According to the World English Dictionary, metacognition is the process of thinking about one's own mental processes. As I read through this chapter I found myself thinking about MAX strategies. For those of you not familiar with Dr. Forget, he believes that it is a teacher’s role to “facilitate active learning by students.” MAX strategies provide students opportunities to practice reading in ways in which they are able to monitor their own comprehension, recognize when they do not comprehend, and know what to do to correct the situation if comprehension fails to occur. Dr. Forget’s strategies are like the problem solving strategies discussed in this chapter. They are strategies that if developed will improve a readers level of comprehension. This chapter explores how readers apply specific strategies to monitor, sustain, and extend their understanding.
Strategies for Regulating Comprehension
“Deep Comprehension requires readers to plan, select, direct, and orchestrate the various cognitive structures and processes available to the them in order to attain a particular goal. This involves readers’ making deliberate choices, including about the selection of particular strategies for figuring out words and the amount of time to spend on particular aspects of reading.” (page 38)
Two external behaviors that are signs of internal processing:
- fluent and expressive reading (consist of 3 interrelated elements)(refer to Figure 4.2 on page 40 for further information)
*speed (retrieval rate – is not an indication of comprehension)
*rhythm (phrasing and orchestration)
*flexibility (implies the reader understands how to self-regulate, or pace, the reading according to changing purposes and needs.) - efficient and economical self-corrections
*outcome of higher level thinking
*self-correction must happen for learning to occur
*self correction behavior is the ultimate act of constructing meaning
*Important questions to explore to provide teachers with a framework for exploring how our teaching may (or may not) be encouraging effective self-correcting strategies.
****How often do our readers self correct?
****What appears to trigger the self-correcting activity?
****How long does it take for a reader to solve the problem?
****Is there a change in the rate and efficiency of the reader’s self-correcting behaviors?
10 Most Important Strategic Behaviors (Comparable MAX Strategy)
- Rereading.
- Previewing or surveying a text. (Previewing)(Pre/Post-learning Concept Check)
- Asking questions before, during, and after reading.
- Reading aloud to clarify thinking. (Paired Reading)
- Using story structure, text genre, and writing conventions.
- Using text aids to illuminate and extend meaning.
- Marking texts and recording notes. (INSERT) (Sensible Sentence Highlighting)
- Using context and part of words to infer meaning.
- Writing in reading response logs. (Focus Free Writes)(Student-Generated Graphic Representation)
- Discussing ideas with others. (Think, Pair, Share)
Thoughts/Questions for Discussion:
Analyze your own reading behaviors and discuss. What are the most important strategies you use to construct meaning?
How can we as coaches help teachers better understand these strategies/processes and implement the strategies in their classrooms?
OK, Let's try this again.
ReplyDeleteAs I administered the DRA earlier in the year, I did notice most students chunking while they read. I also noted that several students self-corrected. This, of course, had a negative impact on their fluency but a positive impact on their comprehension. One story was about a boy and a rock. One student read the entire story about a rocket rather than a rock. The students were to write an ending to the story when the reading was completed. I had not corrected the student who read "rocket". He was amazed when he completed his writing about a boy and a rocket rather than a boy and a rock. Should I have corrected him? I don't know...it was an excellent learning experience for the student. Of course, these were done one-on-one so there was no embarrassment involved.
Teachers must be observant of self-correcting, to understand that the reader is monitoring, searching, and making decisions about the text.
What happened to pre-viewing a text? So many teachers just say "open the book and read pages so and so". A student then feels no purpose in the reading and they definitely are not motivated. Examining graphs, pictures, captions, etc. seem to motivate students and give them an idea before they begin reading.
Students must also be able to talk and write about their reading. This gives them the ability to organize their thoughts and clarify any misunderstandings they may have.
Back to the rocket story. I feel the student read rocket rather than rock because rockets as a gift (part of the story) made much more sense to him than a rock as a gift. Therefore, he was reading what he expected and using prior knowledge of his expectations of the author's purpose which made more sense to him in the story rather than what the story was actually about.
MAX strategies are a definite way to help struggling readers. Most are reflected in the 10 Most Important Strategic Behaviors.
I like most readers tend to use context clues but have been known to pull out the old dictionary when necessary. I am notorious with my highlighter and taking notes when reading for knowledge.
Angela, I was pleased to read your reflections about administrating the DRA and what you observed. Working at the beginning levels of learning to read for so many years, my focus has usually been on teaching the beginning strategies of: making meaningful attempts, checking to see if the orthography of the word is right, and if the structure 'sounds right'. We get excited when a student 'notices' something is wrong and rereads to try to correct. These behaviors usually lead to self corrections and more accurate reading, but always impedes words per minute (that has become such a focus and national debate).
ReplyDeleteAs for comprehension, we have students who cannot meet the NAEP fleuncy measure, but can sequentially retell the story with added details. As students become more successful readers, their attempts are more integrated, their speed improves, and usually their comprehension is acceptable, but this doesn't happen overnight and not without scaffolding.
In Reading Recovery, we've had many discussions concerning whether to give the students a 'key' word or allow him opportunity to 'notice' on his own. You didn't mention whether the intro included this information. By middle school level, I would hope that after a few times of reading the word, the student might notice this discrepancy. The attempt did make sense to him, sounded right, and looked right (at the beginning). At your level there are fewer pictures to aid their comprehension.
I'm encouraging more of my teachers to use Literature Discussion Groups where students have opportunity to discuss and clarify their understanding of the text. Without this discussion/collaboration, students may expend a great deal of effort and time reading a book/story and be confused in his understanding.
Wow! It's amazing how closely the 10 Most Important Strategic behaviors match up with MAX Teaching strategies. In the middle school, we may be able to intervene with a small number of low,low readers, but we mostly need our classroom (regular academic, special ed, & related arts) teachers to practice strategies that help our students read for better understanding. The fact that we are departmentalized somewhat limits our actual reading instruction to the Language Arts classroom. Therefore, it is imperative that teachers use strategies that are known to improve comprehension.
ReplyDeleteCindy, you are right that all teachers, not just reading/LA teachers, need to think of themselves as literacy teachers. It only makes sense that all teachers would want to equip the students with the strategies required to access the content being taught.
ReplyDeleteRae, thanks for putting the MAX strategies in () beside Dorn's 10 Most Strategic Behaviors. It is helping me understand what you all are talking about when you discuss Max.
ReplyDeleteI am thinking about how hard it must be for teachers with no literacy background and training to 'think of themselves as a teacher of reading'. Can they really even conceive of what that means?
Have you guys (middle school folk) seen a shift in your teachers since you began working with them on Max strategies and PCL?
Journey, we have seen some difference by training and encouraging teachers to use MAX Strategies. I was also excited to listen to Dr. Doug Beuhl in Arkansas discuss his strategies. I purchased his book and it is full of strategies appropriate for middle schoolers.
ReplyDeleteIt will be difficult for teachers with no background in literacy to teach reading but, they can read and model good reading. The biggest resistance I'm getting is the Language Arts teachers not wanting to relinguish reading. I don't want them to relinguish reading as part of their curriculum but all teachers can learn to teach reading and it is the goal of the middle school coaches to provide professional development for the teachers.
I would like the financial support to incoorporate a book room for our teachers. I have applied and received a few grants but as I'm sure you know the cost must be enormous.
I totally agree that all teachers need to think of themselves as reading teachers. Right now with everyone stressing over test scores, many of my teachers think we've spent enough time focusing on reading. They think we need to focus more on math, science, and social studies. I see the importance of this, but with time devoted to reading strategies within these subjects.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to add to the comment I made in March. This week we heard that the upper grades are going to be encouraged to departmentalize next year. As I sat in the meeting with the fourth and fifth grade teachers I heard comments like, "our reading scores are fine we don't need to have 2 and half hours for literacy, reading isn't the issue for us." They are so excited about the possibility that we made me doing this because they feel like based on the TCAP scores we need more time working on science, math, and social studies. It's so hard to sit there and have to constantly defend reading. I wish they could see that there is reading and writing in all subject areas. So, frustrating!!!
ReplyDeleteI agree that teachers should all consider themselves reading teachers. We read in every subject!! It just seems like such a "no brainer" for me to tie reading and writing all across the content areas. Since I come from a primary grade background, it makes me wonder why they have such a resistance to this concept.
ReplyDeleteJessie, I have been in your position too in that I feel like I have to defend literacy not just to members of my staff but the teaching community in general. I have several members of my family who are teachers in surrounding counties and I have always been put on the spot to defend balanced literacy and how important I felt like it was to our students.
RaeAnn, as Journey said, thanks for putting the MAX strategies in the chart for us. I would like to learn more about them and then discuss how we can bridge the gap between elementary and middle schools in reading. I think that the transition here is as important as the one from your setting to high school. Maybe we can discuss that on the way to Arkansas this trip or next????