How do we teach the Language Comprehension strand of Scarborough's Reading Rope?

To be skilled readers students need to be proficient in both the Word Recognition strand (phonemic awareness, decoding, letter-sound knowledge, orthographic mapping) but also the Language Comprehension strand. Efficient reading cannot be achieved without both. Children need to be developing their decoding skills at the same time as their language is developing and be provided with higher-level fiction and non fiction texts, content, syntax and language, than they are able to read themselves.

So how do we do this?

Every day, within the literacy block, there is 30 minutes of explicitly teaching the alphabetic code and a further 30 minutes is based on the language comprehension side of things. This is where teachers read high quality fiction and non-fiction texts TO the children for the whole class, where students are being explicitly taught higher level (Tier 2 and Tier 3) vocabulary, language structures and building critical background knowledge.

Why is this so important?

As children are in the early stages of learning to read, in a structured literacy approach, students are explicitly taught the alphabetic code in a sequential, systematic approach to letter- sound correspondences. They are taught that individual sounds can be blended to words to read and that words can be segmented into individual sounds (phonemes) to spell. They are taught this explicitly with the support of decodable text that provides opportunities to practice the skills learnt. Students are provided with decodable books that support their reading journey.

However, as we know, students need to be proficient in both Word Recognition and Language comprehension and if we only focus on the Word Recognition strand, students will not be able to comprehend what they read because the vocabulary and syntax will be too advanced.?

This is the same situation for a child that takes longer than their peers to grasp decoding or a child with a diagnosis of dyslexia. The child must still provided opportunities to access high level content and skills like verbal reasoning, inference and explicit teaching of high level vocabulary in a supported and oral context; so that when the gap has closed in terms of decoding, the child will still be able to access age appropriate language structures to comprehend texts read.

What are some high impact approaches for building language comprehension

Teacher Read Alouds:

Teacher read alouds are an instructional practice where teachers read to the students texts that are of a higher complexity than what students can read. In the older years, this may also consist of a novel, which may also be read by the students as they follow along. The benefits of read-alouds are many because teachers can expose students to high level vocabulary, grammar structures, that they would not have had the opportunity to encounter in texts read at their own reading level. The Australian Reading Spine has some excellent examples of texts to read to children based on age:?link here?and the International Literacy Association has another literature spine that is worth a look?link here

Choral Reading:

Choral reading is an evidence-based approach to all students in the classroom reading aloud in unison. The benefits here are that even the less experienced readers have the opportunity to read out loud in a supportive environment because the whole class are reading. This is a great strategy also for building reading fluency, with prosody (expression), as students are reading along with their teacher with an interactive whiteboard or text, which is modelling skilled reading.

Repeated Reading:

Repeated reading has been identified as a highly effective approach, with an effect size of 0.67 (Fisher, Frey and Hattie, 2017) for building reading fluency in readers that have already grasped the alphabetic principle. This can be done as a whole class following on with a short passage of either fiction or non-fiction, or can be done in mixed ability pairs. This process is repeated 3-4 times with the students (or weaker readers) listening to the teacher or stronger reader read the passage, which is then read by the students or weaker reader. It is recommended these passages are between 50-250 words in length so that the students can hold the pattern of the fluent reading modelled for them in their working memory.

?Explicit teaching of time connectives to improve language complexity:

It is really important that we explicitly teach the meanings of time connectives as they can completely change the meaning of a text and derail the comprehending process. For example,?and?and?also- have an additive form;?before, after?and?meanwhile?refer to time;?because?and?so?have a causal effect; and?but, although?and??have?have a contrast effect on a sentence. An excellent way to teach this is through sentence combining of two simple sentences with one connective to combine them. Eg Paul went for a swim. (because/so/while) He was hot. Which connectives make sense?

Mixed ability pairs for cooperative learning and scaffolding:

During literacy lessons, it is important we are building in ample opportunities for oral language. This can be achieved through simple cooperative learning activities such as Think, Pair Share and using mini whiteboards through a lesson in mixed ability pairs. The impact of this is significant for our students that may be experiencing difficulties as they have a partner at a higher level of ability. This is particularly important also for our EALD students.

Explicit vocabulary instruction:

A varied and large vocabulary base is essential for successful?reading comprehension. It is recommended that we are explicitly teaching 10 words that are considered Tier 2 and Tier 3?(words of higher level complexity and subject specific vocabulary, respectively), in order for students to know the amount of words that are required to be proficient readers.?

Content level instruction in unit blocks to build background knowledge:

Teaching literacy through two?week literacy blocks is a high impact approach to teaching a range of topics to build domain knowledge essential for background knowledge in comprehending texts?in the later years. Although this takes a little bit of time to get started in the school, the first step would be to map out the cross curricular topics across the year and backward map the topics that can be taught in an explicit approach in literacy. The best thing is that in time it can free up some of the very busy timetable as much of the non-fiction content is being covered in the literacy block. Year Overview planner example?here

Questioning the Author approach for high level reading comprehension:

Questioning the Author is an evidence based content approach to building reading comprehension. Based on the work of Beck, McKeown and Sandora, it is a powerful approach for enhancing reading comprehension and engagement. Throughout their book, there are examples of how to unpack a text before reading to students and identify places that may confuse students, while also preparing open ended 'queries' that guides discussion about the text. The reasoning behind this approach is that often by the time students have finished listening to a text, at some point along the way, their meaning has been lost, so completing comprehension tasks after the reading, is often a wasted opportunity. I highly recommend their text: Robust Comprehension Instruction with Questioning the Author.?

Reading comprehension strategy instruction including summarisation, inference and question generation:

Reading strategy instruction research over the past 20 years has debunked the need for endless strategy instruction. In fact, beyond 15 hours of strategy instruction is unnecessary according to some researchers. However, students do benefit from explicit teaching in the skills of summarisation, inferencing and?generating questions about a text while reading. These skills have high effect sizes in improving reading comprehension.

What about the older primary years?

The fundamental ideas of the reading rope apply to all primary year levels because it is not until approximately Year 8 during the proficient reader phase that the?reading comprehension is comparable to a student's?listening comprehension. Up until this point, students still need to be exposed to higher level texts than they are comfortable reading to ensure we are continuing to build background knowledge, sophisticated knowledge of syntax and Tier 3 vocabulary. This can be done through class novels, news articles and non-fiction content.

What about if a child is struggling with the language comprehension?

When it comes to intervention, sometimes a students struggles stem from the language comprehension side of things, rather than the word recognition strand; although many students that have difficulties, experience both. The challenge for us is to ensure our intervention approaches address both if this is the case.

An excellent intervention recommended by David Kilpatrick for addressing language comprehension difficulties is the 'Developing Language and Literacy Program- Effective Interventions in the early Years'?by Carroll, Bowyer-Crane, Duff, Hulme & Snowling, 2011.?It is identified as a comprehensive program for improving?both word-level reading and language comprehension difficulties.

In summary

Language comprehension is an essential aspect of the literacy block,?in developing successful readers. When we consider that by the time our students come to school, there is a difference of 290,000 words each child has been exposed?by the age of five,?depending on if they have not been read to at all, or if they have been read 1 book per?day from birth. This?leaves a huge task for us as educators to close the gap between?each child's literature and?language experiences.?A significant part of this solution is to implement engaging, high impact language comprehension approaches from the first day of school.

I?would love to hear how your school teaches the language comprehension strand of the rope!

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