Comprehension Strategies

Course Description

Provides an investigation of meaning-making at both the local (discourse) and global (general knowledge) levels. Covers research-based models of discourse processing and representation construction. Introduces strategies to promote guided reading, independent reading, and study skills in all content areas, using the concepts of connecting background experience and applying self-monitoring strategies.

Learning Outcomes

• Elaborate on the multiple effects of prior conceptual, textual, and linguistic knowledge on comprehension, including prior development of academic vocabulary and academic concepts.
• Discuss current research on the relationship between prior knowledge and text cohesiveness.
• Distinguish among comprehension tasks at differing levels of comprehension (textually explicit, textually implicit, scriptally implicit).
• Relate instructional strategies for developing reading comprehension with the theoretical support underlying each strategy; particularly, explain how various instructional strategies activate, develop, or expand prior knowledge; and explain how various instructional strategies develop metacognitive behavior.
• Develop listening and reading comprehension skills using both narrative and expository text.
• Demonstrate understanding of rhetorical pattern organization in narrative, expository, and electronic texts.
• Develop metacognitive learning skills through a process leading to student independence in reading.
• Develop higher-order critical thinking skills.
• Explain the role of affect in comprehension; and stimulate interest in independent reading through appropriate motivational techniques.
• Apply instructional scaffolding strategies to assist Special Needs Students and English language learners with comprehension.
• Acquire techniques to effectively use technology to access to the core curriculum.