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Teaching Comprehension from the Start: One First Grade Classroom Author(syf $ Q Q 0 & R X U W Q H \ D Q G 0 D U \ $ Q Q 0 R Q W D Q o Source: YC Young Children, Vol. 61, No. 2 (March 2006yf S S 4 Published by: National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYCyf Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/42729912 Accessed: 23-04-2018 21:30 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://about.jstor.org/terms National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYCyf is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to YC Young Children This content downloaded from 148.84.42.93 on Mon, 23 Apr 2018 21:30:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Teaching Comprehension from the Start One First Grade Classroom Ann M. Courtney and MaryAnn Montano While holding up the book cover, a teacher introduces Better Move On , Frog ! by Ron Maris, to her class of first-graders. "What do you think this book will be about?" she asks. "Kids!" Hallie calls out. "Kids?" the teacher questions. "Why do you think that, Hallie?" "No, maybe animals," says Hallie. "Why did you say kids first?" "I was just guessing," Hallie admits. "Then I looked real good at the picture and saw only animals and no kids. So then I changed my mind." "Well," the teacher says, "kids was a first guess. Then you looked more carefully at the picture on the cover and didn't see any kids. So then you made a new prediction based on what you saw in the picture. Predictions are good guesses. That is what we do when we read. We use the pictures to help us understand what we read." A large body of research (Clay 1991; National Reading Panel 2000; Pressley 2000; Courtney & Abodeeb 2001yf R Q \ R X Q J U H D G H U V U H Y H D O V W K D t most children do not know how to check their understanding as they read, nor do educators give them the strategies to do so. Comprehension is the process of constructing meaning while interact- ing with text. Metacognition is think- ing about thinking - knowing what we know and what we don't know - and that skill entails both mil conscious awareness and conscious control of one's learning. Strategies are cognitive, in-the-head processes that are learned through scaffolded teaching to foster success in reading. The opening vignette illustrates how one first grade teacher intro- duced comprehension strategies to her class and how she further helped the children become meta- cognitively aware of how they used predictions to help them read. The teacher scaffolded Hallie's learning by asking questions to help her realize that refining her prediction or guess based on the pictures is what good readers do. This article documents one first grade teacher's efforts to encourage children to develop metacognitive awareness, thinking that fosters skillful and proficient understanding of texts. Through direct, explicit instruction, the teacher's goal was to increase children's knowledge and metacognitive awareness in what, how, where, and when to apply strategies to understand what they read. We show how she supported and helped her young emergent readers to apply this knowledge while they read. Ann M. Courtney, EdD, is an associate professor of reading and language arts at the University of Hartford in West Hartford, Connecticut. She is the coauthor of Journey of Discovery: Building Classroom Community Through Diagnostic-Reflective Portfolios. MaryAnn Montano, MS, is a first grade teacher at the University of Hartford Magnet School. A primary school educator for the past 14 years, MaryAnn enjoys introducing readers' workshops to young children and has a special interest in teaching compre- hension strategies. Photos © Ellen B. Senisi. 68 Young Children • March 2006 This content downloaded from 148.84.42.93 on Mon, 23 Apr 2018 21:30:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Building a supportive community for readers MaryAnn Montano's first grade classroom is in an elementary magnet school (preschool through grade 5yf L n a northeast city with a population of more than 100,000. The magnet school is based on Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences (1983yf 7 K H V F K R R O L s quite diverse and inclusive. One of its goals is to reduce racial isolation; 50 percent of the children come from six suburban towns. Approximately 22 percent of the students receive special education services. MaryAnn's room is light and spa- cious, with a huge bay window over- looking a wooded area and housing the classroom library. Books are displayed on top of bookcases, and there is a multitude of baskets with texts at different reading levels throughout the room. Books are arranged by categories or themes. In addition, each child's chair has a book bag attached to it, filled with more books and magazines. The front wall has an electronic, computer- driven Smart Board. MaryAnn works it from her laptop. Additionally, there are six child laptops on a nearby table. From the ceiling hangs chart paper with lyrics to songs the chil- dren have been learning. Today the children are seated on the floor in the meeting area, singing "She'll Be Coming around the Moun- tain" as MaryAnn points to the lyrics. She writes new verses the children make up, and they all sing them too. MaryAnn then introduces Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed, by Eileen Christelow, but she has covered some of the book's words with sticky notes. On the page showing the monkeys brushing their teeth, the word teeth is covered. MaryAnn (MA belowyf D V N s the class what they think the word is. MA: Five little monkeys brushed their Dinah: Teeth . Nick: Hair. M A: Five little monkeys brushed their the first letter of the wordyf , V H H W K e letter T, so it makes sense that it would be teeth. Would hair make sense? Let's see: Five little mon- keys brushed their hair. Class: Yes. MA: That sounds like it might make sense, but something tells me that hair doesn't fit. What do you think that is? Kendra: You see a T. MA: Yes, there's a T ( tapping the letter and making the soundyf Q R W D Q H (making the h soundyf D V L Q K D L U % X t there is something else too. Kendra: Looking at the pictures. MA: Oh yes, all the monkeys in the picture are brushing their teeth. MaryAnn describes her thinking to the children so they will better under- stand how to make sense as they read. Miller (2002yf F D O O V W K L V H I I R U W P D N L Q g "the invisible visible and the implicit explicit" (p. 10yf 7 K H J U R X S P H H W L Q g above was one of MaryAnn's earliest attempts at teaching comprehension. She was trying to raise the conscious awareness of her young readers so that they could monitor their reading by questioning whether what they read made sense and checking to see if the word began with the correct sound. For the lesson, she chose a book familiar to the majority of the class so that even the readers at beginning levels could be successful. She was focused on teaching the first- graders how to think. Reading comprehension research Studies of classroom practices note a lack of time and attention devoted to teaching comprehension strategies (Durkin 1978-79yf 7 K H 1 D W L R Q D O 5 H D G - ing Panel (2000yf V W U H V V H V W K D W W H D F K H U s need to know how to orchestrate and coordinate a number of different strategies to improve comprehension. In 1978 Ann Brown looked at how children develop knowledge and control their own cognitive pro- cesses. Her influential work opened the floodgates for educational research on metacognition and the vital role it plays in literacy learning and comprehension (Brown 1978yf . The importance of metacognition is now firmly established in theories of reading (Palincsar & Brown 1984; Alvermann & Guthrie 1993; Keene & Young Children • March 2006 69 This content downloaded from 148.84.42.93 on Mon, 23 Apr 2018 21:30:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms Zimmermann 1997; Harvey & Goud- vis 2000yf . Recent studies have focused on guiding and supporting readers as they learn to apply strategies flexibly and automatically to increase reading achievement (Clay 1991; Fielding & Pearson 1994; McCarthey, Hoffman, & Galda 1999yf $ F R P P R Q D V S H F W R I D O O R f this research is that the instruction is direct and explicit. Courtney and Abodeeb (2001yf D U J X H W K D W \ R X Q g children must be guided, in a scaffold- ing process, through their zone of proximal development (Vygotsky [1930-35] 1978yf W R E H F R P H U H I O H F W L Y H , consistent, and systematic in their use of strategies during the reading pro- cess. McLaughlin and Allen (2002yf designed a guided comprehension model in which children learn compre- hension strategies across many settings, using a variety of texts. Rachel Brown and colleagues (1996yf developed SAIL, a transactional model in which teachers give explicit expla- nations of strategy use, verbalize their thinking, and elaborate explicitly and responsively to students' comments, questions, and actions. Although a plethora of research studies demonstrate the effectiveness of explicit strategy instruction (Collins 1991; Anderson 1992; Brown et al. 1996yf W K H L U I L Q G L Q J V G L G Q R t seem to have any impact on class- room instruction. Several studies (El- Dinary, Pressley, &Schuder 1992; Dole 2000; Pressley 2000yf D U J X H W K D t strategy instruction is too far re- moved from teachers' classroom practices, beliefs, and understandings about comprehension instruction. Considering what we know about the effects of multiple-strategy instruc- tion on young children's comprehen- sion, it seems logical that if early childhood teachers know the charac- teristics of and support explicit strategy instruction, they can help children grow as readers. Developing metacognitive awareness and comprehension monitoring The following teaching episode describes MaryAnn's attempt to thoughtfully, explicitly, and mean- ingfully describe a comprehension strategy to her first-graders. In the interactive dialogue below, MaryAnn models and endeavors to make her thinking visible so that the young readers can understand, practice, and apply this particular strategy - using the picture to help figure out a word. MA: When we are reading, we might have problems. Sometimes we are going to get to a word and not know what the word is. Has anyone ever had that happen before? (Several children raise their hands.yf MA: Yes, sometimes we can get really frustrated. We can't figure out this word because I covered it up with a sticky note. The class reads Better Move on, Frog! They focus on the sentence, "The MaryAnn has covered the word hole with a sticky note. The picture shows a tree with a hole in it, with rabbits coming out. Although both hole and tree make sense by looking at the picture, when MaryAnn uncovers H , the word's first letter, the children confirm that the word is hole. MA: There was something that helped us figure out what the word was. Do you know what it was? (There is no reaction from the class.yf MA; Something very important to the story. Something very important when we are reading that helps us figure out the word. What was that strategy that we were using? What did we use? ( She moves her hand dramatically all around the illustra- tion .yf : K D W V W U D W H J \ G L G Z H X V H W o help us figure out the word? Do you remember? Hallie: The pictures. MA: Yes, we used the pictures. We looked at the pictures to help us figure out the word. You can use 70 Young Children • March 2006 This content downloaded from 148.84.42.93 on Mon, 23 Apr 2018 21:30:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms this on your own. You might be reading along in a book, and all of a sudden you get stuck on a word, . and you don't know what to do. Remember, the first thing to do is to use the picture to help you when you are stuck. (Many children nod their heads in agreement.yf MA: Okay, let's work on using the pictures. I'd like you to go off to read your own books from your bin or from your book bag. I'm going to give you colored sticky flags, and I am going to ask you to use the flags every time you get stuck on a word and you use the picture. So, you are reading along in the book, and all of a sudden there is a word you do not know. If you have to use the picture to help you figure out that word, put a flag right on that page. I want to see how many times you use the picture to help you. The children go off to all areas of the room and practice with their books. MaryAnn and Mrs. G, the reading resource teacher, circulate among the children, sometimes offering support and words of encour- agement to help them process the strategy and construct meaning. Mrs. G scaffolds for Jake, a struggling reader, by questioning him. Jake gets excited with his success in using the pictures to read his book. MaryAnn calls the class together. MA: Okay, what did you just do? Ernie: We were working on reading. MA: Yes, we were working on reading. What did you have to do when you did your reading? What was it that we were working on? Ernie: Finding a word that you get stuck on. MA: Finding a word that you get stuck on, and what did I want you to do? Ernie: Put a flag on it. MA: So, I just wanted you to put a flag on the word you got stuck on? So every word you got stuck on, I just wanted you to put a flag on it? ( Several children nod yes.yf MA: There is more to it than that. Does anyone remember? Why did you use a flag? It wasn't just when you got stuck on a word. There was something else. Dale: You got stuck on a word and then you started looking at the picture to help with the word. MA- Dale said something very impor- tant. She said when you were stuck on a word, you looked at the pic- tures to help you figure out the word. So, the only time you used a flag was when you used a picture to help you figure out the word. I'm going to go around again, and Mrs. G is going to go around to see if you are able to use your strategy when you get stuck on a word and need to use the picture to help. When I am checking, I want to be able to see you applying this important strategy of checking the picture to help you figure out a word, and I want you to be able to share how you used that strategy. Initially, during the first group meeting about picture strategy, MaryAnn went to great lengths to make sure the children understood what strategy was being taught and how to apply it. When she called the first-graders back after their practice, she realized that most of them had internalized only part of the discus- sion. They understood the process of placing flags at confusing words but not the part about looking at the pictures to help construct meaning. Through collaborative dialogue MaryAnn explicitly drew information from the children and then redirected them to use the flags whenever they used the pictures to help them make sense of text. She then asked the children to practice again. This second time, MaryAnn con- sciously and explicitly visited each child, deliberately asking each one what she or he was doing. She at- tempted to make invisible thinking visible. She redirected the children who needed it, extensively modeled for others, and rein- forced the concept with readers who seemed to grasp it. She then called the group together for another sharing time. MA: Do we have any- one who can share what the flag is all about? Zan? Now, you have a flag in your book. Can you tell us why you put it there? Zan: I got stuck on that word (points to the word frogyf . MA: You put the flag here because you used the pictures to help you. ( Addresses class.yf $ W I L U V W = D n wasn't sure how to use the pictures. However, she knew she needed to use the picture. So Young Children • March 2006 71 This content downloaded from 148.84.42.93 on Mon, 23 Apr 2018 21:30:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms before I came to her, Zan put a flag on the page. She told me, "I'm stuck. I need to use the picture to help." I helped her and showed her the pictures. Zan said, "That word is . . Zan: Frog. Exactly. When we looked at the picture, we figured it out, and that was a really good thing. Zan knew she needed to use the pictures to figure out the word. Great. Thank you, Zan. Mrs. G: Can Jake and I show you an example that worked really well? Jake said the and then do you know where his eyes went? Right up to the picture to get a clue about what the next word might be. I just watched his eyes go right up there. Let's see if you can do what Jake did. "The Some children: Sun. Mrs. G: Do you think that might be right? Is that right? Class: Yes. Mrs. G: See how that works. Let's do one more page. This is tricky. I'm going to cover over the word with a sticky note to see if you can get it. Jake was reading and checking his pictures. Notice that dark sky ( pointing to the picture yf 7 K e is in the sky." What do you think that word is? Are you looking at the picture? Some children: Moon. Mrs. G: And then let's check. Is that right, Jake? (Mrs. G removes the sticky note.yf Jake: Yes. Mrs. G: Yes, it is. So that is a great example of how the pictures helped Jake. ^ Good thinking, Jake! I am so glad that your eyes went up to the pic- ture. Sometimes we don't even realize how many times our eyes go right to the picture for help. You know, the books in your bins are so good at helping us learn to use the pictures because their pictures are so clear. These are really good books to practice using the pictures. MaryAnn designed her instruction to explicitly teach how to use picture cues to comprehend texts. She ex- pected the children to apply the strategy in practice as they read "just right" texts. When she realized the children were merely putting flags at the confusing parts, she immediately regrouped to bring the children's conscious awareness to the correct and consistent application of using the picture clues as a strategy to understand what they were reading. If children are to use pictures as a tool in constructing meaning in beginning reading texts, they must understand how the strategy aids in the construction of meaning. Mary- Ann repeatedly focused attention on the importance of using the pictures to construct meaning. She helped Zan to problem solve and get the mean- ing. Mrs. G mediated for Jake to be successful. MaryAnn modeled two strategies - using the first letter of a word and looking at the picture - one at a time for her first-graders. Then she had them practice each until they were sure of how to use it. Through further explanation, modeling, and discus- sion, MaryAnn taught these young readers not only how to apply mul- tiple strategies but also how to choose a specific strategy. She ex- pected the children to eventually understand how to orchestrate and MaryAnn acted as the more knowledge- able other to mediate the children's under- standing of how to apply the strategy. coordinate various strategies to improve comprehension. She pro- vided a great deal of collaborative talk in which she strove to make her thinking visible and scaffolded and assisted children as they constructed meaning. MaryAnn acted as the more knowledgeable other to mediate the children's understanding of how to apply the strategy (Vygotsky [ 1930- 35] 1978yf . The focus of MaryAnn's instruction remains on guiding children to use specific strategies when they come to something that they do not know. The children have learned how to self- monitor by asking if the word makes sense and begins with the same sound. They also have learned to 72 Young Children • March 2006 This content downloaded from 148.84.42.93 on Mon, 23 Apr 2018 21:30:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms check to see if the word they state looks like the word in the book they are reading. To track the development of their metacognitive strategies, MaryAnn conducted reading interviews (Goodman & Burke 1972yf Z L W K W K e children in November and then again in March. When asked in November, "What do you do when you come to something that you do not know?" more than three-quarters of the children (77.7 percentyf V D L G W K H \ X V H d sounds as their only strategy. They responded that they would get their "mouth ready for the first sound," "stretch the sounds out," or "sound out the letters/words." Responding to the same question in March, the readers reported that they applied multiple strategies during reading: • using the pictures • making the first sound • thinking about what makes sense • going back to reread • skipping the word and going back • skipping the word, reading to the end of the sentence, and guessing what fits and makes sense with the other words • doing a picture walk • asking questions while reading • predicting • thinking about what the story will be about • thinking about what I already know about the story • thinking about my own life and how it is like the story • closing my eyes and picturing what is happening in the story • stretching the sounds Seventy-nine percent of the chil- dren saw reading as a meaning- getting process and could describe several effective strategies. And all of the children named a minimum of three different strategies. When asked in November how they might help another reader who was having difficulty, 72.2 percent of the children answered simply that they would have someone sound out or stretch the letters or words. But by spring, approximately 57 percent of the children offered at least five strategies they would use to help another reader. These young readers recognized that there are many stra- tegies to use to construct meaning. They had come to see themselves as successful readers. T hese young readers recognized that there are many strategies to use to construct meaning. Young Children • March 2006 73 This content downloaded from 148.84.42.93 on Mon, 23 Apr 2018 21:30:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms MaryAnn introduced new strategies one at a time and provided time for children to practice applying them. She still spends considerable time explicitly discussing how and when to use multiple strategies as she shares a Big Book each day. 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Comprehension instruc- tion in elementary school: A quarter century of research progress. In Reading for meaning: Fostering comprehension in the middle grades, eds. B.M. Taylor, M.F. Graves, & P. van de Brock, 32-51. New York: Teachers College Press. Vygotsky, L.S. [1930-35] 1978. Mind in society: The development of higher psy- chological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Copyright © 2006 by the National Association for the Edu- cation of Young Children. See Permissions and Reprints online at www.journal.naeyc.org/about/permissions.asp. 74 Young Children • March 2006 This content downloaded from 148.84.42.93 on Mon, 23 Apr 2018 21:30:22 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms