Self-Monitoring
“Good readers monitor their comprehension to ensure that there are no gaps in their understanding” (Konza, 2011, p. 2).
By continually checking that what they are reading makes sense, students are able to make meaning from text. However, as with all comprehension skills, children need to explicitly learn how to check monitor their comprehension and how to regain meaning if it is lost (Winch, et al., 2014).
Self-Monitoring using the Insert technique
This lesson helps students start thinking about self-monitoring their reading.
Introduction: The teacher should introduce the topic by asking the students have they ever read anything they found difficult to understand before. After discussion with the students about this the teacher can then explain the insert technique. The teacher should explain that as you read you can put one of these four symbols in the margin of your text to demostrate your thinking. Each student should then be given a printed copy of the techique and it can also be displayed in a prominent position in the classroom.
Body of lesson: The teacher should show the students how to use this technique with the use of a interative whiteboard and a passage from a text. With the passage displayed on the interactive whiteboard the teacher can use the "think aloud" strategy (see teaching models) as they read and mark their passage with the symbols. Students can then practice this strategy in small groups with a new passage. The teacher should encourage the students to brainstorm what they think their text may be about before applying the technique. For example, if the text is about snakes they would brainstorm everything they know about snakes first and write this down.
Concluding the lesson: At the end of the lesson, the different groups could share how they applied this techique and their thinking behind their choices with the rest of the class.
Lesson idea from: http://www.readwritethink.org/classroom-resources/lesson-plans/guided-comprehension-monitoring-using-230.html?tab=4
Speech Bubble Lesson Idea
Introduction – Students will work in pairs for this activity and work together to fill in one speech bubble sheet. The teacher will ask students to give ideas for how they can check their understanding while they read (e.g. re-read, slow down reading, read on past a word they don’t understand, check the illustrations etc.). Teacher will then read a passage of text (any text of their choice) using a think-aloud strategy. During the reading, the teacher will pause to clarify her own understanding verbally to demonstrate how she is gaining understanding.
Body of lesson: The teacher will then ask the students to read a text together, preferably a book at their appropriate level. During reading, they should pause and clarify difficult vocabulary or meanings that they don’t understand. Each time that they identify something that they don’t understand, they should fill in a speech bubble to say what they struggled with and if they overcame the problem, and how they did this. Whilst students are completing the task, the teacher can have a group together who may need extra guidance, or be roaming the room and checking in with pairs while they are working.
Concluding the lesson: Bring students back together and invite pairs to share where they had trouble and how they resolved the problems. Discuss and name any fix up strategies the children used, write them on the board and encourage students to write them into the empty speech bubbles on their sheets. These pictures could be displayed around the room or pasted into the student’s literacy books. Finally check for understanding by asking students to turn over their sheets so they can’t see them, then ask them “What are some things you can do to fix up your reading when you lose meaning?
Posters for the classroom
