Professional Literature

The goal of the article, Reading Comprehension, by Fiske, Kendeou, McMaster, and

Christ, was to evaluate the difficulties that plague readers while striving for

comprehension, and suggest meaningful interventions as well as appropriate assessments.

In the introduction, Fiske et al. point out the unacceptable educational disparities that are

seen between expected performance and the reality of students performance results

regarding reading comprehension (2016, p. 62). They explain that this is a problem

because students who struggle with reading comprehension are likely to continue to

struggle in their education (2016). Fiske et al. also pointed out that reading comprehension

is complex and multidimensional, hinting to the complexity of the issue at hand (2016, p.

62). The article specifically reports on how inferential processes and background

knowledge can help students improve learning comprehension. Another main focus of the

article was to explain the need for assessments that are more formative rather than

summative, and the need for assessments that evaluate how students process reading, not

only that evaluate the product of their reading (2016). The purpose of the authors work is

to report on the current research that has been done in this area, and highlight where more

research and funding is needed. The intended audience for this text are those interested in

education policy.

The main ideas of the article helped shaped my thinking of reading comprehension

in a big picture kind of way, but this article also shaped my unit plan more specifically.

Fiske et al. pointed to how inaccurate knowledge can severely disrupt reading

comprehension (2016, p. 66). When students let inaccurate ideas influence how they make

meaning of a text, it disrupts how they think about a text. This will be important as I am
teaching all about how background knowledge can help us as readers connect to texts and

make meaning from texts. The way the article addressed how background knowledge can

be disruptive made me realize the importance of teaching students how to delete incorrect

schema (what we thought we knew) when we find that our thinking was inaccurate. We

will spend a day talking about deleting incorrect schema.

 Professional Literature

In the article, What Every Teacher Needs to Know About Comprehension, Pardo

defines comprehension using a variety of interpretations of what it means to comprehend,

explaining the diverse views there are on this topic. The purpose of her work is to

synthesize research on comprehension and make connections to classroom practices. The

intended audience for this article are teachers.

Pardo explains how comprehension occurs in the transaction between the reader

and the text describing the way that meaning arises from texts when readers engage with

the text (2004). This is an important point to make, as it sets up the rest of the article, as

the article will stress the connections that students make to increase comprehension. Pardo

pinpoints the readers world knowledge as being the most important of the characteristics

that helps readers with comprehension. Pardo also lists and describes how teachers can

support learners as they grow their abilities to comprehend their reading. Teaching

decoding skills, helping students build fluency, building and activating prior knowledge,

teaching vocabulary words, motivating students, and engaging students in personal

responses to text are all ways in which teachers can help students grow their

comprehension. Pardo suggests that teachers teach text structures, model appropriate text

selections, and provide regular independent reading time. Pardo concludes the article by

describing how teachers can support transaction between readers and texts by providing

explicit instruction of useful comprehension strategies, teaching students to monitor their

own reading, use multiple strategy approaches, and make reading/writing connections

visible.
 This article provided me with many ideas for this unit, and with confirmation that

some of the ideas that I currently have are going to be effective, based on the research done

on reading comprehension. First of all, I am glad that I choose to teach on schema because

of how important schema is for students comprehension. Pardo highlights students

background knowledge (aka schema) as the most important strategy for reading

comprehension. Pardo suggests that when teaching students to activate prior knowledge,

you should help students activate prior knowledge BEFORE beginning to read, my

thoughts had been to do this as reading, but in the lesson I teach on adding to schema, I will

have students brainstorm schema prior to reading. I also am thinking that when I teach

about deleting incorrect schema, we will first brainstorm schema we have (or think we

have) in order to visually cross out when we come across incorrect schema, to model to

students what to do when we find we held incorrect schema. Pardo described the Gradual

Release of Responsibility as well as the idea of the Zone of Proximal Development,

suggesting that reading comprehension must first be modeled, then done together by the

class, and then students can gradually attain comprehension skills that they may do on

their own (2004). I am planning on using these ideas to shape the flow of my lessons. First

modeling, then having students guide the thinking we do as a class while reading, and

finally releasing them to practice the skills we learn on their own.