Reading comprehension
Implement professional dialogue about reading comprehension in your school or professional learning network using text-based protocols and core thinking routines for leaders.
Purpose of resource
The research snapshot and professional learning activity are part of the K-2 English toolkit. This supports leaders to unpack research with teachers, that underpins the new syllabus.
Target audience
This resource can be used by school leaders to support teachers with effective syllabus implementation.
When and how to use
The research snapshot and the professional learning activity, ‘Unpacking the evidence base’ slideshow, complement each other and are focused on the same research article. Schools might use these:
- within whole-school professional learning sessions
- in stage meetings
- in professional learning groups.
These may take an hour to implement or can be modified as appropriate. The protocol used to help teachers unpack the evidence can be changed to suit the professional learning context.
Research base
The evidence base for this resource is:
- Castles A, Rastle K, and Nation K (2018) ‘Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert’, Psychological Sciences in the Public Interest
- K-2 English syllabus (2021) – research base identified in the syllabus (refer to the ‘About the English and Mathematics K-2 syllabuses support document)
- High Impact Professional Learning (HIPL).
Contact
Email questions, comments and feedback about this resource to contactcurriculumreform@det.nsw.edu.au using subject line ‘Re English K-2 Research toolkits’.
Alignment to system priorities and/or needs – School Excellence Policy and School Excellence Procedure
Alignment to School Excellence Framework – ‘Instructional leadership’ and ‘High expectations culture’ elements in the Leading domain as well as the ‘Learning and development’ and ‘Collaborative practices and feedback’ elements of the Teaching domain.
Alignment with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers – 6.2.4 and 6.3.4
Consulted with – Literacy and numeracy team and principal school leadership representatives
Reviewed by: CEYPL director and CSL director
Created/last updated: 28 February, 2022
To be reviewed: December, 2022
Research article – Becoming a skilled reader
Research article – Castles A, Rastle K, and Nation K (2018) ‘Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert’, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19:5–51, doi:10.1177/1529100618772271.
‘…the single most effective pathway to fluent word reading is print experience: Children need to see as many words as possible, as frequently as possible.’ page 26
Overview of research
- As we progress towards becoming skilled readers, heavy reliance on alphabetic decoding gradually decreases.
- There are two key cognitive processes in word reading: one that involves the translation of a word’s spelling into its sound and then to meaning, and one that involves gaining access to meaning directly from the spelling, without the requirement to do so via phonology
- Due to the importance of morphology in relating word forms to their meanings, there is an argument for explicit instruction on this aspect of learning to read.
- Teachers should still include activities to support the development of rich vocabulary knowledge which will naturally include morphologically complex words.
- There is a case for instruction on high-frequency, difficult-to-decode words as part of a comprehensive and phonics-rich reading instruction program.
- More effective strategies for increasing children’s motivation to read fall into two broad categories: maximising the value of reading and making the choice to do so easy.
Professional discussion and reflection prompts
- How are students supported to use the two cognitive processes in word reading in your classroom?
- What does effective reading comprehension look and sound like?
- How does this research resonate with your own understanding of, and experience with, teaching students to read?
Professional learning activity
‘Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert’ (PPTX 2 MB)
Purpose of resource
The research snapshot and professional learning activity are part of the K-2 English toolkit. This supports leaders to unpack research with teachers, that underpins the new syllabus.
Target audience
This resource can be used by school leaders to support teachers with effective syllabus implementation.
When and how to use
The research snapshot and the professional learning activity, ‘Unpacking the evidence base’ slideshow, complement each other and are focused on the same research article. Schools might use these:
- within whole-school professional learning sessions
- in stage meetings
- in professional learning groups.
These may take an hour to implement or can be modified as appropriate. The protocol used to help teachers unpack the evidence can be changed to suit the professional learning context.
Research base
The evidence base for this resource is:
- Konza D (2010) Research into practice: Understanding the reading process, Government of South Australia
- K-2 English syllabus (2021) – research base identified in the syllabus (refer to the ‘About the English and Mathematics K-2 syllabuses support document)
- High Impact Professional Learning (HIPL).
Contact
Email questions, comments and feedback about this resource to contactcurriculumreform@det.nsw.edu.au using subject line ‘Re English K-2 Research toolkits’.
Alignment to system priorities and/or needs – School Excellence Policy, and School Excellence Procedure
Alignment to School Excellence Framework – ‘Instructional leadership’ and ‘High expectations culture’ elements in the Leading domain as well as the ‘Learning and development’ and ‘Collaborative practices and feedback’ elements of the Teaching domain.
Alignment with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers – 6.2.4 and 6.3.4
Consulted with – Literacy and numeracy team and principal school leadership representatives
Reviewed by: CEYPL director and CSL director
Created/last updated: July 2022
To be reviewed: December, 2022
Understanding the reading process
Research article – Konza D (2010) Research into practice: Understanding the reading process, Government of South Australia
Research snapshot
“…there is now overwhelming evidence that points us towards the critical elements of reading programs that are most successful with most children.” Konza, D (2010)
Overview of research
This article consolidates research and provides teachers with a sound introduction to each of “the big six” components that support learning to read. The big six components of an effective reading program identified in the article are:
- oral language development and early literacy experiences
- phonological awareness, especially phonemic awareness
- letter-sound knowledge (phonics) and word knowledge
- vocabulary
- fluency
- comprehension
It asserts that:
- there is evidence to identify these six elements as critical to the process and development of reading
- explicit and systematic teaching of these elements will benefit the majority of students
- building the expertise of primary teachers and implementing a system-wide approach is the path to improving student outcomes through reading programs.
Professional discussion and reflection prompts
- What is the importance of literacy and teaching across the curriculum?
- How does this research resonate with your own understanding of, and experience with, teaching students to read?
- What aspect of this article is most relevant to the students in your classroom?
- What would a systematic, school-wide approach to reading look like in your school?
Purpose of resource
The research snapshot and professional learning activity are part of the K-2 English toolkit. This supports leaders to unpack research with teachers, that underpins the new syllabus.
Target audience
This resource can be used by school leaders to support teachers with effective syllabus implementation.
When and how to use
The research snapshot and the professional learning activity, ‘Unpacking the evidence base’ slideshow, complement each other and are focused on the same research article. Schools might use these:
- within whole-school professional learning sessions
- in stage meetings
- in professional learning groups.
These may take an hour to implement or can be modified as appropriate. The protocol used to help teachers unpack the evidence can be changed to suit the professional learning context.
Research base
The evidence base for this resource is:
- Castles A, Rastle K, and Nation K (2018) ‘Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert’, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19:5–51, doi:10.1177/1529100618772271.
- K-2 English syllabus (2021) – research base identified in the syllabus (refer to the ‘About the English and Mathematics K-2 syllabuses support document)
- High Impact Professional Learning (HIPL).
Contact
Email questions, comments and feedback about this resource to contactcurriculumreform@det.nsw.edu.au using subject line ‘Re English K-2 Research toolkits’.
Alignment to system priorities and/or needs – School Excellence Policy and School Excellence Procedure
Alignment to School Excellence Framework – ‘Instructional leadership’ and ‘High expectations culture’ elements in the Leading domain as well as the ‘Learning and development’ and ‘Collaborative practices and feedback’ elements of the Teaching domain.
Alignment with the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers – 6.2.4 and 6.3.4
Consulted with – Literacy and numeracy team and principal school leadership representatives
Reviewed by: CEYPL director and CSL director
Created/last updated: July, 2022
To be reviewed: December, 2022
Learning to comprehend text
Research article – Castles A, Rastle K, and Nation K (2018) ‘Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert’, Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19:5–51, doi:10.1177/1529100618772271. Pages 26-38.
‘Not all teaching to improve reading comprehension needs to involve written text… for example, instruction in oral language will bring about gains in knowledge and enhance the processing skills that will subsequently serve reading comprehension.’ (Page 38)
Overview of research (pages 26 – 38)
- Reading comprehension is the product of a set of linguistic and cognitive processes operating on text and interacting with background knowledge, features of the text, and the purpose and goals of the reading situation.
- There are three constructs that underpin reading comprehension:
- Knowledge, be it linguistic knowledge, orthographic knowledge, or general knowledge.
- The processes involved in reading, including decoding, word identification, meaning retrieval, sentence parsing, inferring, and comprehension monitoring, along with the interaction of these processes with each other, and with knowledge.
- General cognitive resources such as memory.
- Oral language sets a vital foundation for reading comprehension and its development. Critically, oral vocabulary sets the foundation for reading comprehension.
- Vocabulary knowledge matters: Understanding most individual words within a text is a prerequisite to understanding that text. Vocabulary correlates with reading comprehension.
- Children make inferences in spoken language from a young age. This capacity continues to develop through the school years and predicts reading comprehension.
- Comprehension monitoring increases during the primary school years and is associated with reading comprehension ability because it taps into the capacities needed to monitor, update, and integrate information as the situation model builds.
- The National Reading Panel identifies the benefits of explicitly teaching children strategies to prompt active engagement with text. Key strategies came from the principles of reciprocal teaching including clarification, summarisation, prediction, and question generation. Once the strategies are learned, continued instruction and practice does not yield further benefits.
- Vocabulary instruction leads to significant improvements on comprehension passages containing taught words.
- Building students’ ability to establish word meaning allows students to show, and maintain, improvements in reading comprehension (for example, using contextual clues, synonyms, and the teaching of specific types of words that need to be known to comprehend a variety of texts and curricular topics).
- Children can be taught, using graphic organisers, to gap-fill inference and to activate background knowledge spontaneously and that this capability transfers to new situations.
Professional discussion and reflection prompts
- How does this research resonate with your own understanding of, and experience with, teaching students to read and comprehend texts?
- How could you use this research in your classroom to improve student learning?