Language Comprehension and Its Importance

 Child’s Pseudonym : Arielle Aquatta

 Age: 7
 Grade: 2nd Grade
Development of Language Comprehension

According the McKenna and Stahl’s Cognitive Model of Reading Comprehension, to fully

comprehend language of a text, a student must have some sort of background knowledge,

knowledge of vocabulary, and knowledge of text and sentence structure. Background knowledge

has an overall “effect on assessment” which is due to the fact that most students may “answer

questions correctly based on their prior knowledge” (McKenna, 2015, P.18). Although we want a

student to comprehend the text at hand, if a student does not know what is happening, or why

something is happening, they will not be able to understand the text, thus will not comprehend it.

Vocabulary knowledge is a “measure of general knowledge or general intelligence”, meaning

a student’s vocabulary can affect how they will comprehend a text. If a child struggles with

vocabulary it is usually because they read “less text” in general, and “less challenging texts” as

an effect (McKenna, 2015). This creates a cycle where the student reads less, so they know less

vocabulary, which makes them not want to challenge themselves, and the cycle continues.

According to Adams (2010-2011), “research indicates that reading with comprehension depends

on understanding at least 95 percent of the word presented.” If they do not understand what a

word means and cannot draw back on previous background knowledge, or other vocabulary

presented in a text, the student’s comprehension will suffer greatly.

A student will encounter three “tiers” of vocabulary. The first tier is conversational words that

come up in oral conversations. These words are usually high frequency or sight words, that a

student know and can recognize instantly. The second tier is comprised of words that are usually

presented in a text. These are words that child or student needs some background knowledge or
may need to look up. They may be sight words, but may require explicit instruction. Finally, the

third tier is comprised of words that are used in certain subjects; they have to be taught to the

student and are the hardest to comprehend, so they require instruction. (8,42) Knowing which

tier a word belongs to, as a teacher, can help guide our students to fully understanding a text.

Finally, a student needs to have knowledge of text and sentence structure, which is the length

and pattern within sentences and texts. As a text becomes longer, more difficult, and uses more

clauses, a student’s overall understanding may falter. To improve this skill, students must

practice by reading physical print, rather than practice orally. Teachers try to match a student’s

instructional reading level and a text’s readability level, so a student may comprehend with a

Lexile Exam (McKenna, 2015, pg. 18).

Listening comprehension is based off what the student can hear and comprehend from a text,

like a read aloud, where a teacher reads a book and the student listens. This helps them hear

sound within a word, and introduces words the may not know. Reading comprehension is the

ability of the student to read a passage and comprehend what they have read based on the skills

mentioned above.

Assessment

Reading comprehension shows the teacher, not only what the students knows and does not

know, but what skills they need to develop further. Teacher must assess a student’s development

so they can assist that student to fully comprehend whatever that student reads. McKenna and

Stahl explains there are three dimensions of assessments used for comprehension. They are

comprehensive/selective, discrete/embedded, and context independent/context dependent. There

are a variety of techniques a teacher can use that fall under these dimensions; check sheets, tests,

and vocabulary questions. In our child study we used an assessment called the “Qualitative
Reading Inventory”, or QRI for short.

Included in a QRI assessment are several categories, these are concept questions, oral

reading, retelling the story, and questions. Concept questions test the students background

knowledge and vocabulary, oral reading can show their knowledge of text and sentence structure

and vocabulary, and retelling the story and the questions shows their overall comprehension of

the text as a whole.

An advantage of testing comprehension this way is being able to see what they need to

know and knowing how to find it. This benefits the teacher, by showing them what the student

already knows and what they still need to learn. A disadvantage, however, is that it can pressure

the student a lot, which can lead to nervousness or a change in what their score could be. The

student also is not given much room for creativity and interpretation.

For me, it was significant to choose topics that I thought would interest Arielle, because

as her teacher, I am supposed to know what she is passionate about. For our first QRI

assessment, I decided to give her a “Level: One” narrative entitled, “The Bear and the Rabbit”.

The classroom was noisy, but I encouraged her to stay focused, to my surprise, the most

discouraging thing I said to her was that I wouldn’t be able to help her with words as she read.

She did brilliantly, flying through the passage with a few fumbles and self-corrections, but she

almost did not need me at all. That was my hope for this first passage. I wanted to instill

confidence in her, that reading out loud is not a horrible thing. She would shift in her chair when

she read and needed to sound something out. The second and third QRIs were a different story. I

had decided to go with a “Level: Two” expository entitled, “Seasons’, because I thought it would

interest her. “Seasons” was printed on one page, which she liked because it meant “less”. She

took longer to read this, which was expected, and performed at the level that I thought she
would. Based on her Elementary Spelling Inventory and Fry’s Sight Words, she was scoring high

in early stages of second grade. A great comparison between “The Bear and The Rabbit” and

“Seasons” is comparing the CWPM, or the correct words per minute. In “The Bear and the

Rabbit”, her CWPM was about 67, which is pretty good, but we have to remember that it is a

grade below hers and a narrative. “Seasons” was an expository at her grade level. There is a

definite drop as her CWPM is only 28. This is to be expected with two passages that are different

in every way. The third passage I had her read, after we took a break because I wanted to bring

back her confidence, was entitled, “The Family’s First Trip”. This piece was like the first QRI

because it was a narrative, but it was at her grade level . Her CWPM went up to 33, because it

included more Tier 1 and 2 words, instead of Tier 3 like the expository piece.

There was a definite trend between all three QRIs, typically when she read the pieces slower,

her ability to retell the story began to drop. With the first piece, she could recall 53% of the story,

while she could only recall about 22% of “Seasons” and 8% of “The Family’s First Trip”. This

struck me as odd because she scored well on everything else for “The Family’s First Trip”, I

believe this was partly because she was worn out and partly because she was not as interested in

it. I decided to focus on her ability to retell a story, without a prompt or start up questions, and

how she comprehended them. The Common Core Standards R.I. Skills standard 2.2, which states

that a student should be able to “Identify the main topic of a multi-paragraph text as well as the

focus of specific paragraphs within the text,” focused on her ability to comprehend. I also

looked at the Common Core RL Skills standard 2.2 which states that a student should be able to

“Recount stories, including fables and folktales from diverse cultures, and determine their central

message, lesson, or moral,” which focused on her ability to retell. I think she scored well for the

first skill and very poorly for the second

(National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School

Officers). She comprehended it but, when asked to state what happened, she either did not want

to or did not remember.

Overall, Arielle’s comprehension has been doing fairly well based on the QRI’s comprehension

questions and after story questions. I do not fear that she lacks vocabulary or background

knowledge. She struggled slightly with text and sentence structure, i.e. needing to point as she

reads and reading without emotion based on the grammar, but she understood the message of the

text. (McKenna, 2015, pg.17-18)

Planning

Because of her success of identifying the overall purpose of a text I decided to focus on her

ability to recognize a character’s role in the story. This is CCSS RL.2.3 which states that a

student should be able to “describe how characters in a story respond to major events and

challenges” (NGACBPCCSSO). I wanted her to understand why or how they reacted in order for

her to recall the story with more ease.

McKenna and Stahl suggested to have students do an oral retelling so that I could use “the

degree of detail” and “general coherence of the retelling” to “gauge comprehension” (McKenna,

2015). I decided to plan a read out-loud with her, as we read, I wanted to ask her stopping

questions that related to the actions that Pete took. “Pete was having trouble, but did not give up!

What would you have done?” (Haggerty, 2016) I wanted to promote his values and hers as well.

When she finished, I wanted to ask her what happened and have her retell what she could. In

Duke et al.,(2006/2007), I read about different strategies that 2nd and 3rd grade teachers suggest,

so I wanted her to write a “personal letter” to Pete. I planned for her to write a Valentine to him.

After, I wanted to see how she recognized Callie in the book. I asked her to write based on this
question, “Although Pete did not make a card for Callie, she was not upset. Why? What in the

story can tell us why she was not bothered?” (Haggerty, 2016) This directly related to my

common core standard, because I wanted to see why she thought Callie reacted so well.

For our activity, I wanted her to think about what Pete valued based, not just in this particular

book, but all of the ones we had read. I also wanted to be able to check her background

knowledge beforehand, so I planned for her to draw symbols for various holidays that she should

be familiar with. My main focus would be her response/drawing to Valentine’s Day. As you’ll

see in the next passage, plans did not go as expected, but they ended up better than planned.

For planning this lesson, I was unable to see much from student’s observation that related to

comprehension. They has a substitute teacher who did preform a read out-loud. During, he

stopped and asked the students questions. Arielle did try to answer it, but was not selected to

answer the question. She was also coloring during the story, which worried me.

Teaching

Arielle and I started our lesson out with three holidays listed on a blank sheet of paper. I

wanted to keep with the theme of seasons from our QRI passage the week before. Holidays were

a nice bridge from that subject, it also introduced the next theme, which was cats. I had her draw

three symbols for each holiday and had her choose her favorite. I had pre-determined what I

thought was her favorite based on the “Tell Me What You Like!” we had given them the first

week; Valentine’s Day. I was right and happily pulled out a Pete the Cat book dealing with

Valentine’s Day and making cards. She nearly fell out of her chair with joy when she saw that

picture book. As we read, I had her read Callie’s part to give her some practice and to give me a

break. She did not seem to like that as much, because she gave a little pout when I asked, but still

complied. During our reading, I asked her a few questions and she answered them relatively
well. We also looked at the Valentine’s day cards presented in the book and did an activity where

she had to tell me who they were for just from the picture. After, she got to make a card for Pete,

because we noticed he did not receive one in the book. I asked her to think of something that

represented Pete from the book and to draw it. Arielle drew Pete with Callie.

Arielle’s letter inside to Pete explained that she loved him very much and that she drew him

with Callie because she knows that friends are “impurtent” to him. Her retelling of the book was

very brief, but showed me she knew what was happening and that she had been listening.

Reflecting

During our lesson, Arielle and I made a lot of progress and she was really engaged throughout

the whole thing. She really liked making the Valentine for Pete the Cat and wrote a long message

to him about why she drew him and Callie on his card. Everything that went poorly was my

fault. One large change was the last question for the book. Instead of asking her “Do you like

making Valentine’s Day cards?”, I went back to the book and asked her why Pete made cards

with objects other than hearts on them. I think this really inspired her Valentine’s Day card for

Pete even more, allowing her to be more creative and think deeper as to what Pete values. Her

strong love for Pete the Cat also reflects her own values and what she cares about. While I was

walking her back to her classroom, she would mention how happy she was with that activity and

how she liked making a card for Pete. Before she left to go back into her classroom, she ran over

and hugged me, which showed me that she really liked the lesson and the projects that we did

during it.

To improve this lesson, I think I would think of better stopping questions. Although they

related to the text and got Arielle to think, I think they were obvious and boring. I had more fun

asking impromptu questions. Maybe I will read the book out-loud to a different person before I
make questions, to see where I naturally stop and ask. I also think I should bring in more

engaging activities to my lesson plans over all. Drawing what she thinks a cover may look like

shows her background knowledge before the text, but it does not tell me what she takes away

from it.

As a teacher, I learned that I really do enjoy the art of teaching. I like making things and

building on what the student offers as well as the text. I also learned that I should not try to

drown out that creativity. Activities like the Valentine card can help a student link key terms and

ideas, and help them process the information faster.

References

McKenna, M., Stahl, K. 2015. Assessment for Reading Instruction. New York, New York.

Adivision of Guilford Publications, Inc.

Haggerty, C. 2016. Lesson Plan 9.

Weippert, T. 2016. Literacy Learners and Learning in Context.

Duke, N., Purcell-Gate, V., Hall, L., Tower, C. 2006/2007. Authentic Literacies for Developing

Comprehension and writing. Internation Literacy Association. Vol. 60, No. 4

Adams, M. 2010/2011. Advancing Our Students’ Language and Literacy. American Educator.