BBELT 2013 workshop

Scaffolding Reading Experiences: Easing The Trauma Of Tackling English Literature  

Mexico DF, 25th January 2013

andrew.watson@britishcouncil.org.mx

Reading Comprehension

Comprehension is the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language.

It consists of three elements:

The text The reader The activity or purpose for reading

Before During After

Why Scaffold Reading?• Assist students in comprehending texts (Graves

and Graves, 2003)

The theory comes from:

• scaffolding (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976)

• zone of proximal development (Vygotsky, 1978)

• notion of success (Pressley, 2006).

• gradual release of responsibility (Campione, 1981; Pearson & Gallagher, 1983)

• What should happen before, during and after reading?

Wikimedia Commons

Before readingIf students understand meaning of critical

vocabulary, comprehension will be enhanced.

• Tier One: Basic words

chair, cats, door

• Tier Two: Words in general use, but not common

waistcoat, curtsey, passage, red-hot poker

• Tier Three: Rare words limited to a specific domain

latitude, longitude, antipodes

Before readingGive student friendly explanations

Dictionary Definition

Relieved – (1) to free wholly from pain, stress, pressure. (2) to lessen or alleviate, as pain or pressure

Student Friendly Explanation

When something that is difficult is over or never happened at all, you feel relieved.

Before Reading

During reading

• Asking students questions during passage reading has been demonstrated to improve comprehension

• Queries, or discussion questions, encourage students to engage with ideas in text to build meaning

• Queries help teachers facilitate group discussion and student-to-student interaction

During reading Why do you think the author used

the following phrase?

‘The Antipathies, I think’ page 5

What is the author trying to say?

Alice began to get rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way,

“Do cats eat bats? Do cats eat bats?” and sometimes, “ Do bats eat cats?” page 6

During ReadingGraphic organizers can improve the reader’s memory for the content.

(Dickson, Simmons, & Kameenui, 1998)

After reading • Teaching students discussion behaviour can

increase their depth of text processing and subsequent comprehension.

Looks Like Sounds Like

Facing peers Using a pleasant voice

Making eye contact Sharing opinions and supporting facts

Participating Sharing positive comments

Listening Staying on topic

After reading

• Writing about what you have read can improve comprehension.

• Expressing ideas in writing helps the reader organize ideas.

e.g., Short Tale / Tall Tale

How would your life be different if you were very tall or very small? What kind of adjustments would you have to make, if it happened to you very suddenly, like Alice?

Finally …

Students should Read, And read, And read, And read, And read some more!