LogoScience IDEAS Project: 2002-2009

Science IDEAS Elements
Reading Comprehension

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A key element of the Science IDEAS Model is a teacher-guided strategy that addresses student reading comprehension. The primary focus of this strategy is to develop student consistency in enhancing their comprehension of what they are reading by relating it to prior knowledge they have gained previously. This is something that expert readers do automatically. The purpose of the Science IDEAS Reading Comprehension Strategy is to guide students to enhance the comprehension of what they read by guiding them to approach comprehension in the same manner as an expert reader.

The strategy is implemented through a series of steps applied to science reading materials across the school year. The first step is applied to materials being read, with the following steps applied (with teacher guidance) to the same material. Eventually, as students are able to apply the strategy, only more advanced steps of the strategy are applied to new materials until students are able to use the strategy without being prompted.

Some specific studies reporting the effectiveness of the strategy are in the attached reference list.

An overview of the Reading Comprehension Element follows.

Teacher Preparation to Apply the Reading Comprehension Strategy

Teacher reads through the entire selection and develops “knowledge notes” relevant to comprehension of the passage.

  • Reads/previews the passage to be read. As material is read, identify prior knowledge that makes specific concepts/parts of the passage understandable are identified (including headings, subheadings, text pictures, illustrations, and graphics) and write on post-it notes stuck to margins of page(s) to link prior knowledge to specific concepts/passage elements.
  • For each prior knowledge element identified on a post-it note, transform prior knowledge identified into questions (i.e., knowledge-notes) that could guide students to refer prior knowledge to enhance comprehension.

Introduction of Science IDEAS Reading Comprehension Strategy

Teacher applies the three-step strategy reads through the entire selection and develops “knowledge notes” relevant to comprehension of the passage.

  1. Initial use of passage (whole class or small group)

    Step 1

    1. Individual students are selected to read the passage on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis
    2. As a student reads, the teacher interrupts the reading process whenever a concept/passage element which has knowledge note
    3. In Step 1, the teacher models the reference to prior knowledge by asking and answering the knowledge note question as something that enhances comprehension. The Step 1 process is continued throughout the entire passage.
    4. As the story is read, the teacher guides students to cumulatively summarize the passage on a paragraph-by-paragraph basis.

    Step 2

    The same process in Step 1 is followed in re-reading the story with the exception that the teacher uses the knowledge note questions to have students answer the questions asked.

    Step 3

    The same process in Step 2 is followed in re-reading the story with the exception that the teacher uses the knowledge note questions to ask students what prior knowledge would make the concepts/passage elements more understandable.

  2. Evolution of the use of the strategy across the school year (whole class or small group)

    As students are guided by teachers in reading passages early in the school year, the Step 1-Step 2-Step 3 sequence is followed for all stories.

    As the school year progresses, the teacher skips Step 1 and begins with Step 2 followed by Step 3 (as above).

    Finally, as the school year progresses and as students are able to apply the strategy, the teacher only applies Step 3.

As a result of using the strategy, students become able to consider relating their prior knowledge to what is being read as a key element of reading with comprehension.

Although the major emphasis in Science IDEAS has been to use this strategy for reading comprehension, it is also applied less formally across a variety of different learning tasks to emphasize cumulative knowledge development.

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