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                                                                         A Guest asks about.....

     Reading Comprehension

      "What are the levels of comprehension?



That's a important question.  Thank you for asking.

"Levels of comprehension" refers to types of comprehension questions.  The term "levels" developed when researchers began examining the questions that were being asked in reading texts.  They found that they were predominantly all one "level" - literal questions, such as "What was the dog's favorite food?",  "What was the main character's brother's name?" 

In an attempt to rememdy this, reading instructors looked at different taxonomies for thinking from the realm of psychology, the most popular being Bloom's Taxonomy.  These taxonomies incorporate the thought that some types of thoughts require "higher level thinking," than other types.  For example, remembering a fact is thinking at a lower level than judging between two different facts.

When I teach graduate students who are becoming reading specialists, I choose to emphasize that in reading comprehension, one type of question is not "higher" or better than another.  They're all important.  When a student is learning about the life style chimps, pure facts matter, and will probaly appear on any test he/she takes on chimps.  However, just remembering facts is not enough.

Below an adapted version of my favorite taxonomy.   I find this one helps teachers/parents the most when it comes to asking questions of differing levels, or types.  To make it easy for teachers and parents to think-up questions of all levels on the spot, I've written "scripts" for each type.  For example, if you want to ask a question at the analysis level, you could ask, "Do you think____________ should have done that?  Why?"   Framing the question with words like that will require the reader to think in a way that is unique for that "level". 

When checking a reader's comprehension by asking questions, the goal is to ask questions of all types.  Think of it like giving the reader a mind-workout.  You wouldn't want to just exercise you arms over and over again.  In the same way, we don't want to ask the same type of question over and over.  We want to make the reader think about what they have read in multiple ways, and that's what "levels of comprehension" is all about!

Here is my adaptation of a popular taxonomy.  Give it a try, and please let me know how it works for you.

1.  Memory:a.  facts - ask literal questions from the text
b. definitions - check knowledge of word meanings

2.  Translation: a.  definitions:  check for understanding of phrases, idioms, figurative                                                         language, metaphors and similies

3.  Interpretation:     a.  inference:  "Why do you think that happened?" 
                                                                       "What do you think will happen next?" 
                                                     Ask for text-based evidence from the reader to support their
                                                     answers.
b. cause and effect:   "Why did _____ happen?" 
  "Why did the boy_____?"
                                               "When she did ____________, what happened?"
c. comparision:  "How is _________like ________?"   
  "Compare ______with ___________."
"  Is ___________the same as ________ today?"

4.  Ayalysis:a.  Analyzing a character or a situaion in the story, and personally evaluating                                             them/it: 
"What words can you think of to describe    Sally's  dad     ?" 
                                                            "Would  you  like   Billy    for a friend? Why or why not?"
                                                             "Do you think     Jane       should have done that?  Why or my
not?"

5.  Synthesisa.  Ask the reader to put themself in the story:
  "If you were the hen, what would you do?"

6.  Application:    a.  Think of an incident that happened in the story, a lesson, or a point that
                                            was being made in the reading material and ask the reader to apply it to
                                            apply it to their life:
  "Have you ever asked for someone's help and
                                                                 they refused, like what happened to           ?   How
    did you feel?  What did you do?"
   "Have you ever not been invited to a birthday
     party like what happened to __________?  How 
     did you feel?"

7. Evaluation:a.  Ask the reader to evaluate conclusions drawn by the author, to
(of the author's         examine the author's facts and his/her use of persuasive  language           writing )                                 and their writing craft.
      "How would you change the story?
      "What did the author do well?  What would improve it?"
"What do you like/dislike about this author's writing style?"
                                            "Do you want to read more from this author?"

8.  Summarization:a.  Have the child summarize what they read.                

 


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                                                                       A Guest asks about.....

    One little girl, multiple struggles

  "We are living overseas in Japan so our resources are very limited with regard to getting professional
assistance!  My daughter M. is home schooled.  I am having difficulty with her reading and vocabulary
development.  First, we have used a systematic phonics approach to reading (curriculum) beginning at age
4 1/2. We began with letter sounds and progressed from there.  We have worked every day on phonics rules for the past 2 1/2 years.  I also read aloud to my children daily and we discuss the unknown vocabulary.  So we are pretty involved in her reading instruction.  But...  she really struggles with vocabulary and sounding out words she's never seen before.  She forgets rules such as the sound ce-  versus ca-  (will use "Ke" when she sees "celebrate" for example).  She is my third child and my other two older children did not struggle as much as she did.  She also forgets the meanings of what I consider very simple words and is completely unable to
determine the unknown word's meaning from the context of a sentence.  For the past two years I've administered the IOWA to her and she scored in the "below average" category, 40th percentile in vocabulary.  So I suspect we have a real problem.
  I know 40th percentile would not get her special education services at our local Dodea school, which has a 10th percentile or 2 grades below deficit requirement for special education services.
  Can you offer any suggestions, programs, or insight as to what might be causing this problem?  Are there any diagnostic tools I could order off the internet? Thanks so much!"


Dear Aubrey,

  I read your description of what you and your daughter have done so far in reading and my heart ached.  You have certainly worked very hard; basically, you’ve done everything we normally suggest to parents when they are teaching their children to read.

  A few questions…

· You didn’t mention her memory for sight words, like the Dolch words (Have you heard of them?  They are a list of common sight words that reappear over and over again in print.)  Even if you’re unfamiliar with the Dolch name, you’re inherently familiar with the words such as was, of, are, were, where, etc.  Is she able to recognize these when she comes across them in a book?

If so, it could be that your daughter has a much stronger visual memory than phonetic memory, and using a whole language approach rather than a phonetic one could help her.

·  It appears that your daughter is 7 years old – is that right?  There’s a possibility that the particular systematic phonics series you’re using  is moving too fast for her to really learn the rules
well enough to get them into her strategic memory (into her awareness of what rules to apply when, and then to remember the rules accurately).  For the seven year olds that I work with, I usually add rules such as the ce, ci, cy rule as they are approaching 8 years old.  Just a thought.

· How is her understanding of spoken language?  When you speak to her using vocabulary that appears in her books, does she understand the word’s meanings when she hears them in speech?  If she does, then I wonder if she should practice with easier text until her confidence builds.  When the text is too hard, uses too many rules, or a child gets overwhelmed, then their comprehension can be very poor.  They would indeed have trouble using context support, especially if more than one difficult word appears in a sentence at a time.  The general rule of thumb is that reading materials used for instruction should contain 90% familiar words and only 10% words that require using new skills.  For independent, “fun” reading purposes, 99% of the words should be familiar. 

  One series that I utilize frequently for instructing young readers is called Primary Phonics.  It’s by Educators Publishing Service.  I like these because they provide abundant practice with a skill before moving on to the next one.  The stories are cute and my students always enjoy them.  They also come with an accompanying workbook if you desire that.

· IF she’s having trouble with understanding the meaning of spoken language, then we’re looking at a different issue.  You didn’t mention that, so I’m assuming that her verbal language skills are fine.  Otherwise a speech/language therapist would  be able to help you if one is available through the local school.

· Is the IOWA the only instrument that is used for determining eligibility for special education at your local Dodea school?  My hope is that they have a school psychologist there who uses a battery of tests, including a cognitive assessment as well as an academic assessment which the IOWA is.  I know that where I work homeschooled children are able to request testing by the school psychologist  at the local school for no charge, including follow-up test interpretation and recommendations.  I hope that’s true for your situation.  I think it could provide a lot of answers.

  I hope this is helpful.  It’s a lot to think about.  Please write back to me if you like.  I’m happy to help.

      
Dear Deborah,
Thanks so much for your quick response to my concerns.  I can answer a few of your questions.  First, she has a good memory of sight words.  It's when she comes across an unfamiliar word that she seems to get very frustrated.  We use a curriculum called "Veritas Press" Phonics museum for grade 1.  She is turning 7 in the fall, and I agree that VP is advanced.  It covers phonics that typically older children use.  With my older boys, they were very advanced readers and really needed very little phonics instruction.  So I assumed that my daughter would inherit this ability!  I was wrong!

She has great difficulty with spoken language.  She is always asking what words mean in conversation.  I feel like there is something going on with her ability to discern clues from conversation and surrounding text. 

We have made some changes since our last IOWA test to remediate her vocabulary.  We are having her and her brothers keep a notebook of new words from chapter books that I read aloud.  I have them write synonyms for the word and put it in a sentence, then draw a picture of the new word.  That seems to help her retain vocabulary.  I also made notecards with the new words and had her decide where to tape them in the house.  The words are "hedge" "grove" "crude" "rind" and some others from a chapter book.  It's rather excruciating but I realized she needs exposure to a word 10 or 15 times to retain it, and the pace is rather slow, but we need to do this. 

I am going to reteach many of the phonics over the summer, and will look into the program you mentioned.  What she may need next year is another year of phonics instruction to retain and to build fluency. 

Thanks again, and any more insight you can give is greatly appreciated.
-Aubrey


Dear Aubrey,
Thanks for the answers.  They’re really helpful.  You have an insightful understanding of what works/doesn’t work for your daughter in so many ways.  Good job!
 
The two nagging questions that remain for me are:  1.  Would she benefit from a whole language approach in preference to a mainly phonetic approach?  And, 2.  Is there more going on underneath the surface regarding her receptive language struggles? (ie…the language she hears).
 
It sounds like your sons quickly caught on to reading, primarily through exposure to words which they rapidly memorized.  It’s possible that learning to read via visual memory practice rather than sounding words out is her strength, too.  This is what we call a whole language approach.  Basically, you would select a story for which she already knows most of the words, and before she reads it you would show her each new word individually, maybe on note cards, explain the meanings, use them in sentences.  Do some visual memory activities with the cards such as basic flashcard-type drills, or add some extra words that she knows and play a card game with them like Go Fish, or Concentration.  The goal is to “play” with the words enough times for her to memorize their appearance before she sees them in the book.  For some children, possibly your daughter, this is the more successful way to teach early reading.  She’s still young, and the developmental window for teaching phonics is wide.  Some methods don’t suggest even starting until a child is 8.  They feel there is significant support for waiting because the success rate is so high due to neurologic maturation.   
 
Since you said that she has “great” difficulty with spoken language, there’s a chance that she may be dealing with a receptive language disability or delay.  The intervention of a trained speech teacher can be hugely helpful in this.  I suspect, however, since you originally said that your resources were limited in Japan, that such help may not be readily available.  In that case, my recommendation is to relax your fears and patiently explain when she gets confused, to talk to her as much as you can to “marinate” her in  language, and to mention your concerns to your pediatrician.  He/she may be helpful in providing an evaluation of her language and making recommendations or referrals if available.
 
If you have any other questions, please feel free to write.  ALSO, I’m including a huge thank you to your family for being a part of our military.  We are a grateful nation, and so fortunate to have the bravest and the best serving in this way.
 
Best wishes,
Deborah


Thanks so much!  I am printing out your response so I can begin adding these whole language approach strategies to our instruction.  (I have a M.Ed in Secondary Ed, biology, so teaching reading to struggling readers is a new learning area for me!)  I appreciate your time. 

Sincerely,
Aubrey