Reading Reflection #1: Strategic Reading Comprehension and Motivating Contexts For Developing Offline Reading Comprehension
“Reader” has long been a facet of my identity. I was one of those kids who would bring a book to read at the table when out to eat with my family. My “journey to reader” wasn’t always a straight line though. Due to a surgery, I missed the first couple of months of 1st grade, which set me back in my reading development for the rest of the year. I remember reading haltingly and nervously, slowly sounding out each syllable and for awhile just not enjoying the process. Thankfully my parents were able to get me a reading tutor the following summer, and I somehow made up for lost time.
Then came college, where, as an English major, I suddenly had hundreds of pages of reading to do each week, and I just couldn’t do it: I couldn’t comprehend complex text at that volume. So I froze in anxiety about it and just… didn’t attempt to. I’m not proud of it, but my inability to successfully complete and comprehend all of my reading led me to even attempt very little of it. My “reading” at that time involved a lot of skimming and article abstracts. In other words, a lot of bad habits.
Post-college I really had to rebuild my reading muscle and fall in love again with reading, so I could see it once again as an activity I found useful and enjoyable. I had to relearn how to read deeply, with purpose, in service of true knowledge-building. It’s been that falling in and out of step with my “reader” identity that makes me fascinated by literacy cultures in general. That interplay between reader / text / activity / socio-cultural context described in the 2002 RAND Reading Study Group is important: each component in that relationship is crucial, and if there’s a breakdown in one there’s a breakdown in the whole.
STRATEGIC AND ENGAGED READERS
On our first virtual class meeting, Dr. Coiro said that a lot of struggling readers think that reading comprehension is magic, but that of course it’s not. And in fact, the most important thing we can do in reading comprehension instruction is to help demystify the process and externalize the thinking we do while we’re reading.
But what is going on inside the proficient reader’s head? Buehl (2014) identifies seven key comprehension processes:
The fascinating thing to me is that some of the above strategies feel sort of unfamiliar. Take prediction for example: I’ve really been trying to notice if and when I’m making subconscious predictions as I’m reading. I suppose I’m predicting whether a section or passage is going to be useful to me, or important in relation to the overall argument laid out by the text. But prediction just doesn’t feel like a process I notice accessing to any large degree.
In a similar vein, another strategy in those lists that sticks out to me is the apparent importance of summarizing text. I chuckled at this because I am a terrible summarizer (just ask my boyfriend). In fact, when I recently took the MTELs (the Massachusetts Test for Educator Licensure), the lowest score I got -- by far -- was in the summary writing section. So I guess even strategic readers are weak in some comprehension strategies.
Which is a key point: strategic and engaged readers are not perfect. They are not always strategic and they are not always engaged. I go through reading ruts where I just can’t finish a book for months. I happily stop reading novels when it’s clear that I’m just not really enjoying it. Which I know horrifies some people, but the truth is I trust myself to know when a text isn’t serving me.
Of course, it’s hard to trust yourself as a reader when you are struggling, but I believe that confidence is an important component of the “reader” identity. As Duke and Pearson write, the skilled reader can “entertain the possibility that a comprehension failure may have as much to do with the author’s failure to provide considerate message as it does with the failure of the reader to bring appropriate cognitive and affective resources to bear in trying to understand it” (p. 231). To doubt the skill of the writer -- that takes hubris! But the strategic reader is confident in their abilities to assess value, pertinence, and applicability of text. They interpret disengagement not as a moral failing, but as a sign. I am not a perfect reader, and I am OK with knowing that text has limitations for me.
Strategic and engaged reading looks like confidence, and also curiosity: confidence that you can gain insight from text no matter what your limitations might be, and curiosity that leads you beyond a single text to further deepen that insight. Curiosity is what leads you from idea to idea, text to text, text to your life. Teachers and librarians can absolutely foster engagement in strategic reading -- if they are interested in creating a learning environment where students can chase down their curiosities. Of course, not all educators do, in large part because I don’t think that all educators believe that’s their job. For some, teaching facts and figures and “the canon” is what’s important -- not what students are curious about. If teachers can tap into students’ authentic curiosities, they can show students how to quench that curiosity through the comprehension of useful text.
CONNECTIONS
Among the readings we have done so far, I see a delicate balance being struck between the idea of students leading with their curiosity and teachers leading with their modeling. How do you teach these (fairly highly) structured essential reading comprehension strategies as you are encouraging students to follow their curiosity wherever it takes them? As Swan (2003) writes, “Engaged reading is the result of coherent, well-planned instruction” (p. 10). In practice, how difficult is it to hold both perspectives -- both that the instructor must model expert skill deployment and that the student should be in charge of direction -- in the mind of the educator?
That balance is complex: it involves core beliefs about classroom power dynamics, a distributed sense of responsibility, and beliefs about the purpose of schooling and the role of the teacher. This can be hard, and it might be particularly hard in high schools, where content feels so important and there’s a pressure to prepare students for passing standardized assessments and gaining admission to college. It feels so important for students to leave high school knowing certain things -- where is the time for self-directed curiosity?
Of course, the choice doesn’t have to be so black and white, and the course readings provide us with a way through. As Swan writes, “The key to keeping engaged readers talking, searching, questioning, and reading more is an opportunity to learn about something broad and concrete -- such as weather -- in a new way” (p. 10). So maybe it’s not one or the other: the teacher’s idea of What Should Be Known and the students’ interests. As in the CORI classroom, the student’s curiosity can explore hidden corners of the content otherwise unilluminated.
IMPLICATIONS/QUESTIONS/CRITIQUES
Just two weeks into the course, I understand so much better the value of modeling our thinking for others. I noticed the value of this practice in my work as a Technology Integration Specialist, helping to solve other people’s instructional technology-related dilemmas. I realized that it’s helpful to sort of verbalize my thinking with the person present, as I worked to find resolution to their dilemma. I am careful to be transparent as I try one idea, observe it fail, analyze why it went wrong, then try another idea. Modeling trial and error and a lack of fear in the face of technology is really beneficial. Similarly, I now understand that modeling my curiosity is also beneficial. Modeling reading diverse professional texts, leading with inquiry, and making connections between my colleagues’ ideas and things that I was just reading about: this can also go a long way in developing a culture of curiosity.
More and more I see my job as akin to the role of the librarian, in that I can help my teacher colleagues design engaging curriculum so that students have opportunity to really dig in and let their curiosity take them someplace unexpected. That takes a rethinking of the research process and project design more generally. Johnson cites Washburn (2010): “Instructional design differs from lesson planning, the term we traditionally use to describe a teacher’s pre-instruction preparation. Designers communicate by intentionally combining elements” (p. 2-3; pg. 24 of Johnson). I know that the role of the Instructional Designer is more prominent in higher education than in K-12, but in fact I think that is perhaps my role in my school.
Now my question becomes: how can I, as the Technology Integration Specialist, use my deepening understanding of reading comprehension processes to help my colleagues design curriculum that will help our students grow to be strategic and engaged readers? I will continue to think about that as the semester goes on.
SOURCES
Buehl, D. (2014). Fostering Comprehension of Complex Texts. Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (4th Edition). International Literacy Association. 3-11.
Duke, N.K. & Pearson, P. D. (2002). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction. 205-240.
Johnson, D. (2014) Reading, Writing and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8. New York, NY.
RAND Reading Study Group (2002). Reading for Understanding. 1-17.
Swan, E. A. (2003). Why is the North Pole Always Cold? Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI): Engaging Classrooms, Lifelong Learners.
Washburn, K. (2010). The architecture of learning. Pelham, AL: Clerestory Press.
Then came college, where, as an English major, I suddenly had hundreds of pages of reading to do each week, and I just couldn’t do it: I couldn’t comprehend complex text at that volume. So I froze in anxiety about it and just… didn’t attempt to. I’m not proud of it, but my inability to successfully complete and comprehend all of my reading led me to even attempt very little of it. My “reading” at that time involved a lot of skimming and article abstracts. In other words, a lot of bad habits.
Post-college I really had to rebuild my reading muscle and fall in love again with reading, so I could see it once again as an activity I found useful and enjoyable. I had to relearn how to read deeply, with purpose, in service of true knowledge-building. It’s been that falling in and out of step with my “reader” identity that makes me fascinated by literacy cultures in general. That interplay between reader / text / activity / socio-cultural context described in the 2002 RAND Reading Study Group is important: each component in that relationship is crucial, and if there’s a breakdown in one there’s a breakdown in the whole.
STRATEGIC AND ENGAGED READERS
On our first virtual class meeting, Dr. Coiro said that a lot of struggling readers think that reading comprehension is magic, but that of course it’s not. And in fact, the most important thing we can do in reading comprehension instruction is to help demystify the process and externalize the thinking we do while we’re reading.
But what is going on inside the proficient reader’s head? Buehl (2014) identifies seven key comprehension processes:
- Making connections to prior knowledge
- Generating questions
- Visualizing and creating sensory mental images
- Making inferences
- Determining importance
- Synthesizing
- Monitoring reading and applying fix-up strategies
- Prediction
- Think-aloud
- Text structure
- Visual representation of text
- Summarization
- Questions/questioning
The fascinating thing to me is that some of the above strategies feel sort of unfamiliar. Take prediction for example: I’ve really been trying to notice if and when I’m making subconscious predictions as I’m reading. I suppose I’m predicting whether a section or passage is going to be useful to me, or important in relation to the overall argument laid out by the text. But prediction just doesn’t feel like a process I notice accessing to any large degree.
In a similar vein, another strategy in those lists that sticks out to me is the apparent importance of summarizing text. I chuckled at this because I am a terrible summarizer (just ask my boyfriend). In fact, when I recently took the MTELs (the Massachusetts Test for Educator Licensure), the lowest score I got -- by far -- was in the summary writing section. So I guess even strategic readers are weak in some comprehension strategies.
Which is a key point: strategic and engaged readers are not perfect. They are not always strategic and they are not always engaged. I go through reading ruts where I just can’t finish a book for months. I happily stop reading novels when it’s clear that I’m just not really enjoying it. Which I know horrifies some people, but the truth is I trust myself to know when a text isn’t serving me.
Of course, it’s hard to trust yourself as a reader when you are struggling, but I believe that confidence is an important component of the “reader” identity. As Duke and Pearson write, the skilled reader can “entertain the possibility that a comprehension failure may have as much to do with the author’s failure to provide considerate message as it does with the failure of the reader to bring appropriate cognitive and affective resources to bear in trying to understand it” (p. 231). To doubt the skill of the writer -- that takes hubris! But the strategic reader is confident in their abilities to assess value, pertinence, and applicability of text. They interpret disengagement not as a moral failing, but as a sign. I am not a perfect reader, and I am OK with knowing that text has limitations for me.
Strategic and engaged reading looks like confidence, and also curiosity: confidence that you can gain insight from text no matter what your limitations might be, and curiosity that leads you beyond a single text to further deepen that insight. Curiosity is what leads you from idea to idea, text to text, text to your life. Teachers and librarians can absolutely foster engagement in strategic reading -- if they are interested in creating a learning environment where students can chase down their curiosities. Of course, not all educators do, in large part because I don’t think that all educators believe that’s their job. For some, teaching facts and figures and “the canon” is what’s important -- not what students are curious about. If teachers can tap into students’ authentic curiosities, they can show students how to quench that curiosity through the comprehension of useful text.
CONNECTIONS
Among the readings we have done so far, I see a delicate balance being struck between the idea of students leading with their curiosity and teachers leading with their modeling. How do you teach these (fairly highly) structured essential reading comprehension strategies as you are encouraging students to follow their curiosity wherever it takes them? As Swan (2003) writes, “Engaged reading is the result of coherent, well-planned instruction” (p. 10). In practice, how difficult is it to hold both perspectives -- both that the instructor must model expert skill deployment and that the student should be in charge of direction -- in the mind of the educator?
That balance is complex: it involves core beliefs about classroom power dynamics, a distributed sense of responsibility, and beliefs about the purpose of schooling and the role of the teacher. This can be hard, and it might be particularly hard in high schools, where content feels so important and there’s a pressure to prepare students for passing standardized assessments and gaining admission to college. It feels so important for students to leave high school knowing certain things -- where is the time for self-directed curiosity?
Of course, the choice doesn’t have to be so black and white, and the course readings provide us with a way through. As Swan writes, “The key to keeping engaged readers talking, searching, questioning, and reading more is an opportunity to learn about something broad and concrete -- such as weather -- in a new way” (p. 10). So maybe it’s not one or the other: the teacher’s idea of What Should Be Known and the students’ interests. As in the CORI classroom, the student’s curiosity can explore hidden corners of the content otherwise unilluminated.
IMPLICATIONS/QUESTIONS/CRITIQUES
Just two weeks into the course, I understand so much better the value of modeling our thinking for others. I noticed the value of this practice in my work as a Technology Integration Specialist, helping to solve other people’s instructional technology-related dilemmas. I realized that it’s helpful to sort of verbalize my thinking with the person present, as I worked to find resolution to their dilemma. I am careful to be transparent as I try one idea, observe it fail, analyze why it went wrong, then try another idea. Modeling trial and error and a lack of fear in the face of technology is really beneficial. Similarly, I now understand that modeling my curiosity is also beneficial. Modeling reading diverse professional texts, leading with inquiry, and making connections between my colleagues’ ideas and things that I was just reading about: this can also go a long way in developing a culture of curiosity.
More and more I see my job as akin to the role of the librarian, in that I can help my teacher colleagues design engaging curriculum so that students have opportunity to really dig in and let their curiosity take them someplace unexpected. That takes a rethinking of the research process and project design more generally. Johnson cites Washburn (2010): “Instructional design differs from lesson planning, the term we traditionally use to describe a teacher’s pre-instruction preparation. Designers communicate by intentionally combining elements” (p. 2-3; pg. 24 of Johnson). I know that the role of the Instructional Designer is more prominent in higher education than in K-12, but in fact I think that is perhaps my role in my school.
Now my question becomes: how can I, as the Technology Integration Specialist, use my deepening understanding of reading comprehension processes to help my colleagues design curriculum that will help our students grow to be strategic and engaged readers? I will continue to think about that as the semester goes on.
SOURCES
Buehl, D. (2014). Fostering Comprehension of Complex Texts. Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning (4th Edition). International Literacy Association. 3-11.
Duke, N.K. & Pearson, P. D. (2002). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction. 205-240.
Johnson, D. (2014) Reading, Writing and Literacy 2.0: Teaching with Online Texts, Tools, and Resources, K-8. New York, NY.
RAND Reading Study Group (2002). Reading for Understanding. 1-17.
Swan, E. A. (2003). Why is the North Pole Always Cold? Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI): Engaging Classrooms, Lifelong Learners.
Washburn, K. (2010). The architecture of learning. Pelham, AL: Clerestory Press.
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