WEBVTT

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[Music]

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My name is Nell Duke.

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I am a professor of
teacher education

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and educational psychology
at Michigan State University.

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I also co-direct a research
center here called the Literacy

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Achievement Research Center.

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We really think of reading
comprehension in a triangle

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with three different pieces.

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So one is the activity
that is involved

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in the reading comprehension,

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the context around which
someone is reading.

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The second is the reader, all
the different characteristics

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that the reader brings, the
knowledge the reader brings

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to the reading comprehension
process.

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But the third part of
that triangle is the text.

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The text is really important

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in shaping reading
comprehension processes

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and in shaping reading
comprehension development.

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The recommendation
to select text

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that will support reading
comprehension has several

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different facets to it.

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One is that we really want
teachers to select a variety

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of genres of text, so a
variety of types of text,

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both informational text
and also literary text.

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Another piece of it is that
we want the teachers to think

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about selecting texts that
are appropriate levels

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of difficulty for students.

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And by level of difficulty,
we're not just talking

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about the word reading
demands of the text, that is,

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how hard the words are
for a student to read,

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but also the comprehension
demands

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of the text-how hard is it
to understand this text.

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These two things are
not always aligned,

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so sometimes we have
students who are very good

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at word reading but have
difficulty comprehending even

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fairly simple texts.

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We also have students who can
comprehend fairly sophisticated

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texts but are still struggling

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with that word reading
dimension.

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A third piece of our
recommendation is

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that we really want teachers
to select texts that are going

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to support their
instructional goals.

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For example, if teachers are
teaching compare/contrast text

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structure, we want them to, at
least early on, select texts

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for teaching that that
have a very clear,

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very obvious compare/contrast
text structure to them.

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One study that really stands

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out as really underscoring how
important text selection is is a

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study by Jim Hoffman
and his colleagues.

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What they found was that the
characteristics of the texts

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that were in classrooms,
particularly their quality,

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their sheer quantity, and
also the types of texts

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in classrooms, was related

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to students' reading
comprehension growth.

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So teachers who had greater
quality, greater quantity,

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and a greater range
of types of text

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in their classrooms did
actually have kids who grew more

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in their reading comprehension
in those primary grade years.

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When a teacher's
selecting a text

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for reading comprehension
lessons,

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there are several different
things she needs to think about.

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First thing she needs to
think about is her readers.

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So she wants to select
a text that is not going

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to be too difficult for them to
read or comprehend but is going

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to give them a little
bit of challenge,

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because that little bit of
challenge is what's going

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to encourage them to work
hard in their comprehension,

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apply their strategies,
and so on.

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So first thing she wants
to do is match her readers

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to the level of the text.

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She also wants to think
about her readers in terms

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of interest or engagement.

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If she can find texts
that are more interesting

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to her students,
that's clearly going

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to make reading comprehension
instruction go more smoothly.

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She also wants to think
about her curriculum.

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So for example, if the whole
week she has been doing all

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of her read-alouds and all

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of her small-group reading
instruction with literary texts,

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like stories, then we want
her to think about, "Today,

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I am going to use some
informational text.

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I am going to bring in some
expository text for my students

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to read today, so that I can
balance out my curriculum calls

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for both informational
and narrative.

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I want to make sure
I balance that out."

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Another thing we
want her to think

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about is her instructional
goals for that lesson:

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"What am I trying to teach
here, and what is going

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to facilitate that best?"

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For example, when you are
first teaching summarizing

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with young children, it works
really well to use texts

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that even already have a
summary in them, for example,

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an informational text that ends

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with a nice concluding
paragraph.

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Or it works very
well to use stories

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that have a fairly
simple structure,

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so that you can fairly
quickly summarize that.

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And at first, that really
helps students to develop

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that early summarizing skill.

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And then, of course, over
time you are going to want

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to use more sophisticated
texts that are more challenging

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for kids to summarize.

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The recommendation to
select texts carefully

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for reading comprehension
instruction,

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this is an important
recommendation to consider

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for all the other
recommendations

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within the practice guide,

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because every other
recommendation is implemented

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better when we use
appropriate text.

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For example, it's easier to
create engaging environments

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for students when we select
texts that are very engaging.

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It's easier to teach text
structure when we select texts

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that really clearly depict the
text structure we're teaching.

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Similarly, for comprehension
strategy instruction,

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we really want to select a
text for teaching that strategy

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where using that
strategy is going

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to really help you
understand the text.

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And sometimes I see teachers,

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particularly newer
teachers, make missteps here.

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For example, I once had a
pre-service teacher who wanted

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to teach the prediction
strategy, the strategy

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of predicting, using
The Cat in the Hat.

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This is a big mistake, right?

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Because most students are
very familiar with The Cat

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in the Hat story, and
so they're not going

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to really exercise
their prediction muscles

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when they already
know what happens.

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So we really want to select,
in the case of predicting,

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a text where there are
many possible things

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that could happen, where
the text gives some clues

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as to what could happen,

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and where a good reader would
be really mining those clues

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to figure out what's
going to happen next.

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So it's all about picking
the kind of text that's going

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to be the best vehicle really

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for your comprehension
instruction.

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[Music]