A Teacher's Gradual Release for Comprehension Instruction

~a free picture from Google images

To provide the best comprehension instruction, a teacher must prepare the lesson in a series of steps that provides less and less scaffolding as the lesson continues.  As to why a teacher should instruct in this way is because it provides opportunities for the students to investigate a text multiple times, at which betters fluency with each look.  AND, with building fluency within a text results in a greater understanding of the entire text.  What this means is... the students gain a deeper understanding of the text rather than only just the author's main idea (immense comprehension!).  I will explain further below!

I know that so far, this information has been broad.  The theory, research and process is just so rich!  As for the rest of this article, I believe that the best way I can share this IMPORTANT planning process is to break it down into the actual series of gradual releasing steps.  So, here we go!

1. Have students SKIM over the new text and circle words that they do not recognize and find unfamiliar.  For older students, have them circle words that sound interesting.
• At this time, you DO NOT WANT your students to be reading the entire text, just quickly skimming.
• You may have to teach your students how to skim.
2. Take the authentic terms your students chose and begin an aloud discussion about them.
• Talk about one word at a time.
• Give the students the part of speech the word falls into, how it sounds, the definition, and an analogy.
• Have children talk to a partner about what they heard about that discussed word.
• Ask them text-dependent questions.
3. Now instruct the students to look at the text and make annotations* where they find a reoccurring text structure or the author's point of view.
• For example, in a poem, there may not be periods, commas, or any other punctuation marks at the end of each line.  This creates a great teaching moment to talk about how those lines sound when read out loud (building knowledge about fluency!)
• Or, there are words in the text in different passages/parts that repeat the same ideas, and in this way, the students are guided to think about WHY the author chose to write the text in those ways.
• Have the students discuss what they annotated.
• Ask them text-dependent questions.
• Then chorally read the text as a group.
4. Lastly, tell the children to highlight words in the text that they really like or feel a connection to.
• Once this is done, ask them why they highlighted the words they did (talk in partners).
• Also ask them to think if they have a memory or experience that connects to those words and discuss that with their partner.

TIPS to remember!

• It is NOT about a right answer.  It is about the students being able to justify their thinking throughout the entire lesson.  But, if the child is obviously choosing words that do not fit the criteria being asked for (ex. "a", "the", "was", etc.), further scaffolding is needed to help this student understand that criteria.
• Breaking apart these 4 steps into separate days is advised!  With each step, the students are being asked to look at the new text with a new perspective.  This can become overwhelming in just one day.
• Have students discuss with their peers first, then call on a student to share what he or she talked about.

By the way... this series of gradual releasing steps is called CLOSE READING!; which is much more than just rereading the text over and over.  Close reading is about having a new purpose and perspective in mind with each read.  In this way, greater fluency is built and comprehension is improved ten-fold.

Share Your Thoughts:  What other tips could you provide to having an effective comprehension lesson?