WEBVTT

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[Music & Title]

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I'm Joanna Williams, professor
of psychology and education

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at Teachers College,
Columbia University.

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It's very important to teach
elementary school children, K-3,

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about text structure, because
it's something tangible

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in the area of comprehension
actually that we can teach.

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There's something there to show
children, and they can learn it.

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Text structure helps
children in their reading

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because it organizes the content
of what they are reading.

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They're reading facts, they're
reading pieces of information

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and so forth, and they need
some way of structuring

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or organizing that information.

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Good text is well structured,
and a child who learns

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about structure will have the
cues available and the means

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to pull out those
important pieces of text.

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There are several basic
features of narrative text.

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First of all, narrative texts
are stories, and they talk

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about people and events.

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And so one of the most important
features about a narrative

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or a story is: Who is it about?

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(The main character.)

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And then what did the
main character do?

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(The central event
of the story.)

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How did the main
character feel about it?

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And then there's usually
some sort of conflict,

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and a resolution
of that conflict,

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and then a conclusion
to the story.

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Now, these are little
pieces of the story,

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and they usually appear in
the same sequence in a story.

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And what we do is teach
the children those features

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so that they will
have an understanding,

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on an abstract level really,
of what a story consists of,

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and then they can look
for those features

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when they hear a new story.

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Understanding informational
texts is a little different

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from understanding
narrative texts.

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Children aren't usually
faced with informational

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or expository text as soon
as they are with narrative,

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and it's a little different

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because expository text
is usually more difficult

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to understand.

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And the reason for that
is that it's usually

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about abstract issues,
not simply main characters

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and their events and so forth.

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So that, plus the fact
that usually the language

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that expository text is written
in is a little different,

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is a little more formal,
it makes that kind of text,

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informational or expository,

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more of a challenge
for children.

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The other issue is that while
there's only one narrative

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structure, there are several
expository structures.

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There is compare/contrast;
there is description, sequence,

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cause/effect, problem/solution.

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And there is a different
structure for each one of those,

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and children really
have to be introduced

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to each one separately.

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Now, there are different kinds
of specific tools you can use.

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And what I've been doing in my
research is trying to develop

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such tools and really build them
into instructional programs.

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My narrative work consists of
what we call the Themes Scheme,

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and the Themes Scheme
is a set of questions,

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which highlight the important
information in a text.

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And children learn
to essentially recite

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and use the questions
as strategy questions.

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The first questions are
about the plot level:

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Who was the main character?

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What was the main event?

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And that sort of thing.

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And then they focus in on
the event and the resolution

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because those are the two most
important parts of a story,

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and then they evaluate them:
Was it good or was it bad?

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When I work with
expository text structure,

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it's a little different; it's
a little more complicated,

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because, first of all, we
have to choose which kind

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of expository structure
we are teaching.

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And we have done several,
including compare/contrast,

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and we have developed
an instructional program

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where we teach three
basic strategies.

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There are clue words,

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and in compare/contrast there
are similar, dissimilar, like,

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and those kinds of things.

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So we can use those clue
words, and we teach children

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to find those in paragraphs,

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and then they know it's a
compare/contrast paragraph.

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And then they say to
themselves, "Well,

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how can I find the most
important information

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in a compare/contrast
paragraph?"

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And our second strategy is

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to teach them the
generic questions:

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What is this paragraph about?

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What two things is this about?

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How are the two
things different?

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How are the two
things the same?

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And they answer those questions.

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The third strategy is the
use of a graphic organizer,

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because this just helps
them identify and keep

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in mind the answers to
those generic questions.

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What we've found
from our studies is

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that children really do learn

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from having this
explicit teaching.

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We have found that they do
better on comprehension tests

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that we develop, that they
can read other material

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that they haven't
seen in instruction

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and in the same area
-- social studies.

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And what is also
very good, I think,

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is that they have learned just
as much about the content,

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the social studies
content, as they would have

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if they hadn't had any

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of the embedded reading
comprehension training.

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It's very important for
children to understand

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that text has meaning, and
if they just sound out words,

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they are not really,
really reading.

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So they have to understand
that they need to get meaning,

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and text structure is a way
to get into that for them.

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[Music]