READING COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES

Reading comprehension is an important aspect in all areas of learning. Checking for understanding can be done individually or as a group. ELL students can learn a great deal from the group environment. Through group participation, or a cooperative learning environment, ELL students can learn the English language.

ELL students can benefit from a cooperative learning environment because they are learning the language through interacting with their peers in an educational way, instead of a conversational way. “Interactional processes including negotiation for meaning and various kinds of peer assistance and repair are among the many ways learners gain access to the language being learned” (Gagne & Parks, 2013, p. 189).

The following strategies are all done in a cooperative learning environment because they support dependence among the group and individual accountability. “Individual accountability ensures that all team members are held accountable for contribution to the completion of a task through assigned parts and/or as part of an individual evaluation” (Gagne & Parks, 2013, p. 192).

Numbered Heads Together

Numbered Heads Together is a fun group activity for students to find the meaning of a text or the answer to a question. To do this task, break your class into groups of 4 or 5. You can them ask them questions and cue them to “put their heads together” to find the answer. The group will them work together to find the answer, when everyone is done, you randomly call on a number in each group to have that student answer. “By having students work together in a group, this strategy ensures that each member knows the answer to problems or questions asked by the teacher. Because no one knows which number will be called, all team members must be prepared” (TeacherVision, 2014, p. 1). This strategy is beneficial to ELL students because it helps support their understanding of the material through the discussion with their peers.

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Literature Circles

Literature circles are similar to the fishbowl practice, but they do not contain any observations. In literature circles, small groups of students gather to discuss what they have read and other in-depth details about the text. “Literature circles provide a way for students to engage in critical thinking and reflection as they read, discuss, and respond to books” (Saskatoon Public Schools, 2009, p. 1).

This strategy helps ELL students because they will work with their peers to construct the meaning and understanding of a text. For literature circles, every member has a role. It is important to model each student’s role so they know what is expected of them. One person can lead the discussion of the text, one can be in charge of looking up any vocabulary they do not know, one can be in charge of making connections, one can illustrate the text and one can summarize the text. The point of the circle is to make sure students work together. It is also important to switch the roles so that everyone can be a master at their position.

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Reciprocal Teaching

Reciprocal teaching helps students become proficient in summarizing, questioning, predicting and making connections. ELLs can benefit from this strategy after having multiple exposures to the Fishbowl practice.

In this strategy, you divide your class into groups of four and have them read the selected text. As they read, one student can write down their predictions (predictor) as they listen. After they finish reading, one student will write three main ideas from the text (summarizer), one will write three important questions (questioner), and the last student will write any connections they can make from the text (connector). Over time the students will become skilled at this, but it is important to constantly switch the roles so they all become experts in the four main categories.

For ELL students, it is important to give them more scaffolding and practice to develop the skill, but as long as you model your expectations every time, they should understand what you are asking of them.

The following videos show reciprocal teaching being used in the classroom.

Fishbowl Practice

The Fishbowl practice is similar to Think-Pair-Share in the sense that is allows for greater academic oral language opportunities. The fishbowl practice allows for students to work together and construct a meaning from the text. “As students analyze a text and connect their responses with others', they model peer literature circle discussions” (Sterling, Tohe, & Annenberg Foundation, 2014, p.1).

To use this strategy, you start by picking a few students to create the inner circle. This group of students will hold a conversation inside the larger circle, the remaining students. The inner circle group should consist of students who are good at starting a discussion. The outer circle will observe the discussion and take notes and write questions for the inner circle students. A member of the inner circle or you (the teacher) asks an open-ended question to start the discussion, as the outer circle observes. After the inner circle has ended their discussion, you can invite the outer circle share what they have observed or comment on things they have noticed from the inner circle’s discussion.

The fishbowl practice can benefit more than just finding the meaning of a text. This practice can be done to help clear up any misconceptions and also provides a safe, judgment-free environment for students to express their views. This practice may be better for fourth and fifth graders, but it can be modified to suite the younger grades as well.

The following videos show what the fishbowl practice is and how it is used.

Think-Pair-Share

Think-Pair-Share is “the most basic yet powerful technique for academic oral language development” (Soto-Hinman, 2011, p. 22). To make Think-Pair-Share successful, it is important that you ask the students meaningful open-ended questions instead of one-word responses. This way the students will be able to have a chance to think of a meaningful response.

To begin a Think-Pair-Share, you will ask the students a question and give them a moment to think about what has been asked. After a few moments, you pair them up and have them talk to their partners about the answers they came up with. While the students are paired, they should be comparing their answers with their partners and collaborating to provide one meaningful response. After they have collaborated, you will then have them share their answers with the rest of the class.

For ELL students, the Think-Pair-Share method can help build academic vocabulary when you partner them with an English proficient student. This method is beneficial for both students because they are able to learn from one another as well as build up the confidence of the ELL student’s oral responses.

The following videos discuss how a Think-Pair-Share works and how it is used in the classroom.

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Round Robin

Round Robin is similar to literature circles and reciprocal teaching because it forces students to work together to come up with the answers to questions. You start by dividing the class into groups and asking an open-ended question. After you have given the class time to think of a response, they talk amongst their groups about their answers. One member of the group is the “recorder”, they record their responses first, and then they listen to each member of the group give their responses. This strategy can be done any number of ways, but it is important for ELL students to participate because it gives them more exposure to the English language being used in an academic setting.

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Jigsaw

The Jigsaw strategy is also another technique that can be used across all content areas, but in the case of academic vocabulary and ELL students, this strategy is extremely beneficial. The jigsaw method based on cooperative learning and can benefit ELL students because it allows them to learn from expert groups before going back to their group and sharing their knowledge.

This “technique produces a classroom structure that enables children to cooperate with one another to attain their educational objectives and, simultaneously, to develop important interpersonal skills and a sharp increase in mutual appreciation in an atmosphere that is exciting and challenging rather than threatening or anxiety- producing” (Aronson, 2014, pg. 2).

To employ this method, you must divide your students into 5 or 6 groups and appoint a leader. Then, you must divide your lesson into segments, assigning one segment to each group member. Give the students time to read their segments and then have them break out of their group to join other groups with the same number. For example, all the ones meet together to discuss the first segment, all the twos meet to discuss the second segment, etc. After they discuss their segments, join them back into their original group to discuss all the segments of the lesson. After the group discussion, it is best to give them a quiz so the students learn that this is not a joke and they should be participating at all times.

The following videos give a more in-depth look into the jigsaw method.

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Resources

Aronson, E., & Social Psychology Network (2014). The Jigsaw Classroom: Overview of the Technique. Retrieved from http://www.jigsaw.org/overview.htm.

Gagne, N., & Parks, S. (2013). Cooperative Learning Tasks in a Grade 6 Intensive ESL Class: Role of Scaffolding. Language Teaching Research, 17(2), 188-209.

Saskatoon Public Schools (2009). Instructional Strategies Online-Literature Circles. Retrieved from http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/De/PD/instr/strats/literaturecircles/index.html.

Soto-Hinman, I. (2011). Increasing Academic Oral Language Development: Using English Language Learner Shadowing in Classrooms. Multicultural Education, 18(2), 21-23.

Sterling, S., Tohe, L., & Annenberg Foundation (2014). Teaching Multicultural Literature-Workshop 3-Teaching Strategies-Fishbowl. Retrieved March 26, 2014, from http://www.learner.org/workshops/tml/workshop3/teaching2.html.

TeacherVision. (2014). Numbered heads together cooperative learning strategy. Retrieved from https://www.teachervision.com/group-work/cooperative-learning/48538.html