Reading Comprehension: Beyond Answering the Questions
at the End of the Chapter
Valarie Algee, M.Ed.
Learning Specialist

Reading comprehension is often defined as answering questions, retelling (i.e., summarizing), or defining new vocabulary words. In fact, comprehension is so much more. It is the higher level task of truly understanding what one is reading. Comprehension involves gaining insight, making connections to prior knowledge, extending existing knowledge, beliefs, and opinions, and analyzing as well as remembering.

This is not to say that there is no place for simply answering questions at the end of the chapter and providing summaries of what one has just read. These are viable tools for assessing or testing comprehension, which are quite different, however, from teaching the strategic act of comprehending text.

There are many factors that influence and form the foundation for reading comprehension. These factors include knowledge (e.g., life experience, knowledge about text), language (e.g., oral language skills, vocabulary), fluency (i.e., accuracy, rate, and expression), and metacognition (i.e., the ability to know when to use specific strategies). Understanding these factors can and should inform the teaching of reading comprehension.

There are specific strategies that good readers actively use in order to comprehend text. These strategies can be explicitly and strategically taught. Although there is no definitive list, the most common strategies include:

• having clear goals for reading
• summarizing
• creating visual images
• making predictions
• asking questions
• making connections to prior knowledge about oneself, the world, and other texts
• drawing inferences and conclusions
• self-monitoring (e.g., adjusting reading speed and rereading)

Beyond teaching these strategies, a vital part of reading comprehension instruction is the gradual release of responsibility, wherein over time students are given more and more responsibility for employing strategies until they are making use of them independently and automatically. This is the point at which the parent or teacher says, "Remember when we ___?  Now you're going to do it."  Comprehension strategy instruction then is simply trying to train struggling readers to independently and routinely do the same kinds of things good readers do.

Following are some techniques and activities that parents, teachers, and tutors can use to teach and aid students' practice of effective comprehension strategies:

• Think-aloud. When reading aloud, model your own use of specific reading strategies. Uncover what a good reader does by "thinking out loud," articulating how a specific strategy helps you to better understand what you're reading.  For example, "Hmm, this reminds me of when my grandfather and I used to go for walks together in the woods. It made me feel special having him all to myself. I bet [the main character] feels the same way."  You could further add, "See, thinking about how this reminds me of my own life helps me to better understand the character and the story. Making a connection to yourself is something good readers do."
• Discuss. When reading together, initiate discussions about what you're reading. Engage the child with questions such as: "Who's your favorite character?  Why?"  "What made you laugh?"  "What scared you?"  "What was your favorite part?  Why"  "What didn't you like?  Why?"  "What did this remind you of?"  "What was confusing to you?"
• Book introduction. Before beginning to read together, engage the child with a discussion of what he or she thinks the book will be about. If the book has illustrations, it would be helpful to turn the pages and talk about the pictures. If there are no illustrations, discuss what the child knows about the subject, the author, or the type of story. This preview will help the child to think about what he or she will be reading or hearing and can activate any prior knowledge that he or she may have.
• List predictions. Before reading a story, have the child create a list of predictions about the story. Once the story is finished, compare what the student thought would happen with what really occurred within the story. Predictions can also be made and revised as the story unfolds. Have the child create a simple chart of "My predictions," "What really happened," and "Was I right?"
• Illustrate. Ask the child to stop reading at a particular predetermined point in a text and quickly sketch what he or she is visualizing. This causes the child to stop, reread, and take responsibility for visualization - an important reading strategy. This also serves to improve memory for content.
• Semantic mapping. A semantic map is essentially a visual representation of information. Helping a child to create or fill in a visual diagram, a web, or a flow chart may aid in the recall of reading content, the relationship of ideas, connections to the text, and the sequence of events in reading passages. Two web-based resources that may help with this strategy are www.austhink.org and www.inspiration.com.
• Asking/answering questions. It is important to help young readers monitor what they are reading by teaching them to ask themselves and answer questions about the text, before, during, and after reading. The questions could be on the content, the author, the events, or the ideas presented in the text. The overall theme of the questions should be, "Am I really concentrating while I read?"  If the child is unable to answer a question, he or she should be shown how to reread and find the correct answer in the passage or how to figure it out from what the passage said. The questions could be recorded on Post-Its within the text, in the margins of a copied text, or in a chart or double-entry journal.
• Stopping to summarize. When reading a text, have the child pause at predetermined stopping points to provide a brief summary of what has occurred up to that point. Help the student to select important details as well as determine main ideas.
• Sentence starters. Support independent use of reading strategies by teaching the child sentence starters to use before, during, and after reading a text. The sentence starters should focus on specific strategies and can be provided to the child in writing as a resource. For example, "My purpose is ...," "My top priority is ...," "I will accomplish my goal by ..." (goal setting); "I'll bet that ...," "I think...," "If __, then ..." (making predictions); "This reminds me of ...," "I experienced this once when ...," "I can relate to this because ..." (making connections); "the basic gist is ...," "the key information is ...," "In a nutshell, this says that ..." (summarizing); "I can picture ...," "In my mind I see ...," "If this were a movie ..." (visualizing).

Finally, beyond simply teaching and practicing strategy-use, it is important to continue engaging in discussions about the strategies and the reasons why they are helpful. The strategies themselves are not the end. Readers must be able to articulate how and why the strategies help to enhance their understanding of what they are reading. Asking questions such as, "How does this help you better understand the story?" will allow them to take their comprehension to an even higher level, putting them in control of creating understanding and personal meaning from whatever they are reading.

Following are some professional resources for teaching reading comprehension:

• Improving Reading Comprehension: Research-based principles and practices. Carlisle & Rice, York Press, 2002
• Mosaic of Thought. Keene & Zimmerman, Heinemann, 1999
• Reading with Meaning: Teaching comprehension in the primary grades. Miller, Stenhouse, 2002
• Reflect, Revisit, Retell: Time-tested strategies for teaching reading comprehension. Hoyt & Pearson, Heinemann, 2008
• Strategic Reading. Wilhelm, Baker, & Dube, Heinemann, 2002
• Strategies that Work. Harvey & Gouvdis, Stenhouse 2001

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Holiday Gift Ideas from The Yellin Center
Jeremy Koren

The holiday gift-giving season is once again upon us. As we have discussed previously in our blog, holiday gift-giving can be a great opportunity to help children build, establish and nurture their affinities and interests. It can also be an opportunity to provide them with helpful tools to manage their increasingly busy school lives.

Read on for some great gift ideas for a wide range of ages, from major purchases to stocking-stuffers.

• Scrabble. The legendary board game Scrabble is fun for the entire family. It can help develop language skills and increase vocabulary for younger students.
• Livescribe Pulse Smartpen.  A digital audio recorder of any variety can be an extremely useful tool for learners who struggle with comprehension, organization, studying and note-taking. The Pulse Smartpen is a unique variation – a recorder built inside of a pen which links audio to what you write. As a student takes notes during a lecture or lesson, the "smartpen" simultaneously records the audio. Later, when a student is reviewing their notes in preparation for a test, a simple highlight of a phrase in the notes can play back that specific part of the lecture. The Pulse is an awesome gadget to help students retain and better understand important subject matters. This product is best for ages 12 and up.
• Shape by Shape. Shape by Shape is a fun puzzle game that builds and nurtures perseverance and helps develop spatial reasoning skills for ages 8 and up.
• Madlibs. Another all-time classic, Madlibs is inexpensive and available in a variety of styles. It is now available in online and mobile versions for computers and handheld devices. Madlibs helps develop creative language skills and vocabulary. Age appropriateness varies by title; but most are appropriate for ages 9-11.
• Macbook. The Macbook is a laptop computer with an infinite amount of worthwhile uses. What will be of special interest to our readers is the multitude of universal design features that come built-in. While there are software programs and peripherals available for the PC which can mimic much of the functionality the Macbook offers, Apple's laptop has not been surpassed in ease of use and comes ready-to-roll with an abundance of outstanding features for different types of learners. The Macbook has special functionality to assist with literacy weaknesses, vision or hearing impairment, and physical motor skills issues. There are features for word completion, organizing, closed-captioning, text-to-speech conversion, and even a program which goes beyond text-to-speech by describing anything happening on the screen or on a webpage via speech, amongst many other useful tools. The Macbook also offers the ability to control the computer with simple gestures and replicate complex tasks with ease. Kids will love the sleek design and easy interface, and can also use it for a lot of non-academic, fun pursuits. This product is best for ages 10 and up with supervision.
• LeapFrog Leapster 2. The Leapster 2 is a great handheld portable gaming device that focuses on games that promote learning, with more than 40 to choose from. When connected to your computer and the internet, the Leapster 2 offers expanded functionality including progress monitoring. The Leapster 2 is easy to find and is good for children ages 4-8. The manufacturer, LeapFrog, also makes a game for kids ages 5-10 called the Didj.
• Talking Safari Globe. This cool talking globe can help encourage a child's affinity for geography and build their knowledge base while improving spatial awareness by way of geographical and world culture quiz games. The globe allows for differentiated instruction by adjusting the settings for each child's level. The globe is available in two configurations, for ages 8-12 and for ages 6-8.
• Block by Block. Block by Block is another puzzle game that helps children improve visual perception and spatial organization skills and is for ages 8 and up.
• Memory. The classic game of Memory is fun for kids in a wide variety of age ranges, and is available in a multitude of different character sets, including Spongebob and Dora. Get the classic original to develop attention and memory skills. This product is appropriate for ages 3 and up.
• Scribblenauts. Scribblenauts is a game for Nintendo's portable DS – something many of your children no doubt already have on hand. You can find a wealth of games designed to build learning skills for the DS, and many are worth considering as holiday gifts. We particularly like Scribblenauts for its ability to empower the imagination – draw virtually any object you can imagine and the puzzle-based game will bring it to life. This product is intended for ages 10 and up.
• Flip Ultra Video Camera. The Flip Ultra is an extremely easy to use video camcorder that kids as young as 11 should have no trouble figuring out. Kids can create their own high-quality video and upload it directly to a computer without any cables. A camcorder of any variety is a great way to encourage creativity in children and give them a practical outlet to build technology skills. Young adults and teens will love the Flip for its ease and portability. The Flip Ultra is intended for ages 11 and up.
• Multiplication Songs CD. Music can be a great way to help kids remember math facts. Multiplication Songs is one good example that uses catchy melodies as mnemonic devices and is intended for ages 8-11.

Of course, you don't need to spend a lot of money to bring the joy of learning home for the holidays – sometimes the best gifts a parent or guardian can share with a student are their time, patience, and understanding.

Happy Holidays from The Yellin Center staff.

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Life after High School: There's No IEP in College
Susan Yellin, Esq.
Director of Advocacy and Transition Services

Students who have received educational services and supports in high school under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act are often surprised to learn that their IEP (the Individual Educational Program that sets out their services and accommodations and is the way the IDEA is implemented) doesn't follow them to college. The IDEA and the rights it provides to students with learning difficulties and ADHD, as well as those with a variety of disabilities, come to an end upon high school graduation.

Where does this leave students who will need services and accommodations in college?  Fortunately, there is another federal law that steps in to make sure students are not without the supports they require. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law that applies to all colleges and requires them to provide needed accommodations to avoid discriminating against students with documented disabilities. The goal is to enable students with disabilities to have access to coursework, classes, and facilities to the same extent as those students who are not disabled. So, just as a student who uses a wheelchair would be provided with classrooms that are physically accessible, a student with a reading difficulty would be entitled, under the ADA, to an alternative means to access written material, perhaps a textbook on tape or a large type format.

Colleges are not bound by the accommodations that a student may have received in high school; nor are they obligated to give a student with a disability exactly what that student wants. It is up to the individual college to determine what will be sufficient to make the school and the curriculum accessible to that student. Students should be aware that there can be a substantial difference in how different colleges view their obligations under the ADA. Some schools do the minimum of what the law requires. Others consider supporting struggling learners to be a fundamental part of their mission.

What steps can families take to make sure their student will receive the appropriate supports to find success in college?  Start by familiarizing yourself with schools that offer serious support to struggling students. We like two college guides, Peterson's Colleges for Students with Learning Disabilities or ADD and The K&W Guide to Colleges for Students with Learning Disabilities. Although neither offers a complete list of schools with support services, both are helpful. They have somewhat different formats, Peterson being more narrative and organized by the type of program (structured, self-directed, two-year, four-year) and K&W being organized by geographical location.

Check with the Office of Disability Services at the colleges that interest you and get a sense of what kind of support they offer. Are they helpful?  You will be dealing with them for years to come, so this is a good time to judge their services. Make sure your educational evaluations are up to date and see what other kinds of testing the schools to which you are applying may require. The Yellin Center offers standardized tests (WAIS-IV and Woodcock-Johnson) in addition to our multidisciplinary evaluations, when needed for accommodations or admissions.

Finally, don't forget to do all the things that students without special learning needs should do; visit the school (if possible); line up recommendations; work on your application essays. Good luck and enjoy college!

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