English Language Arts and Reading.4.6.I

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The student is expected to

monitor comprehension and make adjustments such as re-reading, using background knowledge, asking questions, and annotating when understanding breaks down.

comprehension TEKS talk image

Knowledge and Skills Statement

Comprehension skills: listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses metacognitive skills to both develop and deepen comprehension of increasingly complex texts.

Provide students with a challenging text and ask them to begin reading. While students are reading independently, actively look for students who are re-reading and making notes or jotting down questions. During a one-on-one conference, ask students to share how they monitored their comprehension while reading.

Tips: 

  • After students have gained some practice, consider having students share their questions and annotations with their peers.
  • Consider using a KWL chart, graphic organizer, images, guided questions, or other instructional tools to activate prior knowledge.
     

Further Explanation

This assessment allows a teacher to look for evidence that students are using specific strategies such as re-reading and jotting down questions to increase understanding. Students should be able to recognize when their understanding breaks down while reading text. At the point comprehension stalls, students should know how to use strategies that have been explicitly taught and modeled to improve their comprehension.

interact with a text by adding notes or comments in the margins of the text in order to record significant features and/or personal commentary or reactions that may enhance one’s understanding of the text while reading
When students determine that they are not fully understanding a task, it is essential that they know how to revisit the text in a purposeful and methodical way to identify where the miscommunication with the text has occurred. If students do not adjustment how they are trying to extract meaning from the text, the disconnect will only compound, causing the text to get increasingly harder to comprehend.
Students monitor their comprehension by independently selecting strategies to check for understanding. Students should not only actively think about the literal meaning of the text as they read but also assess whether they are making appropriate connections and drawing reasonable conclusions. Continually monitoring for understanding while reading allows students to apply focused strategies when breakdowns in understanding occur. Students at this grade should know how to record their questions in annotations while reading. Students can then clarify their understanding by re-reading parts of the text they found confusing or using sources to gain context.

Research

1. Taboada, A., & Guthrie, J. T. (2006). Contributions of student questioning and prior knowledge to construction of knowledge from reading information text. Journal of Literacy Research, 38(1), 1–35. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15548430jlr3801_1

Summary: This study investigated the relationship of student-generated questions and prior knowledge with reading comprehension.  Third- and fourth-grade students posed questions that were related to their prior knowledge and reading comprehension. The results indicated that student questioning accounted for a significant amount of variance in students’ reading comprehension, after accounting for the contribution of prior knowledge.

2. Ness, M. (2011). Explicit reading comprehension instruction in elementary classrooms: teacher use of reading comprehension strategies. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 25(1), 98+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A249684448/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=27f9f0d6

Summary: The purpose of this observational study was to identify the frequency of reading comprehension instruction in elementary classrooms. Additional objectives were to determine which reading comprehension instructional strategies were most employed by teacher in 20 first- through fifth-grade classrooms. Question answering, summarization, and predicting/prior knowledge were the most frequently occurring reading comprehension strategies. Implications for professional development and training are provided.

3. Barth, A. E., & Elleman, A. (2017). Evaluating the impact of a multistrategy inference intervention for middle-grade struggling readers. Language, Speech, & Hearing Services in Schools, 48(1), 31+. Retrieved from https://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/A490475287/PROF?u=tea&sid=PROF&xid=85a8099a

Summary: This study examines the effectiveness of multiple inference intervention strategies that were designed to increase inference-making and reading comprehension for struggling readers. The study focused on using text clues, activities and integrating prior knowledge, understanding character and author's purpose, and responding to inference questions. Details and lesson examples are available in the Appendix.