Transcript Teaching Comprehension: Referents, Dialogue, and Inference EDC424

Teaching Comprehension:
Referents, Dialogue, and
Inference
EDC424
Dr. Terry Deeney
Why do we care about inferring?
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What is comprehension?
“Extracting and Constructing”
“Creating a mental representation”
“causal/logical relationships”
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What Do the Common
Core Standards Say?
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Key Ideas and Details
• 1. Read closely to determine what the text says explicitly
and to make logical inferences from it; cite specific
textual evidence when writing or speaking to support
conclusions drawn from the text.
• 2. Determine central ideas or themes of a text and
analyze their development; summarize the key
supporting details and ideas.
• 3. Analyze how and why individuals, events, and ideas
develop and interact over the course of a text.
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Craft and Structure
• 4. Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a
text, including determining technical, connotative, and
figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word
choices shape meaning or tone.
• 5. Analyze the structure of texts, including how specific
sentences, paragraphs, and larger portions of the text
(e.g., a section, chapter, scene, or stanza) relate to each
other and the whole.
• 6. Assess how point of view or purpose shapes the
content and style of a text.
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Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
• 7. Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse
media and formats, including visually and quantitatively,
as well as in words.*
• 8. Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific
claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as
well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
• 9. Analyze how two or more texts address similar
themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to
compare the approaches the authors take.
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Inferring: A Skill or Strategy?
• Skills
– Automatic
– Effortless
– Used without
conscious
control
• Strategies
– Conscious activity
to achieve desired
goal
– Not automatic
– Can, with practice,
become skills
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What kind of inferences?
Drawing text and background knowledge together: Basic
Reggie began to tell a ghost story:
“Once there was this ghost and he lived in a haunted house
only he did most of the haunting himself. This house was empty
except for this ghost because nobody wanted to go near this house,
they were so afraid of this ghost. And every night this ghost would
walk around this house and make all kinds of clunky, creeky sounds.
Aroomp! Aroomp!”
• How does Ira feel right now?
– Author: Reggie is telling Ira a ghost story in bed at nighttime.
– Student BK: Ghost stories are scary; dark can be scary.
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Drawing text and background knowledge together:
More difficult
Stellaluna quickly clambered from the nest and hung out of
sight below it. She listened to the babble of the three birds.
“What was that?” cried Flip.
“I don’t know, but it’s hanging by its feet,” chirped Flitter.
• How do the birds feel about this thing they found
hanging by its feet?
- Author: emphasizes “that,” hanging by its feet.
- Student BK: italics means stress, in this case something is odd;
birds do not hang by their feet; birds would not know what was
hanging by its feet; birds and bats have different habits.
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Inferences based on two parts of the text: Basic
“Hello,” said Verdi. “Do you want to climb trees with me?”
“I’m tired,” Dozier growled. “Go do a few laps around the
jungle Okay?”
• Are the Greens going to climb trees with Verdi?
- Text 1: Verdi asks Greens to play
- Text 2: Dozier tells Verdi that he is tired
- Text 3: Dozier tells Verdi to do laps
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• Inferences based on two parts of the text: More complex:
“And now that you have been here a few weeks, I’m going to
leave you in charge for a few days while I go over the mountain to
get the rest of my equipment. Now sit down and listen carefully while
I explain how to run everything.”
• How will things go for Big Anthony when Strega Amelia is
away?
- Beginning of story: Big Anthony does not pay attention.
- Current: Strega Amelia tells Anthony to listen to what
she has to say. Anthony will be in charge while Strega
Amelia is away.
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What do referents and dialogue have
to do with inferring?
• It’s hard to infer when you don’t know who
is talking or what they are talking about.
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“That’s weird,” said Annie. “I don’t hear any birds.”
She was right. The grove was strangely silent.
“Don’t worry about it,” said Jack. “Maybe they’re all
at the beach.”
• What does Annie think is weird?
• Why is that weird?
• Who is at the beach?
Mary Pope Osborne (1998). Vacation Under the Volcano. New York: Scholastic, p. 15-16.
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I never raised my hand to answer a question, but
when Miss Stickley called on me, I had to say something.
My English wasn’t perfect yet, so Elizabeth always
giggled at whatever I said. Miss Stickley would stare at
her, and then she’d shut up.
• What does Elizabeth think of the narrator’s English?
• How does Mrs. Stickley react to the narrator’s
situation?
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Anaphoric Relations
• Associations between words where one
word or group of words is used in place of
another word or group of words.
• Antecedent or referent/substitution
Example:
We just got a new puppy. That ball of
energy is taking over our lives.
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Good primary literature authors try to
clarify referents:
Toad read a long story to his seeds.
All the next day Toad sang songs to his
seeds.
And all the next day Toad read poems to his
seeds.
And all the next day Toad played music to his
seeds.
Toad looked at the ground. The seeds still
did not start to grow.
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But referents are hard to avoid:
“Drat!” said Toad.
“My seeds have not
started to grow.
They must be afraid of the dark.”
Toad went out to his garden
with some candles.
“I will read the seeds a story,”
said Toad.
Then they will not be afraid.”
Lobel, A. (1971), “The Garden.” In Frog and Toad Together. New York: Harper Collins,
p. 24.
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And may be more challenging in
expository text:
• Some trees have long thin leaves that look like needles.
(Picture of evergreen trees in summer)
• Pine trees and fir trees have needles like this. (Picture of
pine branches/needles)
• These trees stay green all year long.
(Picture of evergreens in winter)
How do students know that:
• trees that stay green all year long are the same trees as
what they saw before?
• trees that stay green are pine and fur trees?
• trees that stay green have needles?
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Dialogue
• The speaker within a text is not always
clearly marked (e.g. “said John”)
• Sometimes it’s hard to figure out who is
talking when more than one speaker is
involved in conversation if the text is not
clearly marked.
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Dialogue is more clearly marked in
primary literature:
Toad knocked at the door.
“Hello,” said Frog.
“Look at my list
of things to do,”
said Toad.
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But not perfectly:
Toad said, “My list tells me
that we will go for a walk.”
“All right,” said Frog.
“I am ready.”
Who is ready? How do you know?
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And we might not know how the
dialogue relates to actions:
“Strega Nona, Strega Nona,” Bambalona and Big
Anthony called, out of breath.
“What is it, my children?” Strega Nona asked.
“You’ll never guess. Read this!” Bambalona
handed Strega Nona a handbill.
What does being out of breath have to do with handing
her a handbill?
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Stop and Think:
Besides marking the speaker with
words like said, cried, etc., how does
a text help identify the speaker?
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Teaching Referents, Dialogue, and
Inferring
A Good Reader:
• Knows many strategies
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Activating prior knowledge
Setting purpose
Questioning
Predicting
Summarizing
Visualizing
Clarifying
Inferring
Making connections
Integrating information
Using graphics
Using context
Adjusting rate
• Knows how and when to
use strategies
– Internalizes these
cognitive processes:
• Activating
• Focusing
• Selecting
• Organizing
• Integrating
• applying
– Becomes
independent
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Strategy Knowledge
• Declarative knowledge
– Knowing “that” there are strategies
– Knowing “what” strategies are available
• Procedural knowledge
– Knowing “how” to use strategies
• Conditional knowledge
– Knowing “when” to use strategies
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Implicit vs. Explicit Instruction
• Implicit instruction
– “Telling” students they
should be using the
strategy without telling
them what, how, why,
when
– “Does that make sense?”
How does a student:
• Explicit instruction
– Explaining
– Modeling
– Gradual Release
• Know what “makes sense”
means
• Know whether the text
makes sense
• Know what to do if it
doesn’t make sense
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Teaching “What”
• Explain
– Tell students what the strategy is
– Tell students why/how it is helpful
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• Model
Teaching “How”
– Use the strategy yourself, making your thinking
apparent (“think out loud”)
• Provide guided practice
– Give students a chance to use the strategy with
your help
– Provide gradual release of responsibility
• Provide independent practice
– Give students a chance to use the strategy on
their own
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Teaching “When”
• Explain when the strategy is helpful
• Provide opportunities to think about when
during guided practice
• Scaffold students’ identification of strategy
need as they read
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Clarifying for Ourselves:
An Example
Teaching students to clarify referents
Explain:
• I want to talk to you about some words that we see a lot in
texts that we read: I, you, he, she, we, me, him, her, us, it,
they, them.
• Did you ever stop to think about what the words I just
wrote mean? Let’s take out the ones we can tell easily
what they mean. (I, you, me, us)
• Now let’s look at the other ones. Who is he? What does
they mean? Well, it depends.
• Sometimes when we’re reading a book, we come across
these kinds of words (point) and we might not know what
these words mean. They kind of disguise who or what the
book is talking about.
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• These words are called pronouns, but I call them
disguising words because they are talking about
someone or something else, but they don’t say exactly
who or what.
• When we see a disguising word in our reading, we know
that the word is talking about something or someone
else. It’s a word that stands for something else. So we
need to know what that something or someone else is.
• Like this from our story, The Snowy Day:
After breakfast he put on his snowsuit and ran outside.
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• He is this story is Peter, and his is Peter’s.
• We knew that because the story is mostly all
about Peter, so who else could he be?
• But what if the story had lots of people and lots
of things? Maybe we wouldn’t be so sure.
• I’m going to show you how I might figure out
what one of our disguising words is talking
about.
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Model
Toad baked some cookies.
“These cookies smell very good,” said Toad.
He ate one.
“And they taste even better,” he said.
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• I’m going to make sure I know what my
disguising words mean.
• I know that Toad is the only character in
the story so far. I know that Toad baked
the cookies. So when the text says, “He
ate one,” I know it’s Toad. But just to be
sure, I’m going to trade “he” for “Toad” and
see if that makes sense.
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Guided Practice
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Teaching students to
clarify dialogue
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Teaching students to
infer
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Explain
• Sometimes when we read we’re supposed to figure
things out that are tricky. Authors sometimes give us
clues and we need to think about how the clues go
together – we need to learn something that’s not said
exactly.
• Sometimes we are asked questions that we need to
think about based on what we read. The answer isn’t
exactly given in the text, but we can use what the text
says to figure it out.
• When we think about what the text is telling us, but not
telling us in exact words, we are “inferring.”
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Model
The guards started toward them. Annie whipped her flashlight
out of the pack.
“Ta-da!” she yelled.
The guards froze. They stared at the shiny flashlight in her
hand.
Annie switched the light on. The guards gasped in fear. They
jumped back against the wall.
Squinty dropped the torch. It fell into a dirty puddle on the floor,
sputtered, and went out.
“My magic wand!” Annie said, waving the flashlight. “Get down
or I’ll wipe you out !”
Jacks mouth dropped open.
Annie fiercely pointed her light at one, then the other. Each
howled and covered his face.
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• Wow. The guards are really afraid of Annie’s flashlight.
I’m wondering why would they be afraid of a flashlight?
• The text doesn’t tell me why, exactly. So I need to think
about what the book has told me already.
- It told me that the castle was lit by torches.
- It said that the knights used torches to see in the dark.
• I know what a torch is – it’s a long stick with a flame, like
a big candle, that you can use like a light.
• So I think that back in the days of the knights, they must
have used torches for lights.
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• Now I’m going to use this information that I know to figure out what I
don’t know.
- Torches lit up castles, and knights used torches to see their way.
- Annie had a flashlight.
- The knights were afraid of the flashlight.
• My guess is that back in the days of the knights, they only had
torches, not electric lights or flashlights.
• They probably had never seen a flashlight before! That’s why they
were afraid!
• I made an inference about why the knights were so frightened. I
could figure it out even though Mary Pope Osborne didn’t tell me
right out.
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Provide for Guided Practice
• Let’s look at this sentence in this text for a
minute:
– The more weight you lift, the bigger your muscles get.
• That’s telling us something directly, right? We
know that the more weight we lift, the bigger our
muscles will get. But how about if I ask you this
question:
– Bob and Susan’s muscles were the same size in
November. Now Bob’s muscles are smaller than
Susan’s muscles. What does this tell us about Bob’s
weightlifting?
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Provide for Independent Practice
• Now I want you to try it on your own. Here
are some passages in our latest Jack and
Annie book.
• On the left side I put what the book says.
On the right side, you need to write what
that tells you.
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The text says:
This tells me:
“What’s wrong
with her, Jack
wondered. Usually I’m
the worried one.”
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