The School Librarian’s Role in
Promoting Reading Comprehension
Working with Working with
teachers children
• Collaborate to define • Ensure that children
what it means to are comprehending
comprehend deeply. what they read and
study.
When students understand, they;
comprehend a wide variety of texts;
reflect on ideas;
struggle for insight;
extend existing knowledge stores;
reapply knowledge in new contexts and generate new
knowledge;
reapply knowledge in new contexts and generate new knowledge;
create models to help them understand;
manipulate thoughts to understand more completely;
consider multiple perspectives;
understand ways in which memory, knowledge, emotions, values and thinking
change;
engage in rigorous discourse about ideas;
remember what they read and learn. . .
keene, 2003
The School Librarian’s Role in
Promoting Reading Comprehension
Teachers Children
• Work with teachers to • Help children focus on
understand what is a few concepts of
essential to children’s great import for a long
literacy learning – period of time in a
encourage focus on variety of text.
what matters most.
What’s Essential?
• Cognitive Strategies are the moves a reader and writer
makes in his mind in order to read, write, speak, and listen.
• Cognitive Strategies include: fully understanding the grapho-
phonetic system, instantaneous visual word recognition,
understanding of grammar and syntax, vocabulary, using
background knowledge and interacting with other readers in
order to understand more deeply.
What’s Essential?
• Teachers explicitly teach the cognitive strategies most
commonly used by proficient readers, writers, speakers and
listeners.
• Instruction in Cognitive Strategies is focused, in-depth,
intensive, long term, and repeated throughout a child’s
school life in progressively more difficult situations.
• Cognitive strategies vary only slightly for of different age
groups.
The School Librarian’s Role in
Promoting Reading Comprehension
Teachers Children
• Work closely with • Work with children to
teachers who are ensure they use
conducting comprehension
comprehension strategies in what they
strategy study in their read.
classrooms.
Comprehension Strategies
• Monitoring for Meaning
• Using Schema (background knowledge)
• Determining Importance
• Creating Mental and Emotional Images
• Inferring
• Asking Questions
• Synthesizing
The School Librarian’s Role in
Promoting Reading Comprehension
Teachers Children
• Help teachers to see • Encourage children to
how comprehension use comprehension
strategies apply to strategies as they
research projects. explore topics of
passionate interest.
Comprehension and Research
• Researchers
Researchers ask questions to narrow a search and find a topic
Researchers ask questions to clarify meaning and purpose
Researchers ask themselves
• What are the most effective resources and how will I access
them?
• Do I have enough information?
• Have I used a variety of sources?
• What more do I need?
• Does it make sense?
• Have I told enough?
• It is interesting and original thinking and does my writing have
voice?
The School Librarian’s Role in Promoting
Reading Comprehension
Teachers Children
• Assist teachers in • Assist children in
identifying text and selecting texts that
multi-media sources will challenge them to
that are particularly comprehend deeply
conducive to the and consider important
comprehension issues.
strategy they are
studying.
The School Librarian’s Role in
Promoting Reading Comprehension
Teachers Children
• Work with teachers to • Introduce children to a
build a collection that wide range of genres,
matches students’ media and texts – help
needs and interests in them understand the
comprehension. distinctions between
genres.
A Variety of Genres
• Biography
• Historical fiction
• Textbooks/Reference Text
• Persuasion
• Realistic fiction
• Poetry
• Memoir/Autobiography
• Science fiction
• Mystery
• Journalism Opinion/Editorial
• Tests
• Expository text (narrative or didactic)
• Picture Book
• Photo essay
• Promotional Materials and Advertising
• Fantasy
A Variety of Text Levels
• Work in instructional level text for:
• Practice in decoding
• Practice word recognition
• Practice oral reading fluency
• Practice in word work such as recognizing prefixes and
suffixes, word analysis
A Variety of Text Levels
• Work in challenging text (that may have been read to
children) for:
Application of comprehension strategies
Book Club discussion
Reading with a partner
• Reading to learn new content (especially when there are
charts, graphs, pictures available)
Reading Comprehension is
Thinking – thinking is hard – It’s
supposed to be hard
