WEBVTT

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[Music]

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I'm Timothy Shanahan.

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I'm professor of urban
education at the University

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of Illinois at Chicago.

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I was the panel chair for the
IES practice guide Improving

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Reading Comprehension in
Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade.

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The National Assessment of
Educational Progress tells us

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that a very large percentage

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of fourth graders are
struggling in reading.

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In fact, more than a quarter

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of our children don't read well
enough to do well in school.

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It's important that
in the primary grades,

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we raise comprehension
abilities to a level

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that allows these children to
fully participate academically

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in their school life
from third grade on.

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A lot of times, teachers
believe in these early grades

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that the only thing
that you can really do

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about reading comprehension is
to teach kids enabling skills,

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that is, to help them
to decode better.

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Certainly, if you can recognize
the words, you're more likely

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to understand what
you're reading.

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But I think one of
the big takeaways

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from this guide is that, in
fact, you can teach children

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to think more effectively
when they're reading in ways

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that actually improve
their ability

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to remember what they have
read or to understand it

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and to be able to do things
with that information.

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One of the important
recommendations or guidances

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that is given in this guide is

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that teachers should be
teaching children what we refer

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to as comprehension strategies.

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What this means is that we want
teachers to teach children ways

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of thinking, really what
to do with your mind

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when you're reading and
trying to think about a text.

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So for example, it can be really
useful if children know how

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to ask themselves
questions and then to try

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to answer those questions.

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Children get used to adults
doing all of that work for them,

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and so the idea here is that
he has to read some portion

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of text, and then asks
themselves a question about it,

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tries to answer that question.

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And, of course, if
they can answer it,

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then they're ready to go on.

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If they have some
trouble answering it,

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maybe they'll go back and look
at the text again and think

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about it a little bit more.

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But in doing that, in carrying
on that kind of a conversation

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in their mind, they come away

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with more understanding
of what they've read.

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When you're teaching
reading comprehension,

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text is really important --
what we have children read.

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Obviously, we want high-quality
text that's interesting

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and engaging.

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But it also matters
how well it matches

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up to what you're
trying to teach.

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So it's really important that
the teaching match the text

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and that the text
match the teaching.

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One of the recommendations
of the guide is

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that teachers should teach
students how to think

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about the organizational
structure of the text.

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Now, it's easy to just
think about the ideas

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and what this character's doing

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or what the author is
telling you about something.

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But what we're really suggesting
is that children learn to sort

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of step back and look at how
the ideas have been organized

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or sequenced so that
they're easier to remember,

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they're easier to think about.

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Research shows us, for example,
that when children think

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about stories in a way

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that represents the plot
structure -- so thinking

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about the character and the
setting and what the problem is

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that the character faces
and how he or she attempts

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to solve the problem
and what the outcome

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of that is -- when children
start to learn

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that those structures are there,

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that kind of information should
be sought for, they get better

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at understanding the
stories, they get better

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at remembering the stories.

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Learning to comprehend
when you read is hard work

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for children five to eight
years old, and so it's important

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that the teacher sort of
keep them interested in it

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and keep them excited about it.

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Motivation really does matter.

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And in fact, when we reviewed
the research literature here,

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we were very pleased to find

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out the research clearly
supported the importance

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of supporting young children's
motivation when they were trying

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to learn to comprehend.

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Some of the kinds of
things that teachers can do

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to motivate young children's
reading comprehension are things

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like helping children
to work together.

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Children love to
collaborate on things.

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They love to work with others.

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And a lot of times reading
is a lonely kind of a process

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for them; teachers will send you
off to read a book by yourself.

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To get really excited, what kids

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like to do is maybe have
a project around a book

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that they're going to read
together or get involved

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in a discussion with
the book with a friend.

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Those kinds of things are
much more interesting to them.

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I was a first-grade teacher,
and I can remember vividly just

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that that clock is always
running, and there is

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so much to accomplish.

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I think one of the things that
it's really important to do

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in terms of reading
comprehension is

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to really set aside time, to
really block out the notion

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that you are going to have maybe
30 minutes to work on nothing

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but reading comprehension,
and if teachers do that,

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I think that really helps a lot.

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I hope that what teachers come
away with is that there is more

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to reading comprehension
than just having kids read.

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The teacher has a role to play and, 
in fact, a very important role to play.

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[Music]