Developing Early Comprehension

Andrea DeBruin-Parecki, Anne van Kleeck, Sabra Gear

• Publisher: Brookes Publishing
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781598570342
• eBook ISBN: 9781598579185
• Topic: Personal Development
• Subtopic: Early Childhood Education

How does early comprehension develop in young children, and how can we better prepare preschoolers to become successful readers? This important volume compiles today's best research on the often-overlooked topic of prereader comprehension: what we know about it now, and what we need to know to build a stronger foundation for children's future reading skills. More than two dozen literacy experts clearly describe theoretical models of early comprehension, demystify current research, recommend effective practices for boosting comprehension, and identify critical research priorities for the near future. An essential text and reference for reading specialists, program administrators, SLPs, preservice professionals, and researchers, this volume is key to helping children develop the early comprehension skills that support later reading success.

KEY TOPICS COVERED:

• the importance of teaching all young children comprehension strategies
• connections between vocabulary development and listening comprehension
• the relationship of academic talk to reading comprehension
• how social pretend play helps children cultivate skills essential for comprehension
• development of executive function skills important for academic success assessment of comprehension skills in prereaders
• how young children become literate in a digital society
• the benefits of using academic talk and informational texts in pre-K classrooms
• ways to support early comprehension for multilingual students and those with special needs
• parents' and teachers' complementary roles in developing children's comprehension

See how this product helps strengthen Head Start program quality and school readiness.

1

Evening the Playing Field

The Importance of Teaching All Young Children Comprehension Strategies

ANDREA DEBRUIN-PARECKI AND SHANA PRIBESH

When two specific words—achievement and gap—are put together, they result in a multitude of various people expressing passionate concern and promising to work hard to facilitate positive change. The achievement gap is defined as occurring “when one group of students outperforms another group and the difference in average scores for the two groups is statistically significant (that is larger than the margin of error)” (National Center for Education Statistics, 2014). The achievement gap has existed for a very long time and has most affected children in poverty, particularly those who are African American and Hispanic (Hemphill & Vanneman, 2010; Vanneman, Hamilton, Baldwin Anderson, & Rahman, 2009). Although the achievement gap can be the result of multiple factors in children’s lives that occur within many contexts, this chapter focuses only on school. One specific means of attempting to narrow this gap—comprehension strategy instruction in preschool—is proposed with the aim of getting children ready to enter school better prepared to succeed.

EVIDENCE OF THE NEED FOR EARLY COMPREHENSION STRATEGY INSTRUCTION

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) Reading Assessment measures reading and comprehension skills by having students read age-appropriate passages and answer related questions. The cognitive targets being assessed are the understanding of written text; the development and interpretation of meaning; and the appropriate use of meaning concerning the type of text, purpose, and situation—all skills directly related to reading comprehension. The 2013 NAEP report results reported no improvement in reading for fourth-grade students. Up to 65% of all fourth-grade children in the United States are reading either at or below the basic level. There are still large differences among racial groups in terms of those reading below reading proficiency levels. Blacks have the highest percentage of fourth-grade students who are reading below proficiency (83%), and Latinos (81%) and American Indians (78%) are not far behind. This is in comparison to the lower percentages of their white (55%) and Asian fourth-grade counterparts (49%). In addition, 93% of students whose first language is not English are below proficient in reading, and their proficiency rates have not improved in the last 10 years (Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2014).

The Reading First Impact Study (Gamse, Bloom, Kemple, & Jacob, 2008) adds to the reading achievement gap information by revealing that on average, across participating sites, Reading First did not increase the percentages of students whose reading comprehension scores were at or above grade level in the first, second, or third grade, as fewer than half of the students in these grades were reading at or above grade level. Those children reading below grade level who cannot understand short paragraphs such as those appearing in age-appropriate books will only continue to have problems understanding text across all subject areas.

All this evidence leads to the conclusion that children who struggle with reading comprehension continue to lag behind those who do not and need earlier intervention to assist them in developing their comprehension abilities before they get frustrated, lose motivation to learn, and continue to fail. If students are fluent in reading by decoding but do not understand what they are reading, they are not learning and therefore fall behind. Teaching comprehension strategies to promote understanding at a younger age is an effective method of promoting future reading success and leads to increased learning and accomplishment. Comprehension strategy instruction cannot wait until children learn to read. They can learn listening comprehension strategies that studies have shown transfer to reading comprehension (Garner & Bochna, 2004; Kendeou, van den Broek, White, & Lynch, 2007). These strategies must be taught earlier to provide children with the tools they need to become successful readers (DeBruin-Parecki & Squibb, 2011; DeBruin-Parecki & Vaughn, 2014; Hansen, 2004; Morrow, 1985; Paris & Paris, 2007).

WHAT IS PRESCHOOL COMPREHENSION STRATEGY INSTRUCTION?

What does comprehension mean for preschool children? It typically refers to listening comprehension that occurs when children link ideas and concepts to create meaning through listening and personal interaction (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Morrow, 1988; Teale, 1985). The more familiar term “reading comprehension” is aimed at older children who are able to directly read written text to make meaning (Hoover & Gough, 1990; Snow, 2002). The development of comprehension begins with listening and oral interaction and the strategies learned to effectively advance listening comprehension. Children also learn strategies that enable them to use pictures to create understanding. These early comprehension strategies help to build the bridge to learning to read and comprehend text (Kendeou, van den Broek, White, & Lynch, 2007; Perfetti, Landi, & Oakhill, 2005). For an excellent discussion of the links between listening and reading comprehension, see Chapter 12 by Zibulsky and Cunningham.

Developing preschool children’s comprehension abilities can be accomplished by teaching them specific strategies. Here a strategy is defined as a method of assisting a child to reach a goal—in this case, learning to comprehend. Dymock noted, “Research indicates that comprehension strategies should be explicitly taught and modeled long term at all grade levels” (2007, p. 161; see also Pressley, 2002). Students should practice strategies with guidance in a variety of contexts with multiple texts until they understand the strategy and when and how to apply it (Pressley, 2002). For a discussion of the cognitive aspects of children’s learning strategies, see Chapter 9 by Cartwright and Guajardo and Chapter 12 by Zibulsky and Cunningham.

Over the years, there has been some debate about which strategies are best to teach young children. Many studies exist that have an emphasis on teaching children comprehension strategies, but typically they have focused on one type of skill such as inferencing, often called predicting (Kendeou, Bonn-Gettler, White, & van den Broek, 2008; Morrow, 2005; Reed & Vaughn, 2012; van Kleeck, 2008). For more detailed information about inferencing and retelling (recalling), please see Chapter 3 by Newman, Dickinson, Hirsh-Pasek, and Golinkoff; Chapter 10 by Lynch and Lepola; and Chapter 12 by Zibulsky and Cunningham.

In a longitudinal research study by Bianco et al. (2010) that focused on children in preschool and kindergarten, multiple comprehension strategies including inferencing, knowledge activation (background knowledge), and monitoring (thinking aloud and inconsistency checking and reso...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Foreword
• Preface
• 1. Evening the Playing Field: The Importance of Teaching All Young Children Comprehension Strategies
• 2. Vocabulary and Its Role in Early Comprehension Development
• 3. Using Play to Promote Language Comprehension in Preschoolers
• 4. The Academic Talk Register: A Critical Preschool Oral Language Foundation for Later Reading Comprehension
• 5. Emergent Comprehension in a Digital World
• 6. Building Emergent Comprehension Through Informational Texts
• 7. Special Education: A Guide to Working with Preschool Children with Disabilities in Inclusive Classrooms to Improve Comprehension
• 8. Multilingualism in Early Childhood: Comprehension Development, Assessment, and Intervention
• 9. The Role of Hot and Cool Executive Functions in Prereader Comprehension
• 10. Assessment of Comprehension Skills in Prereaders: Theoretical Foundations, Methods, Challenges, and Opportunities
• 11. The Parent’s Role in Developing Children’s Comprehension
• 12. It Takes Two: How Parents and Teachers Bridge the Gap Between Listening and Reading Comprehension
• Index