comprehension – The Literacy Brain

Reading and Comprehending Pictures-Inferencing

In a single day individuals analyze many moments of time. Individuals take in a new view very quickly, usually not seeing all of the details within that moment of time. Pictures allow people to stop time, capture a moment, and “deep-read” the captured moment. Pictures usually provoke questions or spark collaborative discussion. Asking question like: What is this picture about? How would you describe the moment? What do we know from this picture? What can we guess or infer from this picture? This is much like reading and comprehending written words, except the reader must develop the picture of the written words.

Comprehension of pictures or words requires a student to play detective, examine the unseen and seen information and analyze it against their stored information—what you already know. This is “deep reading” the story or moment of time looking in between and behind the scene of a picture. Many individuals learn how to infer naturally through their environment and will be able to infer or comprehend what the picture or words are trying to convey. Some students will need explicit, purposeful instruction to learn and practice the skill, especially those in the primary grades.

Inferencing is harder for younger students who think concretely. Most students begin moving from concrete thinking to abstract thinking during Grade 2 or 3. Each student will have a different perspective of the picture – which is dependent on their personal experience. Whole group discussions help students to understand the picture from different perspectives and build knowledge about the picture topic. In some incidences, teachers may need to scaffold the discussion by adding background information or asking leading questions that may allow for student comprehension of the picture. The discussion often lends support for students to think abstractly.

Discussion or collaboration with others about a picture will increase student lexicon. This is especially true when “brainstorming” words that may help to describe the picture in a group setting. Students enter the classroom with different backgrounds and experiences that usually assist in developing each participating members individual vocabulary. The discussion also helps students to connect familiar words with a different topic. Students will often use these words within their writing, which begins the process of ownership or using the unfamiliar words within their speech and writing without much thought.

Picture reading in collaboration with others usually assist in developing writing skills. Many students struggle to incorporate descriptors or adjectives in their writing. Students who write down the gathered words from the group discussion, may use them to write sentences or a paragraph to describe the picture. A descriptive word list generated by students might be placed on an anchor chart, so that multiple learning levels may participate in the writing process. The length or complexity of the sentence will be different depending on academic level of student and the intended writing outcomes of the lesson. When student ownership of vocabulary increases, the complexity of the sentence usually increases. The writing outcome is their interpretation of the picture.

Learning how to read and comprehend pictures helps students to accurately comprehend written words. Analyzing moments of time usually happens naturally, while learning how to read and comprehend written words does not. Comprehending written words is a learned skill.

Building a Habit of Deep Reading

Instilling the love of reading or the want to read at leisure may be different for each student. Learning how to read is hard, exhausting for most students. Finding a motivating reason to learn how to read usually eases the fatigue and stress. Some students might develop the intrinsic push to read for pleasure. Some students might develop the intrinsic push to read to research about a particular topic. Some students might develop the intrinsic push to read to be like their friends. Others push themselves to not be embarrassed. In addition, modeling the love for reading usually increases student intrinsic motivation to learn how to read effectively.

Reading is a complex endeavor that includes many components working simultaneously, together. Written words are breathed in, swirled around, and processed using current brain connections to examine, analyze and make conclusions. The process of making meaning out of the written words usually takes fluid, efficient seconds. In these seconds your brain is moving the written words through different parts of the brain to bring coherent meaning. The meaning of the words may have a different twist or meaning for each person—this is dependent on their background knowledge and efficiency of their brain’s written language processing networks. Not all brains are developed equally. Part of the analysis process is student’s lexicon or dictionary. This is their personal reference book or computer catalog for them to use while understanding oral or written language. Student lexicon is constantly changing. Teachers assist in developing brain connections for processing written words through instruction.

Networks for reading efficiently are developed through instruction and practice. One of the ways that teachers assist in the development of brain connections for processing written words with coherency is modeling how to read. Each step of the reading process should be modeled to students, beginning in the pre/primary grades. In some cases, the modeling may need to take place several times. While modeling for students in small groups, invite students to follow along with their book. These are steps that you might use.

Choose a book that may be of interest to most students in the group. You will need to model all different types of written words, such as non-fiction, fiction, poetry, etc.
Take the time to review the contents of the book. This may not look the same each time. This is often referred to as a prereading or a book-walk-through. Look at the structure of the book. Look at the pictures. Look at the front and back covers. Look at the how the words are written in the book. Look for a table of contents. Look for gems in the back of the book, like index or definitions. Ask questions (wonder) about things you have found. Make predictions about the story based on the title or pictures. Make connections between this book and other books. Make connections between the book and student life experiences.
Read the book taking time to breathe in the words. You might read a sentence and take a moment before reading the next to analyze what you have read. You might ask a question. You might think about what might happen next or how this is connected to the previous sentence or paragraph. You might go back and reread a previous sentence to better understand the one you just read. This may take several smaller lessons to emphasize and develop the natural connections for comprehension. Breathing words develops and strengthens brain connections to process for written words for meaning. Many students need modeling, remodeling, and many opportunities to practice.
After reading the book or passage, model how to analyze or make the connections to form further conclusion(s). The following are some ideas of how you might analyze the words read: a) think aloud about what you read- ask questions like, what color is a bumble bee? What kinds clothes should you wear outside on a cold day? Should the dog be driving a car? Why does the character stay on the path? Why is there a title on this page? Does this make sense? What do you think the car looks like? Or what does it look when it’s raining? b) discuss your conclusion with friends, c) analyze individual words of the passage, d) analyze sentences read, e) analyze sentences with other sentences of the same passage, f) make connections between self and the passage, or g) write a written summary.

More students have the ability to take in and process oral language to understand what is read aloud to them than when they read the words silently. Encouraging students (especially struggling comprehension readers) to whisper-read the passage aloud usually increases their comprehension of the passage and assists in the development of the necessary brain connections to fluidly comprehend the written passage.

Unpacking a Paragraph

Unpacking a paragraph or understanding what the writer intended the reader to understand about a paragraph may be a challenge depending on the complexity and level of writing. The comprehension of a paragraph begins in the first sentence at the word level. Understanding the meaning of a paragraph includes the sequence and punctuation of each sentence within the paragraph. Comprehending a paragraph involves the intertwining of each sentence to bring forth the meaning of the paragraph. Each symbol plays a role to bring forth the intended meaning of the author. There several skills that reader needs to comprehend a paragraph; some are noted below.

Word knowledge. American English is a melting pot of foreign languages. The origin of a word may shed light on the spelling and meaning of the word. Each word is comprised of letters that create a known meaning. In the late 1700’s Noah Webster began developing a central location, dictionary, for students to use to learn the meaning of spoken language in the written format. Webster noted the origin, spelling and annunciation of each word. Word knowledge may be increased with the use appositives.
Knowledge of appositives. Appositives are a word or series of words that describes a noun within a sentence. Appositives give a deeper meaning to words and groups of words. They are usually directly after the noun that they are describing, such as Joan, the secretary, works long hours. Some words have multiple meanings and deciphering the meaning takes an examination of the surrounding words, inferencing and the paragraph topic to know its intended meaning. Appositives help to increase sentence comprehension.
Knowledge of how sentence connectives bring meaning to a sentence. Connectives serve as thought connectors to increase meaning. Some connectives are harder to understand. This may stem from low usage of them in oral language. Most of us would not say: my child was ill today; therefore, I had to stay home today. These types of words are used more often within our writing.
Knowledge of anaphoric relationships. Each paragraph begins with a topic sentence, which usually tells the reader what the rest of the paragraph is going to be about. The topic sentence may give the exact or proper name of the subject, such as John. Another sentence within the paragraph may use another name to refer to the subject, such as him or my friend. This is referred to as an anaphoric relationship. Writers use anaphora to bring clarity and variety to their writing. The reader must follow the meaning from one sentence to another sentence to understand that the topic has remained the same. The reader must be familiar with other possible words of the subject to follow and understand that the topic of the paragraph or story has remained the same. The meaning of each sentence usually affects the overall meaning of the paragraph.

References

Mesmer. H. A. & Rose-McCully, M. M. (2017). A closer look at close reading: three under-the-radar skills needed to comprehend sentences. The Reading Teacher, 0,0, p1-11.

Proven Instructional Models and Technology That Increases Student Intrinsic Motivation

As our nation moves to a more independent or on-line form of instruction students that are more intrinsically motivated will likely be more successful. Students are born with natural or intrinsic motivation—curiosity, ambition, and emotions (Wilson & Wilson, 1921). Student inner, intrinsic motivation usually moves them towards participation in an activity that they enjoy. Student inner motivation may also give them the desire to participate in activities that they may not enjoy, but will move them forward in the completion of a task or goal. Student environment usually creates a desire learn how to read, comprehend, and write. There are also proven instructional methods that usually increase student intrinsic motivation to learn. The following methods may increase student engagement, involvement during on-line instruction.

The first three instructional methods rely on technology. Research has proven that technology in general usually increases student intrinsic motivation to become engaged in the process of learning. Technology is a good tool, but educators need to be mindful of the purpose and the amount of time that students are spending in front of an electronic screen. As the type and amount of screen time may be hindering student reading ability. In Dr. Wolf’s (2018) book Reader Come Home, she states that electronic devices may limit student ability to develop deep-reading processes. Deep-reading involves many connections or parts of the brain to fully comprehend the written words. Deep-reading also requires more energy than skimming. To maintain and increase the brain connections necessary to comprehend written words students need to regularly exercise deep-reading skills as they mature (Healy, 1990; Wolf, 2018). The skills of deep-reading can be taught in a viral environment.

The U-Learning Method uses mobile computers that can adapt to different learning environments, allowing students to learn on location (Hsiao, Line, Fang, & Li, 2010). This type of instruction allows students to have access to resources in the field. U-Learning also allows students to record research notes, video, and pictures. U-Learning can be used for independent or small group learning.
Student web pages usually increases intrinsic motivation (Dredger, Woods, Beach, & Sagstetter, 2010; Reed-Swale, 2009). Students develop and maintain web pages that are overseen by the teacher. Students have the opportunity to write about topics of their interest. Students usually enjoy the opportunity to express their thoughts, while working at their academic level.
Digital applications usually create ambition or intrinsic motivation (Saine, Lerkkanen, Ahonen, Tolvanen, & Lyytinen, 2010; Servilio, 2009; Yang, 2010). Digital application instruction gives teachers a platform to teach students how to problem solve in a non-threatening environment (Yang, 2012). Some digital applications allow for differentiated instruction (Saine et al., 2010; Servilio, 2009). Digital instructional games allow students to visually connect letters and sounds (Saine et al. 2010). Computer applications, digital games can be a positive resource to use within the classroom.
The Project-based Learning (PBL) model usually increases student intrinsic motivation and reading achievement, in particular comprehension (Chu, Tse, Lou, & Chow, 2011). The PBL approach gives students the opportunity to explore, collect information, analyze data, and present findings. The PBL model also gives students the opportunity to select a topic for a research project based on the teacher’s guidelines for that lesson.
Interdisciplinary Units usually increase student motivation to participate in instructional lessons (Opitz, 2011; Chu, Tse, Loh, & Chow, 2011). Research suggests combining two different subjects into one assignment to spark student interest in the instructional lesson. Students may enjoy one of the subjects and despise the other subject; however, the subject they enjoy will usually motivate them to complete the assignment. When literacy instruction is integrated with other subjects or projects of interest student intrinsic motivation and literacy achievement usually improves. Student motivation also increases when they are allowed to choose the topic of study under the direction of the teacher.
The Flow-Learning Model was developed for the study of nature (Cornell, 1998). Flow-learning includes four stages that provide instructors with a framework to present instructional lessons—provides for a natural beginning, middle and end to the instructional lesson. The stages are: (a) awaken student enthusiasm or curiosity, (b) narrow student attention towards the topic of instruction, (c) practice or direct experience of the lesson, and (d) student reflection of their interaction or practice of the lesson (Cornell, 1998). The flow-learning model can give students the opportunity to see, watch, touch, and experience the lesson (Hsiao, Lin, Fang, & Lee, 2010). The flow-learning model allows for all instructional groups and can be adapted for use in the outdoor or indoor instructional setting.

References

Chu, S.K.W., Tse, S.K., Loh, E.K.Y., & Chow, K. (2011). Collaborative inquiry project-based learning: Effects on reading ability and interests. Library & Information Science Research, 33(3), 236-243. doi: 10.1016/j.list.2010.09.008

Cornell, J. (1998). Flow learning. Retrieved from http://www.csun.edu/~vcrec004/rtm351/Flow%20Learning%20Summary.pdf

Dredger, K., Woods, D., Beach, C., & Sagstetter, V. (2010). Engage me: using new literacies to create third space classrooms that engage student writers. The National Association for Media Literacy Education’s Journal of Media Literacy Education, 2(2), 85-101.

Healy, J. M. (1990). Endangered Minds. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster Paperbooks.

Hsiao, H.-S., Lin, C.-C., Fang, R.-T., & Li, K.-J. (2010). Location based services for outdoor ecological learning system: Design and implementation. Educational Technology & Society, 13(4), 98-111.

Opitz, M.F. (2011) Transcending the curricular barrier between fitness and reading with fitlit. The Reading Teacher, 64(7), 535-540. doi: 10.1598/RT.64.7.8

Reed-Swale, T.W (2009). Engaging digital natives in a digital world teaching more than web design. Synergy Learning, 22(128), 22-25.

Saine, N.L., Lerkkanen, M.-K., Ahonen, T., Tolvanen, A., & Lyytinen, H. (2010). Predicting word-level reading fluency outcomes in three contrastive groups: Remedial and computer assisted remedial reading intervention, and mainstream instruction. Learning and Individual Differences, 20(5), 402-414. doi: 10.1016/j.lindif.2010.06.004

Servilio, K. (2009). You get to choose! Motivating students to read through differentiated instruction. Teaching Exceptional Children Plus, 5(5), Article 5. Retrieved November 7, 2012 from http://escholarship.bc.edu/education/tecplus/vol5/iss5/art5

Wilson, H.B., & Wilson, G.M. (1921). The motivation of school work. Cambridge, MA: The Riverside Press.

Wolf, Maryanne (2018). Reader, come home. The reading brain in a digital world. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

Yang, C. Y. (2012). Building virtual cities, inspiring intelligent citizens: digital games for developing students’ problem solving and learning motivation. Computer & Education, 59(2), 365-377. doi: 10.1016/j.compedu.2012.01.012.

Inferencing is Like Being a Detective

Your mind automatically inferences, deduces, concludes, reasons things all day. If there is light in the room it must be after 6:00am or if the sun is setting it must be around 8:00pm. At times during the day we may consciously focus on a situation to infer the meaning of the situation. We may wonder why a person was frowning or talking very loudly during our conversation. To do this, we usually review other interactions that we’ve had with this individual. We may review things that others have said about this individual. We may review the inference of other similar situations. Then we might begin to infer our present interaction with this individual. Merriam-Webster (2020) describes inference as “a conclusion or opinion that is formed because of known facts or evidence.” You are playing detective examining unseen and seen information, such as a picture or a group of words and analyzing your examination against your current stored information—what you already know to build a conclusion. You are “deep reading” the story looking between the lines or behind the scenes of the words or pictures or situation to form an inference. Many individuals learn how to infer naturally through their environment and will be able to infer or comprehend what the picture or words are trying to convey. Some students will need explicit, purposeful instruction to learn and practice the skill. Below are some examples of inferencing.

Example one, an individual should be able to infer the questions below about this poem by Valerie Danoff.

Jelly Bean

Jelly, jelly, jelly beans.

Belly, belly, belly beans.

Orange, white, black, green

Red, blue, yellow bean.

Many, many can be seen!

All the colors in between.

From one to many beans.

Guess how many jelly beans?

Based on your culture was this poem written by a female or male? How do you believe that the writer feels about jelly beans? How do you think that jelly beans are shaped? What color do you think a jelly bean is? What is a jelly bean? Is a jelly bean a type of food? Why is the poem asking me to guess how many jelly beans there are? Individuals who know what a jelly bean is would be able to answer these questions without much thought or examination of the poem. Those who do not know what a jelly belly is would have to examine the words of the poem to gather the information to infer the previous questions, such as:

- - - - look at the spelling of each word
      - look at the meaning of each word
      - analyze how the words are joined together to form the sentence
      - look at the punctuation used
      - look at word usage-repetition
      - look at how the lines of the poem are related

Example two, when you look at a picture your brain is examining the different parts of the picture and analyzing the information against your stored information to understand the meaning of the picture—not just the seen information, but the unseen information as well. When examining this “pumpkin” picture if you know that many people carve pumpkins at Halloween or if you knew the growing season for pumpkins, you could infer that this picture was taken in the fall. You could also infer that this picture was taken in field where the pumpkins and other crops might be grown. You might infer that pumpkins get their nutrients through their stem. You might infer that someone put them in groups by size. You might infer that this may be a place where you could buy pumpkins or that they were getting ready for market. And so on.

Example 3, when an individual is having an in-person or virtual (where you can see them) conversation, we are usually inferencing to comprehend the conversation. We are listening to their oral words-the tone, the inflections and using our personal knowledge of what is being said to understand the spoken words. We are also watching and examining (unconsciously) their body language-hands, arms, facial expressions and maybe even their clothing for possible clues that may help us to form a better understanding of their words.

Students should be purposely taught how to infer, deduce, conclude, or reason throughout their schooling, beginning in the preschool years. The complexity of the instruction should follow the achievement of the student. This skill can be taught within most subject matter. Most students enjoy being a detective to learn about a subject matter or to answer a burning question that they may have related to the subject matter.

Increasing Student Wealth, Lexicon of Knowledge

Developing student lexicon* to increase comprehension of spoken and written language happens naturally and purposively. The environment that an individual lives in naturally develops their lexicon. For example if you live on a farm, you obsorb the knowledge/language of farm culture. The degree of farm language that you learn depends on the components of the farm that you are exposed to, and your degree of participation in the those components. The learned and stored information about farm life may be relevant in other cultures or life-styles. For example you may learn about record keeping that is applicable in every business. Or you may learn about the components of healthy food consumption that applicable to human development in any culture.

Where I was raised it was natural for most individuals to learn about fresh water fish, it was part of the community culture. It was natural to learn about the salmon run, where in a community near the ocean it may be more natural to learn about sea turtles or tide pools. The habitats, life-cycle, and behaviors of different types of fish have many similarities. Within a purposeful learning environment the study of fish usually gives the opportunity to introduce different cultures, geographical areas, bodies of water, etc. of where the fish reside. The similarities and differences help students to increase their lexicon to comprehend both seen and unseen language related to fish and their habitat. The new learned information about fish is then available to make new conclusions.

In the book How Lincoln Learned to Read,Wolff describes how 12 individuals were educated through their the culture or life-style. This is a non-fiction book that discusses individuals that made notable contributions to America. Some of individuals had great disabilities, some had wealth, and some were very poor. The book includes people and events that influenced their learning. Reading How Lincoln Learned to Read helps the reader to paint a picture of how individuals are educated inside and outside of the classroom and how a person gathers information to understand written and spoken language. The book also helps the reader to understand how early childhood education can influence adult choices.

One chapter of the book describes the education of Belle born to slaves. She was educated by her parents to function effectively within the institution of slavery. This was not the slavery of the plantation South, but of the Northern Dutch who had smaller farms. She had to learn that she was commodity and that staying with her parents could end at a very young age. The chapter also describes how her life evolved into a free woman and how she used prior knowledge to move her forward. Another chapter of the book describes how a girl named, Rachel was raised in hills without the conveniences of modern day technology. The chapter goes on to describe how she lost her father at age 11, forcing the family to move closer to her mother’s family. Where she was able gain a formal education through a private school. The chapter goes on to describe how she used the knowledge that she gained as a child her writing. Some of her writings about nature, the hills, set the stage for present science education. The book also describes individuals such as Abraham Lincoln, Henry Ford, and Benjamin Franklin.

*Students store spoken and written words in their lexicon or mental dictionary. Students increase their mental dictionary through their environment. Student lexicon is always adding new words, pictures, gestures, etc that may help them to better comprehend language. This development begins at birth. Their brain begins attaching meaning(s) to individual tones of sound. Students adjust their stored information as they are introduced to new sounds and their meaning(s). Students also adjust their stored information as new meaning(s) or connections are introduced to the stored information. For example, if you know that dogs shakes when it gets wet, but do not know that dogs may smell when they get wet. Then you experience the a bad odor of a wet dog. Your mental dictionary will adjust your stored information to be dogs shake and may smell when they get wet. The stored information may look similar to a spider web as the information is added and adjusted. Students transfer the stored meaning(s) of tones (voice) to symbols (print) as they learn how to read and write. Student lexicon also helps students to infer or conclude the unwritten or unspoken meaning of a conversation or writing.

Reference
Wolff, Daniel (2009). How Linclon Learned to Read. New York: Bloomsbury USA.

Tag: comprehension