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Research Taster
Like most teachers, you are likely to be a highly skilled reader who uses effective comprehension strategies. But this wealth of knowledge you have about comprehension strategies is sometimes implicit – in other words, you might not be aware of which strategies you use. This can make it difficult to pass useful strategies on to your students. 
Your evidence
You might wish to explore your own reading comprehension strategies by working with a friend on a particularly difficult piece of text. Perhaps one of you might start reading and try to give a running commentary on what you are doing and what thoughts arise as you read. Your colleague could make a tally or note of significant moments: perhaps when you ask a question, or seem to see something new in the text, when you summarise bits of the text or make predictions. You could share your observations and swap turns, then discuss anything that seems to emerge from your observations. What strategies do each of you use? Moving forward Having identified what you personally do when faced with a demanding text, you may wish to work with your colleague on how you can share these strategies with your pupils. Could you take turns to role-play modelling each strategy aloud? Could you jointly devise questions for your pupils that prompt them to notice and discuss what you are doing? What evidence would you look for to discover whether your pupils have understood which strategy you are using? Find out more  Hurry, J. & Parker, M. (2004) The role of awareness in the teaching and learning of literacy and numeracy at key stage 2, TLRP Annual Conference, (Cardiff, November). Available at: http://www.tlrp-archive.org/cgi-bin/search_oai_all.pl?pn=15&no_menu=1&short_menu=1The full project is The role of awareness in the teaching and learning of literacy and Numeracy in Key Stage 2 (2001 – 2004) by Prof. Terezina Nunes, Prof. Peter Bryant and Dr. Jane Hurry. The project website is at: http://www.tlrp.org/proj/phase11/phase2h.html |
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