Reading Comprehension Activities

While almost all of us can read, the speed with which we can read and comprehend what we are reading is very important. Hence, as a teacher, it is very important that you ensure that the students in your class take up reading comprehension as an important subject early on so that they do not face problems as they grow older. Here are some reading comprehension activities that you can use in your class to help increase the interest of the students in the subject. Book Reviews I feel that this is one of the best reading comprehension activities. Here, a student is asked to pick and read a book of their choice. After reading, they have to present a review of the book to the entire class. The review can contain a small recap of the story, but other than that, the students have to speak on their own as to how they felt the book was. They have to provide inputs as to why they felt the book was good or why was it not up the mark. They can also be asked to justify why they would recommend this book to a friend and also if they have learned something from the book. The advantage of this activity is that only the students read the book, they are forced to read it to understand and talk about the book. They have to talk about the book and not about what is in the book. This will also help increase their communication skills and will also provide them the confidence to address their classmates or a gathering. These days, with the advent of the Internet, students belonging to a higher grade can be asked to post their reviews on Amazon or GeoCities. This will help increase their sense of accomplishment. Secret Story Words I read a very interesting activity that was submitted by Janice Roehr to a newsletter. After reading out a story to the class, she writes down names, place and vocabulary words from the story on small pieces of paper and pins them on the backs of the students. The students then wander around the class and ask for clues as to what is pinned on their backs from fellow students who can respond to an answer in either yes or no. Once a student has identified the word, they have to return their seats and write down the significance of the word in the story. This is a brilliant idea that will compel students (the younger the better as they will be more enthusiastic) to listen to every detail in the story. For the students in higher grades, you can select a difficult story with a large number of characters and difficult words. Title Predictions Another interesting activity was submitted by Donna Florek to a newsletter. Before reading out a chapter to the class, she reads out the title of the chapter and encourages the students to predict as to what is going to happen and what questions will be answered in the chapter. The teacher records these on the blackboard and crosses them individually as and when they the predictions come true or the questions are answered. At the end of the chapter the students can discuss as to why some of the predictions did not come true or why some questions were unanswered. For this activity to be a success, it is very important that none of the students have read the book or are aware of the story. This is a great activity that will help ensure that the students are in tune and totally engrossed on the story. This activity can also be followed with the 'Alternative Endings' activity described below. Alternative Endings Another activity that you can introduce in the higher grades is to ask students to come up with alternate endings to a story that they have read with reasons to justify the proposed ending. These will help students focus on the story and also use their imaginations to come up with alternate endings. At the end of the class, you can ask the students to vote if they preferred the alternate ending proposed by a student or were satisfied with the author.

Reading Strategies for Struggling Readers

Are you having problems reading? Is your speed just not fast enough? Well then you need some steps to improve your reading speed. - reading strategies for struggling readers. Have you ever come across a non-reader? Maybe you have heard of phrases like "I hate to read, it's very boring.' or 'I never touch a book that's gargantuan to begin with.' And you probably don't think about it again, relegating it to the simple theorem - 'To each his own'. Let's look at this from the reader's point of view. Do you know that there are some people who struggle with even simple reading, let alone speed reading? You might have experienced this in your school life - students in class who would absolutely struggle through their reading tests. If they were asked to stand up and read in class, they would get nervous and then drag through the piece with a lot of 'umms' and 'errs' much to the annoyance of the teacher. They were left to wonder how it was possible, that while they struggled through the first paragraph of the page, others had finished the entire essay. Now here's what the thing is - people who struggle with their reading have not developed the 'reading strategies' that other 'readers' have, without even realizing it. Therefore there is a need to have effective reading strategies for struggling readers. The good news is that it is possible to have and teach these. Some of the best reading strategies have been developed over the years, and that is what we will be discussing in this article. Reading Strategies - After it is learned that a person (usually a child), has a problem while reading, the most important thing that a parent can do for him/her is to start teaching him these reading strategies as soon as possible. This is because these strategies are most effective when taught at a young age. The degree of difficulty in learning these increases with age. Thus it is most effective when reading strategies are taught and applied at a young age. Reading strategies for the struggling readers can be divided into two parts: Decoding Strategies Comprehension Strategies Decoding Strategies This involves teaching the student phonemic awareness. Which means teaching the students the literal pronunciation of words by breaking them down into bits and pieces. By learning the bits and pieces that make up a whole word, it is possible for readers to be able to pronounce words that are difficult, unfamiliar and long-because they have good phonemic awareness. When a reader skips words or 'fades out' words or uses a wrong pronunciation, or avoids reading completely - there is a need to teach him phonemics. Thus teaching readers the 'sound' of a language (phonemes), becomes very important. After this has been taught, they need to be coached in their use and made to practice. Teaching the students the sounds of the letters helps tremendously when teaching them phonemes. They learn how to pronounce several combinations of these letters and also learn the fact that letters aren't always pronounced the way they look. Readers also compare words that they don't know with familiar words to understand the difference. Thus it is necessary to have a lit of simple and difficult words to 'look' and learn from. One can also use chunking as one of the effective strategies. In this the reader can chunk unfamiliar words. Chunk together parts of a word and then try to pronounce them in parts. Once the entire word has been read in chunks, then try and club the different chunks of the word together to pronounce the entire word. This needs a lot of practice. Comprehension Strategies Comprehension means understanding something. While reading a text, a good reader will subconsciously use comprehension skills, so that when you ask him what the text was about, he will be able to answer it. But a struggling reader does not read to understand, he will simply read a text to get it done with, so when he is asked about the text, he will rarely be able to answer in deep. Comprehension strategies include teaching the stragglers to re-read a text. Not to be confused with simple reading a text again but rather making a deliberate attempt to understand it. This can be made easier if the reader reads the text with a goal in ind-he has to find the answer to a question. So when he reads with an objective, he will pay more attention and learn to read better. Also rephrasing and then stating a text will help them to read better. When a reader who struggles, reads a text and then relates it back in his own words, his entire concentration is on understanding the text to rephrase it. Other Strategies Use different strategies like videos and audio tapes to teach the student phonemes. Let him read a very simple text to a younger class so that he becomes confident. Provide him with a partner who can help him read. Form a 'readers play', where readers will come together and read/perform their texts. They'll make it more interesting by adding costumes, different voices etc to it. Struggling leaders work best when they have one to one training - so try to find a coach for them. Give positive feedback whenever possible and reward them when they are successful, this will help the stay motivated. Make them write out the words and pronounce out loud so that you can correct if wrong. They can also make a note of the word if it looks different and is pronounced different, for better understanding. Start using the decoding and comprehension strategies in daily life, when they learn to use it in daily life, they'll no longer have a block towards them and will learn faster. Even if you know a struggling readers who would probably have difficulty reading through this article, (rather ironic, isn't it?) be sure that it won't be a problem for long. After you've taken tips from these reading strategies, there will be no looking back. So read well and teach better.

Using Textbook Reading Activities

Many language textbooks emphasize product (answers to comprehension questions) over process (using reading skills and strategies to understand the text), providing little or no contextual information about the reading selections or their authors, and few if any pre-reading activities. Newer textbooks may provide pre-reading activities and reading strategy guidance, but their one-size-fits-all approach may or may not be appropriate for your students.

You can use the guidelines for developing reading activities given here as starting points for evaluating and adapting textbook reading activities. Use existing, or add your own, pre-reading activities and reading strategy practice as appropriate for your students. Don't make students do exercises simply because they are in the book; this destroys motivation.

Another problem with textbook reading selections is that they have been adapted to a predetermined reading level through adjustment of vocabulary, grammar, and sentence length. This makes them more immediately approachable, but it also means that they are less authentic and do not encourage students to apply the reading strategies they will need to use outside of class. When this is the case, use the textbook reading selection as a starting point to introduce a writer or topic, and then give students choices of more challenging authentic texts to read as a followup.

Developing Reading Activities

Developing reading activities involves more than identifying a text that is "at the right level," writing a set of comprehension questions for students to answer after reading, handing out the assignment and sending students away to do it. A fully-developed reading activity supports students as readers through prereading, while-reading, and post-reading activities.

As you design reading tasks, keep in mind that complete recall of all the information in a text is an unrealistic expectation even for native speakers. Reading activities that are meant to increase communicative competence should be success oriented and build up students' confidence in their reading ability.

Construct the reading activity around a purpose that has significance for the students

Make sure students understand what the purpose for reading is: to get the main idea, obtain specific information, understand most or all of the message, enjoy a story, or decide whether or not to read more. Recognizing the purpose for reading will help students select appropriate reading strategies.

Define the activity's instructional goal and the appropriate type of response

In addition to the main purpose for reading, an activity can also have one or more instructional purposes, such as practicing or reviewing specific grammatical constructions, introducing new vocabulary, or familiarizing students with the typical structure of a certain type of text.

Check the level of difficulty of the text

The factors listed below can help you judge the relative ease or difficulty of a reading text for a particular purpose and a particular group of students.

How is the information organized? Does the story line, narrative, or instruction conform to familiar expectations? Texts in which the events are presented in natural chronological order, which have an informative title, and which present the information following an obvious organization (main ideas first, details and examples second) are easier to follow.
How familiar are the students with the topic? Remember that misapplication of background knowledge due to cultural differences can create major comprehension difficulties.
Does the text contain redundancy? At the lower levels of proficiency, listeners may find short, simple messages easier to process, but students with higher proficiency benefit from the natural redundancy of authentic language.
Does the text offer visual support to aid in reading comprehension? Visual aids such as photographs, maps, and diagrams help students preview the content of the text, guess the meanings of unknown words, and check comprehension while reading.
Remember that the level of difficulty of a text is not the same as the level of difficulty of a reading task. Students who lack the vocabulary to identify all of the items on a menu can still determine whether the restaurant serves steak and whether they can afford to order one.

Use pre-reading activities to prepare students for reading

The activities you use during pre-reading may serve as preparation in several ways. During pre-reading you may:

Assess students' background knowledge of the topic and linguistic content of the text
Give students the background knowledge necessary for comprehension of the text, or activate the existing knowledge that the students possess
Clarify any cultural information which may be necessary to comprehend the passage
Make students aware of the type of text they will be reading and the purpose(s) for reading
Provide opportunities for group or collaborative work and for class discussion activities
Sample pre-reading activities:

Using the title, subtitles, and divisions within the text to predict content and organization or sequence of information
Looking at pictures, maps, diagrams, or graphs and their captions
Talking about the author's background, writing style, and usual topics
Skimming to find the theme or main idea and eliciting related prior knowledge
Reviewing vocabulary or grammatical structures
Reading over the comprehension questions to focus attention on finding that information while reading
Constructing semantic webs (a graphic arrangement of concepts or words showing how they are related)
Doing guided practice with guessing meaning from context or checking comprehension while reading
Pre-reading activities are most important at lower levels of language proficiency and at earlier stages of reading instruction. As students become more proficient at using reading strategies, you will be able to reduce the amount of guided pre-reading and allow students to do these activities themselves.

Match while-reading activities to the purpose for reading

In while-reading activities, students check their comprehension as they read. The purpose for reading determines the appropriate type and level of comprehension.

When reading for specific information, students need to ask themselves, have I obtained the information I was looking for?
When reading for pleasure, students need to ask themselves, Do I understand the story line/sequence of ideas well enough to enjoy reading this?
When reading for thorough understanding (intensive reading), students need to ask themselves, Do I understand each main idea and how the author supports it? Does what I'm reading agree with my predictions, and, if not, how does it differ? To check comprehension in this situation, students may
Stop at the end of each section to review and check their predictions, restate the main idea and summarize the section
Use the comprehension questions as guides to the text, stopping to answer them as they read

Strategies for Developing Reading Skills

Using Reading Strategies

Language instructors are often frustrated by the fact that students do not automatically transfer the strategies they use when reading in their native language to reading in a language they are learning. Instead, they seem to think reading means starting at the beginning and going word by word, stopping to look up every unknown vocabulary item, until they reach the end. When they do this, students are relying exclusively on their linguistic knowledge, a bottom-up strategy. One of the most important functions of the language instructor, then, is to help students move past this idea and use top-down strategies as they do in their native language.

Effective language instructors show students how they can adjust their reading behavior to deal with a variety of situations, types of input, and reading purposes. They help students develop a set of reading strategies and match appropriate strategies to each reading situation.

Strategies that can help students read more quickly and effectively include

Previewing: reviewing titles, section headings, and photo captions to get a sense of the structure and content of a reading selection
Predicting: using knowledge of the subject matter to make predictions about content and vocabulary and check comprehension; using knowledge of the text type and purpose to make predictions about discourse structure; using knowledge about the author to make predictions about writing style, vocabulary, and content
Skimming and scanning: using a quick survey of the text to get the main idea, identify text structure, confirm or question predictions
Guessing from context: using prior knowledge of the subject and the ideas in the text as clues to the meanings of unknown words, instead of stopping to look them up
Paraphrasing: stopping at the end of a section to check comprehension by restating the information and ideas in the text
Instructors can help students learn when and how to use reading strategies in several ways.

By modeling the strategies aloud, talking through the processes of previewing, predicting, skimming and scanning, and paraphrasing. This shows students how the strategies work and how much they can know about a text before they begin to read word by word.
By allowing time in class for group and individual previewing and predicting activities as preparation for in-class or out-of-class reading. Allocating class time to these activities indicates their importance and value.
By using cloze (fill in the blank) exercises to review vocabulary items. This helps students learn to guess meaning from context.
By encouraging students to talk about what strategies they think will help them approach a reading assignment, and then talking after reading about what strategies they actually used. This helps students develop flexibility in their choice of strategies.
When language learners use reading strategies, they find that they can control the reading experience, and they gain confidence in their ability to read the language.

Reading to Learn

Reading is an essential part of language instruction at every level because it supports learning in multiple ways.

Reading to learn the language: Reading material is language input. By giving students a variety of materials to read, instructors provide multiple opportunities for students to absorb vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, and discourse structure as they occur in authentic contexts. Students thus gain a more complete picture of the ways in which the elements of the language work together to convey meaning.
Reading for content information: Students' purpose for reading in their native language is often to obtain information about a subject they are studying, and this purpose can be useful in the language learning classroom as well. Reading for content information in the language classroom gives students both authentic reading material and an authentic purpose for reading.
Reading for cultural knowledge and awareness: Reading everyday materials that are designed for native speakers can give students insight into the lifestyles and worldviews of the people whose language they are studying. When students have access to newspapers, magazines, and Web sites, they are exposed to culture in all its variety, and monolithic cultural stereotypes begin to break down.
When reading to learn, students need to follow four basic steps:

Figure out the purpose for reading. Activate background knowledge of the topic in order to predict or anticipate content and identify appropriate reading strategies.

Attend to the parts of the text that are relevant to the identified purpose and ignore the rest. This selectivity enables students to focus on specific items in the input and reduces the amount of information they have to hold in short-term memory.

Select strategies that are appropriate to the reading task and use them flexibly and interactively. Students' comprehension improves and their confidence increases when they use top-down and bottom-up skills simultaneously to construct meaning.

Check comprehension while reading and when the reading task is completed. Monitoring comprehension helps students detect inconsistencies and comprehension failures, helping them learn to use alternate strategies.

Goals and Techniques for Teaching Reading

Instructors want to produce students who, even if they do not have complete control of the grammar or an extensive lexicon, can fend for themselves in communication situations. In the case of reading, this means producing students who can use reading strategies to maximize their comprehension of text, identify relevant and non-relevant information, and tolerate less than word-by-word comprehension.

Focus: The Reading Process

To accomplish this goal, instructors focus on the process of reading rather than on its product.

They develop students' awareness of the reading process and reading strategies by asking students to think and talk about how they read in their native language.
They allow students to practice the full repertoire of reading strategies by using authentic reading tasks. They encourage students to read to learn (and have an authentic purpose for reading) by giving students some choice of reading material.
When working with reading tasks in class, they show students the strategies that will work best for the reading purpose and the type of text. They explain how and why students should use the strategies.
They have students practice reading strategies in class and ask them to practice outside of class in their reading assignments. They encourage students to be conscious of what they're doing while they complete reading assignments.
They encourage students to evaluate their comprehension and self-report their use of strategies. They build comprehension checks into in-class and out-of-class reading assignments, and periodically review how and when to use particular strategies.
They encourage the development of reading skills and the use of reading strategies by using the target language to convey instructions and course-related information in written form: office hours, homework assignments, test content.
They do not assume that students will transfer strategy use from one task to another. They explicitly mention how a particular strategy can be used in a different type of reading task or with another skill.
By raising students' awareness of reading as a skill that requires active engagement, and by explicitly teaching reading strategies, instructors help their students develop both the ability and the confidence to handle communication situations they may encounter beyond the classroom. In this way they give their students the foundation for communicative competence in the new language.

Integrating Reading Strategies

Instruction in reading strategies is not an add-on, but rather an integral part of the use of reading activities in the language classroom. Instructors can help their students become effective readers by teaching them how to use strategies before, during, and after reading.

Before reading: Plan for the reading task

Set a purpose or decide in advance what to read for
Decide if more linguistic or background knowledge is needed
Determine whether to enter the text from the top down (attend to the overall meaning) or from the bottom up (focus on the words and phrases)
During and after reading: Monitor comprehension

Verify predictions and check for inaccurate guesses
Decide what is and is not important to understand
Reread to check comprehension
Ask for help
After reading: Evaluate comprehension and strategy use

Evaluate comprehension in a particular task or area
Evaluate overall progress in reading and in particular types of reading tasks
Decide if the strategies used were appropriate for the purpose and for the task
Modify strategies if necessary
Using Authentic Materials and Approaches

For students to develop communicative competence in reading, classroom and homework reading activities must resemble (or be) real-life reading tasks that involve meaningful communication. They must therefore be authentic in three ways.

1. The reading material must be authentic: It must be the kind of material that students will need and want to be able to read when traveling, studying abroad, or using the language in other contexts outside the classroom.

When selecting texts for student assignments, remember that the difficulty of a reading text is less a function of the language, and more a function of the conceptual difficulty and the task(s) that students are expected to complete. Simplifying a text by changing the language often removes natural redundancy and makes the organization somewhat difficult for students to predict. This actually makes a text more difficult to read than if the original were used.

Rather than simplifying a text by changing its language, make it more approachable by eliciting students' existing knowledge in pre-reading discussion, reviewing new vocabulary before reading, and asking students to perform tasks that are within their competence, such as skimming to get the main idea or scanning for specific information, before they begin intensive reading.

2. The reading purpose must be authentic: Students must be reading for reasons that make sense and have relevance to them. "Because the teacher assigned it" is not an authentic reason for reading a text.

To identify relevant reading purposes, ask students how they plan to use the language they are learning and what topics they are interested in reading and learning about. Give them opportunities to choose their reading assignments, and encourage them to use the library, the Internet, and foreign language newsstands and bookstores to find other things they would like to read.

3. The reading approach must be authentic: Students should read the text in a way that matches the reading purpose, the type of text, and the way people normally read. This means that reading aloud will take place only in situations where it would take place outside the classroom, such as reading for pleasure. The majority of students' reading should be done silently.

Reading Aloud in the Classroom

Students do not learn to read by reading aloud. A person who reads aloud and comprehends the meaning of the text is coordinating word recognition with comprehension and speaking and pronunciation ability in highly complex ways. Students whose language skills are limited are not able to process at this level, and end up having to drop one or more of the elements. Usually the dropped element is comprehension, and reading aloud becomes word calling: simply pronouncing a series of words without regard for the meaning they carry individually and together. Word calling is not productive for the student who is doing it, and it is boring for other students to listen to.

There are two ways to use reading aloud productively in the language classroom. Read aloud to your students as they follow along silently. You have the ability to use inflection and tone to help them hear what the text is saying. Following along as you read will help students move from word-by-word reading to reading in phrases and thought units, as they do in their first language.
Use the "read and look up" technique. With this technique, a student reads a phrase or sentence silently as many times as necessary, then looks up (away from the text) and tells you what the phrase or sentence says. This encourages students to read for ideas, rather than for word recognition.

Teaching Reading

Traditionally, the purpose of learning to read in a language has been to have access to the literature written in that language. In language instruction, reading materials have traditionally been chosen from literary texts that represent "higher" forms of culture.

This approach assumes that students learn to read a language by studying its vocabulary, grammar, and sentence structure, not by actually reading it. In this approach, lower level learners read only sentences and paragraphs generated by textbook writers and instructors. The reading of authentic materials is limited to the works of great authors and reserved for upper level students who have developed the language skills needed to read them.

The communicative approach to language teaching has given instructors a different understanding of the role of reading in the language classroom and the types of texts that can be used in instruction. When the goal of instruction is communicative competence, everyday materials such as train schedules, newspaper articles, and travel and tourism Web sites become appropriate classroom materials, because reading them is one way communicative competence is developed. Instruction in reading and reading practice thus become essential parts of language teaching at every level.

Reading Purpose and Reading Comprehension

Reading is an activity with a purpose. A person may read in order to gain information or verify existing knowledge, or in order to critique a writer's ideas or writing style. A person may also read for enjoyment, or to enhance knowledge of the language being read. The purpose(s) for reading guide the reader's selection of texts.

The purpose for reading also determines the appropriate approach to reading comprehension. A person who needs to know whether she can afford to eat at a particular restaurant needs to comprehend the pricing information provided on the menu, but does not need to recognize the name of every appetizer listed. A person reading poetry for enjoyment needs to recognize the words the poet uses and the ways they are put together, but does not need to identify main idea and supporting details. However, a person using a scientific article to support an opinion needs to know the vocabulary that is used, understand the facts and cause-effect sequences that are presented, and recognize ideas that are presented as hypotheses and givens.

Reading research shows that good readers

Read extensively
Integrate information in the text with existing knowledge
Have a flexible reading style, depending on what they are reading
Are motivated
Rely on different skills interacting: perceptual processing, phonemic processing, recall
Read for a purpose; reading serves a function
Reading as a Process

Reading is an interactive process that goes on between the reader and the text, resulting in comprehension. The text presents letters, words, sentences, and paragraphs that encode meaning. The reader uses knowledge, skills, and strategies to determine what that meaning is.

Reader knowledge, skills, and strategies include

Linguistic competence: the ability to recognize the elements of the writing system; knowledge of vocabulary; knowledge of how words are structured into sentences
Discourse competence: knowledge of discourse markers and how they connect parts of the text to one another
Sociolinguistic competence: knowledge about different types of texts and their usual structure and content
Strategic competence: the ability to use top-down strategies (see Strategies for Developing Reading Skills for descriptions), as well as knowledge of the language (a bottom-up strategy)
The purpose(s) for reading and the type of text determine the specific knowledge, skills, and strategies that readers need to apply to achieve comprehension. Reading comprehension is thus much more than decoding. Reading comprehension results when the reader knows which skills and strategies are appropriate for the type of text, and understands how to apply them to accomplish the reading purpose.

Material was drawn from “Reading in the beginning and intermediate college foreign language class” by Heidi Byrnes, in Modules for the professional preparation of teaching assistants in foreign languages (Grace Stovall Burkart, ed.; Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1998)

Group Investigation

Group Investigation has a strong foundation in John Dewey's philosophy of education where he believed that the students would have experienced meaningful learning if they have been exposed to the stages of scientific inquiry. So, this would help students "learn how to learn" (Sharan & Sharan, 1992). However, it is equally important to create a cooperative learning environment that involves interaction among students, interpretation of information and findings as well as intrinsic motivation where students are motivated to take an active role in determining what and how they will learn so that Group Investigation can then be effective.

Learning...
 Students have a role in implementing the learning tasks from the start.
 Communication and cooperation between students is necessary.
 Students also take a role in evaluating the final project.

Teaching...
 The teacher does not dispense the knowledge.
 The teacher’s role is to guide and offer advice.

Dimensions in the Group Investigation Model
 Topics must be general enough to encompass a number of subtopics.
 The subtopics must constitute a level of challenge that requires its own independent group.
 There must be frequent interaction and integration of work between groups.
 The teacher must create an environment where all this can take place.

Employment of the Model
 The teacher selects a general topic.
 Brainstorming is done with the whole group or class.

Students should answer...
 What shall we study?
 How do we study it?
 For what purpose are we studying it?
 How will we share the knowledge we gain?


Organization of the Class
 Students join a group of their choice. The teacher may need to offer advice to keep the groups a manageable size.
 Students decide how the various groups will interact with each other.
 Students organize the classroom itself to facilitate their needs.

Small Group
 Groups set goals and identify subtopics that will be addressed.
 Groups divide the tasks among its members.

Carrying Out the Investigation
 Students put their plans to work, collecting information, analyzing it, and drawing conclusions.
 This often takes longer than planned, but should be allowed as long as students are working productively.

Preparing the Final Product
 Within a group, it must be decided how to present their information to the others.
 Planning must also take place between groups to decide how their presentations will be coordinated.

Effectiveness
 In 1984, a large scale study was done to study the effectiveness of Group Investigations and Student-Teams Academic Divisions.
 Both models showed slightly higher scores on low-level questions over whole-class instruction.
 Group Investigation showed significantly higher scores on questions requiring complex thinking skills.

Disadvantages-
 Gifted students often end up doing all the work in a heterogeneous group.
 Students sometimes are not taught social skills prior to the implication of the model.
 Teachers sometimes are not extremely flexible.

Advantages
 Students can find unlimited resources with a single computer and internet service.
 Students could possibly interact with other groups through distance learning.
 Sights and sounds are available at the click of a button to enhance any presentation.

Some Online References
 http://intranet.cps.k12.il.us/Training/Courses/DOS/Technology_Integration/Activity_3_TI_Class/Small_Group_Investigation/small_group_investigation.html
 http://www.ucc.uconn.edu/~wwwgt./robinsoa.html
 http://cal.bradley.edu/HyperNews/get/forums/ETE653/58.html

PWIM -picture word Induction model

PWIM is a fun, interactive way to teach your child(ren) to read and write. This program uses pictures to help students build sight vocabulary as well as learn phonics rules. PWIM is an inquiry-oriented language arts strategy that uses pictures containing familiar objects and actions to obtain words from children’s listening and speaking vocabularies. Teachers use the PWIM with classes, small groups, and individuals to lead them into inquiring about words, adding words to their sight-reading and writing vocabularies, discovering phonetic and structural principles, and using observations and analysis in their study of reading.

Here’s how it works:

1. Find a poster that relates to a topic you are studying or will be studying.
2. Have your child(ren) find or name the words of things, actions, adjectives on the poster.
3. Write the words beside the picture and spell out loud with your child(ren).
4. Spell the words out loud daily with your child(ren).
5. From there, have your child(ren) write sentences about the poster using words from the picture.
6. Writing assignments can then be generated.

Other key points:

A poster can last as long as you wish (one week, two weeks, etc.)

Have students group words according to attributes (eg. book, cook, hook—all have double “o’s”, all end with “k”. Enclosed in this newsletter is a list of some attributes


Calhoun, Emily. (1999).
Teaching Beginning Reading and Writing with the Picture Word Inductive Model. ASCD: Alexandria, VA.

PWIM: Picture Word Inductive Model

PWIM: Picture Word Inductive Model

Phonics , spelling, sight words, word analysis, writing process
(whole group activity)

- Developed by Emily Calhoun (1999)

- PWIM is an inductive model of teaching (picture-word, categories-concepts)
- Making generalizations, students learn the conventions of the language

- PWIM can be used effectively in mono or bilingual literacy instruction

- Starts from the speaking and listening vocabulary


PWIM Moves

1. Select a picture

2. Shake out words

3. See, say, spell

4. Prepare cards

5. Students read the cards

6. Students categorize and classify words

7. Ongoing assessment identify needs

8. Students dictate titles

9. Students classify titles

10. Students dictate sentences

11. Students categorize

12. Teachers model

13. Students read paragraphs

14. Students write Paragraphs

15. Formative assessment


Rationale

1. Source of information and visual of vocabulary to be studied

2. Sight words are from the listening and speaking vocabularies

3. Words are recognized by how they are spelled, provides repetition

4. Material for the study of words

5. Develops independent skills

6. Students form concepts by studying attributes,

7. Celebrate successes, to guide instruction

8. Develops synthesizing skills

9. Students work on content

10. Students develop research skills

11. Students inquire into how sentences are constructed

12. Provides models for writing how to write a paragraph

13. Extensive reading

14. Extensive writing

15. Assessment guides instruction

Models of Teaching

What are Models of Teaching?

Prescriptive strategies to guide planning and instruction.
Supported by research based-evidence.
Provide common language to discuss facets of instruction common across all classrooms among administrators and teachers.

Conceptual frameworks grouped by purpose and intended outcomes into 4 families.
Promote awareness about how individuals and collective faculty teach.
Helps students learn how to learn.
Eliminates differences due to gender, race/ethnicity, socio-economic status.
Increases probability of learning certain skills/knowledge.

Models of Teaching

Detailed overview of how to teach
Role of instructor
Type of classroom structure
Ways teacher supports student efforts

FAMILIES OF TEACHING MODELS

INFORMATION-PROCESSING FAMILY

Enhances making sense of new information.
Help students learn how to construct knowledge.

Information-processing models: An example

Fifth grade students seated around a center. Sally Bell, the teacher, lights a candle and places a jar with 4 inch circumference over the candle. The candle burns out.
She repeats this exercise several times with jars of varying circumference and places them over lighted candles.
she tells students, “Now we are going to develop some ideas about what just happened.”

SOCIAL FAMILY
Uses group inquiry and problem-solving strategies.
Encourages assimilation and understanding.
Relies on students’ personal and social values.

Social models: An example

In Ms. Charles 11th grade class, the class begins with a videotape of a court room scene. A mother is fighting to prevent a father from having time together with their 10 year old daughter. Parents have joint custody.
As the case proceeds Ms. Charles asks students to document the “issues” and their “questions.”
Following the tape, the students describe issues, defend positions and ask questions.

PERSONAL FAMILY

Emphasizes self-actualizing, self-awareness, directing destinies.
Exploration and reflection about goals or future careers.

Personal models: An example
Mr. Peter 7th grade students enter Language Arts classroom on first day of school. As they take their seats, Peter tells them to write about what they want to be when they grow up and asks the students to explain why.
After about 30 minutes, students share essays aloud. As students read, Peter asks them what skills they think they will need to enter chosen professions.

BEHAVIORAL FAMILY
Develop mastery in subject matter or skills acquisition.
Seeks specific behavioral changes.
Measurable outcomes.

Behavioral models: An example

Lilly Adams 3th grade students arrive to class and found a quiz on their desks.
Students are given 100, 1 by 1 digit multiplication problems. Adams tells them to complete as many correctly in 5 minutes are they can.

Explicit use of teaching models can accelerate rate of learning, capacity and facility in learning.

TEACHER BENEFITS

Improves the quality of instruction.
Systematic approach to planning for instruction.
Facilitates awareness about students’ learning needs.
Assess impact of instruction.
Offers alternative ways of representing content/skills.
Develop learning experiences that yield successful outcomes.
Facilitates student engagement in more meaningful ways.

STUDENT BENEFITS

Increases aptitude for learning and retention.
Learn more rapidly.
Facilitates different kinds of learning.
Builds academic self-esteem.
Acknowledges characteristics and aptitudes.
Promotes student awareness of how they will be taught and what changes are sought.

Caveats
Do not replace pedagogical expertise
subject matter knowledge
creativity
interpersonal skills
No model is effective for everyone
Some methods increase or diminish desired outcomes

WHY USE MODELS OF TEACHING?

Meet learning needs of heterogeneous groups.
Varied outcomes, different levels of sophistication.
Repertoire of approaches.

Questions for Critical Reflection

What models do you use during instruction?
What other approaches do you want to use?

References
Joyce, B., Weil, M., & Calhoun, E. (2004). Models of Teaching. 7th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.

Teaching Models

Teaching Models (from Joyce et al, 2000)
Methods for implementation

The social models

These models emphasize our social nature and how social interactions can enhance academic learning. The social contexts in which knowledge is constructed is emphasized. The focus is on developing a community of learners, resolving conflicts, negotiating meanings and cooperating to complete set tasks. Some of these methods may be difficult to implement practically in large lectures, although the use of these methods can be demonstrated.
Better suited to small group sessions (lab, tutorial etc.)
. group investigations
• role plays
• jurisprudential inquiry
• case studies
• utilising learning styles
• cooperative learning

The information processing models

The information processing (IP) models emphasize the development of the mind: namely reasoning and problem-solving skills. Teaching students how to think and learn is seen as a major goal. Students are encouraged to reason causally and master complex bodies of concepts by generating, analysing, applying and evaluating information. The generation and use of analogies and metaphors is also common. Some IP methods are difficult to implement in large lectures and are more suited to smaller groups.
• induction (data collection and hypotheses testing)
• inferential/Socratic method
Other IP methods can be used equally well with large groups as with smaller ones. Some may need to be modified or simplified for larger groups.
• concept attainment
• mnemonics & metacognition
• synectics
• advanced organisers

The personal models

These models see the student as central to his or her learning process. They emphasize the ways in which individuals create their own internal environment. Personality, self-esteem and self-concept are seen as crucial influences on learning. The goal is to enhance the mental and emotional health of students in order to generate learning needs and aspirations. The teacher is seen as a facilitator. Impossible to fully implement in large lectures, however may be demonstrated in a modified or incomplete way; for example, the use of divergent and creative thinking exercises.

Best suited to smaller groups (tutorials, etc) where one-to-one relationships can develop and activities can be monitored closely and followed through.
• student-teacher partnerships
• non-directive work contracts
• student-defined problem solving
• modelling growth (and self-actualising behaviours)

The behavioural models

These models see students as a collection of learned behaviours. As such, behaviours can be learned and behaviours that don’t work well can be ‘unlearned’. These models also emphasize reinforcement schedules. Desired responses and behaviours need to be rewarded if they are to re-occur in students. Learning goals are generally individualised and discrete. Self-paced learning is valued and encouraged. Criteria for assessment and standards are rigid and objective. Most suitable (and common) of all the models for large classes including large lectures. Excessive use of these models in small group work (tutorials, etc) is probably wasteful since it is important to use small group sessions to apply the other models.

However, small group work may require some amount of direct instruction and training etc., especially in lab and prac situations.
• direct instruction
• training & simulations
• programmed instruction
• self-instruction (e.g. self-paced study kits or workbooks)