Chapter+4+Tools+for+Active+Literacy

Tools for Active Literacy
Pages 44-59

In this chapter, Harvey and Goudvis outline a set of instructional tools that have been shown to support reading comprehension development. Similar to the research reviewed in chapter two that recommends transactional reading comprehension instruction, Harvey and Goudvis show us that no single instructional method or tool for teaching reading comprehension works in isolation either. We summarize the main findings from two professional articles that offer important insights to extend Harvey and Goudvis's chapter. We also provide links to videos of teachers who demonstrate the effective use of one or more of the instructional tools recommended in this chapter.

__Professional References to Extend Your Learning__

 * Liang, L. & Dole, A. (2006). Help with teaching reading comprehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks. //The Reading Teacher, 59//, 742-753. Abstract available at **[]**
 * This article provides a very useful comparison of five instructional frameworks that have been tested in classrooms and have been found to support the development of reading comprehension abilities. Importantly, these frameworks do not emphasize the use of discrete instructional tools over others. Rather, they all embed instructional tool use in frameworks of complexity, flexibility and multiplicity. The instructional frameworks are, however, categorized as emphasizing content instruction or strategies instruction. As outlined in Table 1 (p. 745) of the article, Scaffolded Reading Experience (SRE) and Questioning the Author (QtA) both emphasize an understanding of content. Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) and Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) emphasize strategies instruction. Concept Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) emphasizes both content and strategies.
 * Use this article to get a deeper sense of different instructional frameworks. How do each of them align with your current conceptions and practices of reading comprehension instruction?


 * Pardo, L. S. (2004). What every teacher needs to know about comprehension. //The Reading Teacher, 58//, 272-280. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20205476.
 * Pardo's advice to teachers is consistent with Harvey and Goudvis's recommendations. In her article, she addresses several ideas treated in Chapter 4 of //Strategies that Work// including, for instance, the ideas of efferent and aesthetic reading (p. 275). Importantly, she explains how readers develop a model of comprehension (p. 276) and encourages teachers to use strategies that enable students to build a coherence. "Readers are searching for coherence and for a chain of related events that can lead them to infer or make meaning" (p. 276). She tells teachers to (a) provide explicit instruction of useful comprehension strategies, (b) to teach students to monitor and repair, (3) to use multiple strategy approaches, (4) to scaffold support and (5) to make reading/writing connections visible.
 * Use this article as a review to help you synthesize Chapter 4 and to integrate the main ideas into your professional practice.

__Video Resources to Support Your Instructional Tool Use__
[|Thinking Aloud] with teacher, Kim Callison [|Reading/Writing Workshop in a third grade classroom]