Comprehension of Skill Development Strategies

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American College of Education *

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5193

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Communications

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Apr 3, 2024

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1 Comprehension of Skill Development Strategies Jenna Hassett American College of Education LIT5193: Integrating Secondary Literacy and ELA Concepts Dr. Keith Higa October 21, 2022

2 Introduction In an English language arts class, comprehension is one of the most fundamental concepts that all students must be familiar with in order to succeed. When students become skilled readers, they are able to make inferences during the comprehension process. Inference occurs when students combine prior knowledge with evidence from the text to reach a conclusion. The relationship between comprehension and the ability to infer is strong, with inferences leading to higher levels of understanding a text (Cain and Oakhill, 2001). In this assignment, the educator will be exploring strategies used to teach inferences by looking at research, examples of the skill being taught, and evaluating the strategies based on their effectiveness to support students in developing the skill. Comprehension of Skill Development Strategies Making inferences while reading must be taught in direct ways, as well as indirect ways. While inference is one type of comprehension skill, it is incorporated into most reading strategies and lessons. For example, a lesson might be focused on finding the theme of the text after the reading is completed, but making inferences throughout will help guide students to finding a theme. One strategy that has been shown to help students infer information is modeling. When teachers model a skill or strategy, they are demonstrating their thought process while interacting with the text. Modeling provides students with the thoughts and actions that will lead them to being successful with a particular skill or concept (Shunck, 2003). Modeling the process of inferring information typically involves the teacher thinking aloud and pausing to ask questions. For example, a question while reading might be “Why do we think the character made this decision? What other factors might have led them to this decision?” The answers to the questions

3 are not directly stated in the text, but rather students are using what they know about the character, the text itself, and prior knowledge and experiences to determine an answer. Another strategy to teach students how to make inferences is designing well-crafted questions for them to answer before, during, and after reading. One method of this involves using Bloom’s Taxonomy of learning to determine the level and order of questions asked. With this method, the teacher should be asking a combination of lower and higher level questions, with the majority of questions being the latter (Tofade, Elsner, and Haines, 2013). For example, the teacher might ask students to describe the setting of the text, which is a lower level question because the information is directly stated in the text and students are demonstrating their ability to understand. Then the teacher might ask students how the setting has impacted the main character’s lifestyle. This is a higher level question because the answer is not directly stated and requires students to think critically about the text. A third strategy that supports students in making inferences is building background knowledge before reading a text. The process of building background knowledge looks different depending on the class and teacher. Before reading a text, the teacher might show a video that gives insight on the time period when the text is taking place, they might read a shorter mentor text on the same topic, or explore vocabulary that will be seen in the text in order to increase student understanding. As previously mentioned, making inferences relies on what students already know. Therefore, if students are going into a text or lesson with more background knowledge, they will be able to make more inferences and think more critically about the text. Exploring Teaching Inferences via The Internet

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