level
texts

MulBple
scaffolds
in
both
shared
and
cooperaBve
sessions:
 Reading-­‐to
 Modeling
 Digital
scaffolds
(vocab,
video,
pictures)
 Peer
collabora@on
and
support
 Audio
for
all
40
student
co-­‐opera@ve
texts
at
each
year
level
 Collabora@ve
(peer)
learning
built
into
student
co-­‐opera@ve
ac@vi@es
 Graphic
organisers

37. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
5. Matching students
and text – a ‘content
literacy’ view

38. Exposure to Print
Exposure to
Content
Oral language
Vocabulary
Reading
Writing
“Oral
language
and
vocabulary
are
best
developed
in
exposure
to
print”
“Comprehension
ability
and
exposure
to
print
are
in
a
reciprocal
rela:onship”
Stanovich,
2000

39. Teachers skilful in content literacy practices can increase
students’ reading capacity, vocabulary, and knowledge
with texts focused on real content.
(Brozo, 2010)
What is content literacy?
Why does it matter?

40. Children who acquire good reading skills may not be able
to transfer those abilities to comprehending content text if
they lack relevant prior knowledge for that content.
In other words, reading is domain specific.
(Chiesi, Spilich, & Voss, 1979; Duke & Pearson, 2002; Kintsch &
Kintsch, 2005, in Brozo, 2010).
What is content literacy?
Why does it matter?

41. Content Literacy
In recent years the term “background knowledge” has
been replaced in some texts by the term “world
knowledge”. It is important to put in front of students
many texts from many contexts. Don’t shelter kids
from reality by only exposing them to texts you think
they can read or that ‘relate’ to them– model to them
how to deal with ‘foreign’ texts.

42. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
6. Grouping, but not as
we know it…

43. Grouping, but not as we know it…
Whole class / whole group teaching - recall the comments of
Samantha from Roslyn School in Palmerston North. She sees
benefits from being in the whole group – the learning community.
Whole class / whole group teaching is an efficient way for you to
model, by thinking aloud. Anecdotally, boys seem to like the
whole group and struggling readers appreciate being out of the
bottom group for a change.

44. Grouping, but not as we know it…
Cooperative learning has a strong body of evidence to
support it (Almasi, 1995; Jenkins, Antil, Wayne, et al, 2003;
Stevens, 2003.)
It has positive effects on achievement, motivation and self-
esteem, including for students of both genders and all
ethnicities

45. Grouping, but not as we know it…
Cooperative learning has a strong body of evidence to
support it (Almasi, 1995; Jenkins, Antil, Wayne, et al, 2003;
Stevens, 2003.)
It has positive effects on achievement, motivation and self-
esteem, including for students of both genders and all
ethnicities

46. Grouping, but not as we know it…
Cooperative learning needs to be supported by the following
student ‘management’ approaches:
1. “positive independence” and social skills (Kane, 2007) – ie
students need to be able to work together
2. Individual accountability and specific tasks – each student
fills out a graphic organiser ie work towards a goal (Lasley,
Matczynski, & Rowney, 2002.)

47. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
7. Inquiry learning within
comprehension teaching

49. Inquiry learning – Using students’
authentic questions
We see two practices in “CSI” classrooms:
1. Inquiry learning coming out of questions students ask about
texts – questions followed up after the comprehension lesson
(may be recorded on sticky notes)
2. Inquiry learning coming out of questions students ask about
texts – questions followed up during the lesson, via web-based
searches or embedded hyper-links

50. Tawa
Literacy
Pilot
THE
END!
WEBINAR
November
10th,
2010

51. Summing
Up
-­‐
New
Thinking
Digital
Shared
Reading
to
teach
comprehension
using
the
metacogniBve
model
• Diverse,
on-­‐year-­‐level
texts
–
to
give
students
broad
content
/
reading
experience
–
not
all
texts
are
‘suited’
to
them
• Explicit
/
deliberate
teaching
• Digital
and
face-­‐to-­‐face
scaffolds
• Interac@on
–
learning
community

52. CooperaBve
learning:
A
challenge
to
our
thinking
about
‘levelled
text,
levelled
kids’
• Scaffolding
–
coopera@ve
learning
–
peers,
learning
community
• Audio
texts
• Graphic
organisers
–
help
guided
wriden
responses
Summing
Up
-­‐
New
Thinking

53. Summing
up
• We
can
accelerate
comprehension
achievement
• We
can
overcome
the
concern
that
levelling
has
become
too
prescrip@ve
–
a
deficit
model
• We
can
serve
‘digital
na@ves’
with
digital
texts
The
developmental
(metacogni@ve)
model
is
shown
to
have
major
benefits
for
comprehension
achievement
for
all
students.
Summing
Up
-­‐
New
Thinking