A Cognitive, Social and Intellectual Phenomenon?

Emerging from an idyllic holiday with family and friends over the Christmas and New Year, I’m feeling more energised than I have for a long time. I’ve decided to revisit my neglected blog before diving into plans for the new academic year in Queensland – January 2023.

At the time of writing my previous post, I was just beginning a new teaching program in the library where I focused explicitly on reading comprehension. Six months on, I feel it is worth reflecting upon this before launching into this year’s program, where Mrs HOC and I have agreed that it’s time to focus on digital literacies.

For now, let’s back-track. I promised that I would share my synthesis of readings, then share some practical ideas and some useful links. Today, I will share a somewhat hurried synthesis of what I have been reading…

What is comprehension?

Most succinctly, Oakley G. (2022, p.6) describes it as “The construction of a coherent mental representation of the text.” Chiang H. et al. (2017) detail two subcategories: listening comprehension (understanding spoken language) and reading comprehension (the ability to identify the main point, interpret a passage, connect it to their background knowledge, and evaluate). The authors highlight the close connection between the two.  Lastly, Luke A. et al (2011) highlight the social aspect, describing comprehension as seeking meaning and making sense of social worlds. They describe a deeper kind of comprehension: a cognitive and social and intellectual phenomenon. There is a broad consensus that comprehension is the goal of reading.

The literacy continuum (an Education Queensland resource) lists and describes active comprehension strategies that “build in complexity as students progress through the clusters”. I found Sheena Cameron’s strategy toolbox most useful. Research based, the nine strategies aligned with my own readings, with the Literacy Continuum, and with the Australian Curriculum. They are presented in child-friendly language and come with a host of lesson ideas and resources to springboard from:

• Activating prior knowledge
• Self-monitoring
• Predicting
• Visualising
• Making connections
• Questioning
• Inferring
• Synthesising
• Summarising

It’s worth noting at this point, Oakley’s five components of comprehension, because they move the discussion toward an ever-increasing need for children to learn comprehension of multimodal texts:

• Recognising
• Path-choosing
• Making meaning
• Critiquing
• Responding

It’s interesting to see how these five components align with the strategies required for traditional print. I won’t go any further with that in today’s post however, as I have some more posts coming up that will delve into my 2023 journey with digital literacies.

I’ll conclude this snapshot of my readings with Luke A et al.’s words of wisdom: reading comprehension instruction needs to be explicit and direct within a content-based approach, and that the reading material needs to be “culturally relevant and intellectually demanding” (2017, p9).

In my next blog post, I look forward to sharing with you my personal reflections on the past six months of teaching reading comprehension to a range of ages and ability levels, from Preps (age 5) to Year 4s (age 9). Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and please feel welcome to respond with a comment or question.

Bibliography

Armstrong, R. M., Barton, G. M., Westerveld, M. F. (2020). Reading Success in the Primary Years: An Evidence-Based Interdisciplinary Approach to Guide Assessment and Intervention. Singapore: Springer Singapore. https://www.google.com.au/books/edition/Reading_Success_in_the_Primary_Years/CjPnDwAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0

Cameron, S., Murray, M., Hull, K., & Cameron, J. (2012). Engaging fluent readers using literature circles. Literacy Learning : The Middle Years, 20(1).

Carroll, J. (2020). Inferential comprehension requires explicit teaching. Practical Literacy: The Early and Primary Years, 25(1), 41–43.

Catts, Hugh W. (2022) Rethinking How to Promote Reading Comprehension. American Educator, v45 n4 p26-33, 40.

Chiang, H., Walsh, E., Shanahan, T., Gentile, C., Maccarone, A., Waits, T., . . . Rikoon, S. (2017). An exploration of instructional practices that foster language development and comprehension: Evidence from prekindergarten through grade 3 in title I schools. NCEE 2017-4024. ().National Center for Education Evaluation and Regional Assistance, Available from: ED Pubs. P.O. Box 1398, Jessup, MD 20794-1398.

Daly, A. (2015). Relating students’ spoken language and reading comprehension. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 38(3), 193–204.

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension for understanding and engagement. Stenhouse Publishers.

Kucer, S. B. (2014). What retellings can tell us about the nature of reading comprehension in school children. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 37(1), 31–44.

Luke, A., Dooley, K. & Woods, A. Comprehension and content: planning literacy in low socioeconomic and culturally diverse schools. Aust. Educ. Res. 38, 149–166 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13384-011-0021-0

Oakley, G. (2022). Assessing the comprehension of multimodal text. Practical Literacy: The Early and Primary Years, 27(1), 6–8

Ranker, J. (2014). The role of semiotic resource complexes in emergent multimodal reading processes : insights from a young student’s reading of a comic book. The Australian Journal of Language and Literacy, 37(3), 151–160.