How the Brain Learns to Read
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• Summary notes. Students write down a summary of each section of the passage as soon as they finish it. The summary should include the main idea and supporting details. Concept maps can help.
Phase 3: After Reading
The strategies here are to help students rehearse, analyze, and extend their reading to increase the chances they will remember what they have read. Questioning and vocabulary prediction are important parts of this process.
• Questions to ask. These questions foster retention of learning by reinforcing the concepts in the reading and encouraging critical thinking and personal response.
Reinforce the concept. “Have you had any of the experiences mentioned in the passage? If so, how did you feel about them?”
Model ways of thinking through the information the students have read. “What events are described in this passage? What caused them? How do you know that?”
Encourage critical thinking and personal response. “What do you think might have happened if___? Why did the author___?”
Build awareness of common themes. “What else have we read that is similar to this? What parts are the same, and what parts are different?”
• Vocabulary prediction. Redistribute the vocabulary prediction forms from Phase 1 and have the students write in the definitions based on their reading. Ask them to discuss what they learned about the meaning and use of the vocabulary words.
• Analyze good and bad examples of writing. Ask the students to view, analyze, and discuss good and bad examples of chapter summaries. Ask them to explain the characteristics of good and bad summaries and to write their own, using the criteria for the good summaries.
• Other readings related to the course text. Suggest other resources for the students to read that relate to the text. Trade books or magazines at the appropriate reading level should be available in class or at the school’s library media center.
SOURCE: Adapted from Cibrowski (1993); Slater and Horstman (2002).
GRAPHIC ORGANIZERS AND COMPREHENSION OF CONTENT-AREA READING
Graphic organizers have been mentioned in previous chapters as valuable tools for organizing and representing knowledge and for illustrating relationships between concepts. Even though graphic organizers have been mentioned in pedagogical literature for more than 30 years, content-area teachers have been slow to incorporate them as a routine instructional tool. Yet, research studies have shown them to be particularly effective in helping typical students as well as those with reading problems and other learning disabilities to learn content area material (e.g., Dexter & Hughes, 2011; Swanson, Edmonds, Hairrell, Vaughn, & Simmons, 2011). Studies also have found that reading assignments requiring students to complete graphic organizers in lieu of answering traditional study guide questions can significantly increase reading comprehension as well (Barton-Arwood & Little, 2013; Scammacca et al., 2007). With this evidence in mind, let’s spend some time discussing the reasons why graphic organizers can be effective and present some different types of organizers for consideration.
Graphic organizers are effective because they do all of the following:
• Show the organization or structure of concepts as well as relationships between and among concepts
• Make it more clear to students what they are expected to know and do, and allow students to focus on what is important
• Provide a mental framework for helping students to organize knowledge and build the framework piece by piece, linking it to other learned frameworks, thereby enhancing neural networks in long-term memory
• Show how each item on the graphic can serve as a link to remembering related information discussed in class
• Reduce the cognitive demands on the learner by showing (as opposed to just telling) students how the information is structured, allowing the teacher to present information at more sophisticated and complex levels
• Develop literacy and thinking skills because the quality of the students’ writing improves not only in the organization of ideas, but also in fluency and in other areas such as writing mechanics (punctuation, spelling, capitalization, etc.)
• Encourage students to use information processing and higher-order thinking skills, such as using cues to recognize important information, making decisions about what is important or essential, consolidating information, identifying main ideas and supporting details, and making decisions about the best way to structure the information
• Stimulate students who have constructed different organizers to discuss their diagrams and debate the importance of various points, draw conclusions, make connections to other ideas, and form inferences, predictions, or forecasts
• Result in an almost immediate improvement in performance on classroom tests for many students, whereas increased scores on standardized achievement tests occur more gradually as students gain skills using graphic organizers strategically
• Serve as excellent instruments for formative assessments
Some teachers resist using graphic organizers because they believe it takes too much class time to draw them. But now there are many free and inexpensive computer programs (e.g., Inspiration Software [see “Resources”]) that help students construct and print different types of organizers in just minutes.
Types of Organizers
Graphic organizers come in several different forms, depending on the nature of the associated material to be learned. Among the most common types of graphic organizers are the following:
• Concept mapping
• Flowchart
• Venn diagram
• Matrix
• Webbing
Concept Mapping
One of the first types of graphic organizers to be developed, concept maps were originally used in the late 1970s to help students learn complex concepts in science. As research studies revealed how much more science children learned through using concept maps, they spread slowly to other subject areas (Hyerle & Alper, 2011). Studies show that concept mapping also improves content-area text comprehension and summarization for intermediate, middle, and high school students—including those with reading and learning difficulties (e.g., Gajria, Jitendra, Sood, & Sacks, 2007)—as well as improves these students’ retention and transfer of learning (e.g., Nesbit & Adesope, 2006). Concept maps are now becoming more popular. There are multiple Internet sites that offer numerous examples of concept maps in many subject areas.
Concept maps are used to do each of the following:
• Develop an understanding of a body of knowledge
• Explore new information and relationships
• Access prior knowledge
• Gather new knowledge and information
• Share knowledge and information generated
Share the guidelines included in the box on tips for making a concept map. Computer programs that build graphic organizers would be more efficient than paper-and-pencil versions, but both are equally effective at improving learning. Cooperative learning teams find Post-its are very useful because they allow items to be moved around on a board or chart until the students are satisfied that they have the best arrangement. The Post-its also make revisions easy. Once completed, the scheme can be put into a computer template.
Before getting started on their concept maps, the students should get their research materials, class notes, and related articles together to use as their database for constructing the map. They should also ask themselves questions about the learning, such as these:
• What is the central word, concept, research question, or problem around which to build the map?
• What are the concepts, items, descriptive words, or important questions that I can associate with the concept, topic, research question, or problem?
Procedure. Classroom instruction about the major topic usually takes place first. Armed with their new knowledge, the students gather their resources. Working independently, in teams, or as a whole class, the students start selecting the items, identifying the relati
onships, and choosing the descriptive words that will describe the relationships. After making the first chart, they review it to determine if the relationships are correctly labeled, and whether some other arrangement would make the map clearer or more attractive. Remember, there is rarely only one way to do a concept map. Later, students with different maps can discuss their variations and debate their differences. Figure 7.2 shows a concept map built around the process of photosynthesis. All the basic steps are included. The map can be made more attractive with pictures of plants, a sun, or a glass of water placed near the appropriate item.
Figure 7.2 This is an example of a concept map built around the process of photosynthesis. As long as the basic steps are included, there are many different configurations that this map could take. It is important that the student write the relationship between any two items near the arrow that links them.
Flowchart
A flowchart is used typically to depict a sequence of events, stages, phases, actions, and outcomes. This organizer is good to use with young children and as a first step in developing linear relationships. The questions to ask before completing the chart are as follows:
• What is the name of the event, procedure, or person that will be described?
• What are the specific stages, steps, phases, or events?
• Are the events in the correct sequence?
• How do the stages, steps, phases, or events relate to one another?
• What is the final outcome?
After the important steps have been identified, the students fill in the flowchart in the proper sequence. In some situations, the flowchart can represent a part of a cycle, as in the case of the example on the left side of Figure 7.3. The flowchart shows the five steps in reciprocal teaching for a passage of text read aloud. After completing the steps in the first passage, the process is repeated for the second passage, and so on.
Venn Diagrams
John Venn first used these diagrams in the late 1800s to show relationships in mathematics. They are now used across many content areas to compare and contrast the qualities of two or three items, such as people, places, events, stories, ideas, situations, and things. Use a double Venn diagram to work with two items and a triple Venn diagram for three items. The questions to ask when preparing to use a Venn diagram are as follows:
Figure 7.3 On the left is a flowchart organizer depicting the steps in the reciprocal reading process. The arrow from Step 5 to Step 1 shows the process is repeated for each passage of text. On the right is a Venn diagram comparing characteristics of fish and whales. Common characteristics are in the area where the circles overlap.
• What items do you want to compare?
• What characteristics do the items have in common (intersecting portions)?
• What characteristics do the items not have in common (nonintersecting portions)?
The Venn diagram on the right in Figure 7.3 shows some of the similarities and differences between fish and whales. Characteristics that are common to both fish and whales are shown in the area where the two circles overlap.
Matrixes
When comparing the characteristics of more than three items, Venn diagrams become too difficult to construct. In this instance, the matrix is a much easier organizer to use, and it can be adapted to a variety of learning activities. Among the most common types are the following three:
• Comparison matrix
• K-W-H-L chart
• Content grids
Comparison Matrix. This matrix is used to describe and compare attributes and characteristics of two or more items, such as people, places, events, stories, ideas, situations, and things. One distinct advantage of this matrix is that there is no limit to the number of items or characteristics that can be included.
The questions to ask when preparing the matrix chart are as follows:
• What items do you want to compare?
• What characteristics do you want to compare?
• How are the items similar or different based on these characteristics?
In constructing the matrix, the student generally places the items to be compared down the left column and the characteristics across the top row. After defining the specific characteristic, the student places an “X” in the box to indicate if that item possesses the characteristic. For example, if we wanted to expand the fish and whale comparisons used in the Venn diagram in Figure 7.3 to include other animals, such as humans and dogs, the matrix pictured in Figure 7.4 is one possibility.
Figure 7.4 A comparison matrix of different characteristics belonging to several types of animals.
Figure 7.5 This type of matrix takes advantage of the students’ prior knowledge and encourages them to monitor their own learning. This example is a lesson on the characteristics of plants.
SOURCE: Adapted from Bender and Larkin (2003).
K-W-H-L Chart. This is an expansion of the more familiar K-W-L matrix in that it includes a step whereby the students identify how they plan to find out the needed information. The K-W-H-L chart’s familiarity does not detract from its usefulness. Although it is more commonly used in elementary schools, it is an effective memory device at all grade levels (Figure 7.5). With this matrix, students plan and gather initial information on a topic or theme, identify primary and secondary resources they need to access, develop a plan for accessing resources, and identify the attributes and characteristics they will need to research.
The questions to ask when preparing to use a K-W-H-L chart are as follows:
• What do we already know?
• What do we want to find out?
• How are we going to find out? What primary and secondary resources can we access?
• What attributes or characteristic should we focus on?
• What have we learned?
After reading the text and learning the material, the students go back to the “K” column to determine if any of their prior knowledge was inaccurate. They should note any of the statements that are inaccurate, according to the text, and rewrite them so that they are correct. Then they go to the “W” column and check any of their questions that the text did not answer. Students should be prepared to bring these unanswered questions up in class, or tell how they will find answers to them and where they will look to get the answers.
Content Grids. This type of matrix helps students to think about and evaluate certain characteristics of people, places, events, and things. It may include making a decision about who was the bravest person in recent history, the best type of computer to buy, or the greatest environmental threat of the twenty-first century. Before beginning, the students should decide on the items to be included as well as the set of criteria that will be used to determine their decisions. Then they write in each block their judgment and rationale about how well or how poorly each item (person, place, thing, etc.) meets each criterion. Students can complete this matrix alone first and discuss their decisions later in groups, or they can complete the matrix together as part of a cooperative learning activity. Either way, the process leads students to higher-order thinking in that they must analyze and judge competing items against the same set of criteria. Figure 7.6 shows examples of different types of course content matrices.
Figure 7.6 These are two examples of content grids, one from a world history class and one from an environmental science class. The students must decide on the items and criteria before filling in the matrix with their judgments and rationale.
Webbing
Webs come in many varieties, but webbing is generally used for brainstorming ideas about something that has been read and for solving problems in content areas. They are effective memory devices because they translate printed words into vivid visual images of relationships between items that the slower reader may not detect in the text. Brainstorming webs integrate the language components of the brain’s left hemisphere with the visual and spatial talents of the right hemisphere—a “whole brain” approach that is impo
rtant in learning and remembering. Creativity is also an essential component here because the brain’s frontal lobe makes free associations and begins to build a holistic picture from seemingly isolated items. As the process continues, the brain reorganizes concepts into images that can be communicated to others. Thus, brainstorming webs are excellent discussion tools that stimulate higher-order thinking and processing.
Although brainstorming webs involve free associations, they are not unguided activities that just consume time, as some teachers think. Rather, the brainstorming process is always guided by specific questions, such as the following:
• What is the topic to be brainstormed?
• Is the process of brainstorming clear?
• What should be the final product?
Brainstorming webs are usually made individually when a student is mapping out relationships that appear in the content-area reading. When working individually, students produce a wider range of ideas and patterns than when working in a group. They do not have to worry about other people’s opinions and can therefore be more creative.
For problem solving, brainstorming in cooperative learning groups is very effective because it uses the brain power and experiences of everyone in the group. When individual members reach their limit on an idea, another member’s background knowledge or experience may take the idea to another stage. In this manner, group brainstorming tends to produce web diagrams that include more subtle and deeper relationships. Figure 7.7 is an example of a web developed by a cooperative learning group based on some of the characteristics of vertebrates.
READING PATTERNS IN THE CONTENT AREAS