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We hope this website is a valuable and comprehensive resource for teachers who seek materials and methods on literacy instruction, specifically strategies for what Fontas and Pinnell deem, "comprehension within text." Defined as a reader's ability to grasp the literal, basic, and "lower-level" meaning of a text, "comprehension within text" necessitates six major reading skills: vocabulary decoding, fluency, adjustment, summarization, identification of important information, and self-monitoring. This website includes myriad strategies and instructional approaches for each of the skills essential to "comprehension within text." It also offers a list of useful websites, possible interactive read-alouds and mini-lessons that target a specific comprehension strategy via selected picture books, an outline and summary of the mini-lessons that we taught to our peers, assessment measures, and professional reference lists for textbooks, journal articles, and theory papers on "comprehension with text." Feel free to explore our website! We hope it provides you with quality, professional, and thoughtful ideas on how to approach teaching "comprehension within text" to your students! Best wishes and enjoy!
Jackie, Sawyer, Alyssa, and Denitha |
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What is "Comprehension WITHIN Text"?
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"Literal" "Lower-Level" "Basal" "Surface Level" "Bare Bones"
Understanding of a Text
Deemed "literal, "basal," and "surface-level" comprehension, Comprehension WITHIN Text is considered the "bare bones" of reading comprehension. Although sometimes dismissed as "lower-level," it is the foundation necessary and fundamental for higher-level thinking (i.e. above and beyond text comprehension). Because it's the gateway level of comprehension - so to speak - Comprehension WITHIN Text is seen as a "stepping stone," not the final goal for readers. Comprehension WITHIN Text is based on a reader's ability to obtain the "basic message" of a text by putting together and understanding the "textually-explicit information," which is information and facts stated directly and straightforwardly in the text.
Fontas and Pinnell (2006) identified six requisite skills that factor into - and enable - Comprehension WITHIN Text: vocabulary decoding; self-monitoring and correcting; summarizing; identifying important information; fluency; and adjustment to a variety of texts. In theory, they work together, and once a reader is proficient in each skill subset, he or she should be able to grasp the literal meaning of a text.
The complexity of literal comprehension is often simplified. But Fontas and Pinnel (2006) agreed with the theories Basaraba, Yovanoff, and Alonzo (2005) presented, as both acknowledge that Comprehension WITHIN Text is not derived from just the decoding of words. Instead, it relies on the ability to identify individual works and then to apply that meaning to the story's context. Or, in other words, to understand the meaning created by the combination of those individual words into sentences and paragraphs. Basaraba, Yovanoff, and Alonzo (2005) go on to argue that literal comprehension is composed of two strategies: recall, as measured by the ability to identify an idea, whether it be a main idea or detail; and recognition, which is the ability to determine if a specific piece of information was or was not provided in a passage/overall text.
References
Basaraba, D., Yovnoff, P., & Alonzo, J. (2005). Examining the structure of reading comprehension: Do literal, inferential, and evaluative comprehension truly exist? Reading & Writing, 26(3), 349-376.
Fontas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2006). Chapter three: Reading is thinking: Within, beyond, and about the text. In Teaching for Comprehending and Fluency: Thinking, talking, and writing about reading, K-8. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
The Goal
BEFORE
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Comprehension WITHIN Text Strategies
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AFTER
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