228
Developing early literacy: Assessment and teaching
Figure 9.8 Explicit learning goals for metacognition of comprehension strategies Our goal: We are learning to question as we read To be a successful questioner: • I think of questions before I read the text • I can write a question after reading the text
Our goal: We are learning to summarise To be a successful summariser: • I can pick out the main ideas • I can give a one-sentence summary
Explicitly teaching a new comprehension strategy When a new comprehension strategy is first introduced to children the key idea is that they develop control over the strategy. Teachers can introduce one new strategy at a time explicitly by clearly explaining what the strategy is, why the strategy is important, when it can be used and how to implement it. For example, if children were learning how to summarise a story the teacher could refer to cards with what, why, how and when written on them, in order to be clear and explicit about the strategy being introduced.
• • •
•
What: ‘Today we are going to learn how to summarise a story.’ Why: ‘Why would you want to summarise a story?’ The children discuss the reasons and these are written on the board. How: ‘Now I am going to tell you what I do when I am summarising a story and I will explain the steps to you. First, as I read I write notes about the characters, setting, story problems and resolution. Then I read back over my notes and identify the most important information to include in my summary. Then I weave the information together into several sentences.’ When: ‘We can use summarising with any story or non-fiction book that we read.’
When designing comprehension activities, Gaskin (2003) suggests that teachers need to:
• • • • •
ensure that reading comprehension activities are designed to meet children where they are ‘at’ and are conducted at a pace at which they are able to respond have children read a mix of texts that are interesting and levelappropriate, and texts that are for pleasure as well as for school tasks provide meaningful opportunities for children to practise the five to eight comprehension strategies that proficient readers use foster collaborative discussions in which interpretive and critical responses to texts are expected scaffold the comprehension activities.