Pennington Publishing Blog

Louise Rosenblatt developed the Reader-Response Theory, which posits that the reader’s personal feelings, knowledge, and experience contributes to the author’s text to create the meaning for the individual reader. Dr. Rosenblatt termed this creation of meaning “the poem.”

As theorists continued to work with her theory, they added the influence of the reader’s environment and social community as contributor’s to meaning.

In the New Criticism Movement of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, critics of Rosenblatt asserted the independence of the text as the source of meaning. They argued that only the text should be the arbiter of itself. According to these critics and their cousins, the Formalists, devolving meaning-making to the reader was akin to admitting that the meaning of the text is anything that the reader makes of it.

I, personally, see a melding of the opposing theories as an important impetus to improving reading comprehension. If reading comprehension is the understanding and retention of text, then both the author’s text and the reader have shared responsibility for meaning-making. That meaning-making is not in the exclusive control of the text. After all, there is an author behind the text. It is also not in the exclusive control of the individual reader. The reader is part of a larger community.

To better explain the relationship of the author’s text and the reader in the creation of meaning, this illustration may be helpful.

Reader-Response

Imagine sitting in your living room, looking at a garden through a window.

In our illustration, the garden is the author’s text; you, in the living room, are the reader; and the window is the meaning of the reading text. If the garden is closer to the window than you are, the author’s text has more control of or influence upon the meaning. If you are closer in the living room to the window than is the garden, you, the reader, have more control of or influence upon the meaning.

With author-centered texts, designed to inform, explain, and analyze, such as news articles, non-fiction, technical writing, legal text, and instruction manuals, the window is closer to the garden, because the reader’s comprehension is primarily text-dependent.

For example, with respect to the news article on the school shooting, we rely upon the expertise and accuracy of the news reporter to help us understand what happened. To put together a toy on Christmas Eve, we depend upon concise, step-by-step directions and a good picture on the box.

With reader-centered texts, designed to describe, entertain, or persuade, such as fiction, poems, editorials, social media posts, and songs, the window is closer to you, the reader in your living room. The input and filter of your personal feelings, knowledge, and experience are significant contributions to understanding the text.

For example, if you are listening to and reading the lyrics of Lennon and McCartney’s “With a Little Help from My Friends,” you, the audience, are intended to contribute meaning to the song. Some of the lyrics are intentionally ambiguous.

As the official Beatle biographer, Hunter Davies, explains, Lennon and McCartney struggled to come up with a lyric to answer their question: “What do you see when you turn out the light?” Lennon suggested “I can’t tell you, but I know it’s mine.” It fit the required number of syllables and rhyme scheme, and McCartney loved it because it could mean different things to different people.

So the type of text and the author’s purpose should have considerable impact upon how readers should understand and interpret the text. Good readers are flexible readers. They monitor their levels of comprehension while reading, according to their own purposes and the dictates of the text. When crucial facts or plot events are being delivered, they move the window close to the author; when less important description or tone are being read to evoke a certain mood, they move the window closer to themselves as readers.

And one last comment about applying the author-reader relationship theories: For those of you accustomed to reading on automatic pilot, you may be looking at the garden for far too long without thinking of the window. For many of you, the window is in fine shape, but it may need a bit of Windex to make the garden more visible. We often become accustomed to dirty windows and don’t notice until someone scribbles “Wash me!” However, our attention needs to be drawn to the window before we can notice. How do we start paying attention? Check out Talking with the Author.

FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills author-reader relationship, formalists, louise rosenblatt, Mark Pennington, New Criticism, reader author relationship, reader response theory, reading comprehension, Teaching Reading Strategies, transactional reading

Text-dependent Reading Theories

Reader-Response Theory attempts to describe the text-reader relationship and asserts that meaning is constructed outside this relationship from the input of both author and reader.

As a reaction to the Reader-Response Theory, beginning in the late 1960s, some reading researchers, philosophers, and especially university English professors began to advocate a different theory about the author-reader relationship that has come to be known as Formalism (or New Criticism). Proponents of Formalism argue that the author’s text should be read as is and in its own context apart from outside influences, such as the author’s background, motives, and biases and reader’s feelings, experiences, and interpretations. Many in this school of thought believe that the accurate meaning of the text may only be discovered if all subjective influences are ignored.

Many formalists especially rail against the more extreme views within the reader-response camp. They would argue that a reader-centered transaction permits the reader to make the text say anything that they want it to say. Far from the no right answer approach of some reading-response theorists, they would argue that there are right and wrong interpretations of the author’s text. After all, it is the author’s text, not the reader’s text. Teachers should ask, “What does the text mean here?” Not “What does the author mean here and why did she say this?” And certainly not “How does this text relate to your own life and make you feel?”

Other formalists, such as Cleanth Brooks, has argued that Reader-Response Theory and Formalism (New Criticism) complement one another. For instance, he stated, “If some of the New Critics have preferred to stress the writing rather than the writer, so have they given less stress to the reader—to the reader’s response to the work. Yet no one in his right mind could forget the reader. He is essential for ‘realizing’ any poem or novel. . .Reader response is certainly worth studying.” However, Brooks tempers his praise for the reader-response theory by noting its limitations, pointing out that, “to put meaning and valuation of a literary work at the mercy of any and every individual [reader] would reduce the study of literature to reader psychology and to the history of taste” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Criticism).

The Formalist Theory has gained traction in American schools since the advent of the Common Core State Standards. Even Mortimer Adler’s old close reading strategy

Close Reading: Don’t Read Too Closely

has regained popularity. For those of you not familiar with this approach, close reading it is a reading strategy which focuses on text-dependent reading and analysis.

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FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

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The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Get the Close Reading Narrative Worksheet FREE Resource:

Get the Close Reading Expository Worksheet FREE Resource:

Reading author-reader relationship, Formalism, Mark Pennington, New Criticism, reader author relationship, reader response, reading comprehension, Teaching Reading Strategies

Reader-Response

Reading specialists talk a lot about automaticity. Simply put, automaticity means putting together all of the reading concepts and skills, such as word recognition, word identification, vocabulary, and comprehension strategies to read a text effortlessly and fluently.

However, regarding automaticity, the Jedi Master is right, “Both light and dark sides of the Force there are.”

Good readers need to learn how to enhance the benefits of automaticity and eliminate or minimize the drawbacks. One important way to do so is through engaging the the author-reader relationship.

One reading theory and body of research which attempts to describe the author-reader relationship is Reader-Response Theory. And, as is usually the case with any construct which attempts to explain a complicated relationship, there are plenty of variations on this theory.

The mainstream reading-response theory was developed by Louise Rosenblatt in her 1938 book, Literature as Exploration. In this and subsequent books, research, lectures, and articles, Dr. Rosenblatt explored what she termed, the transaction, which takes place between the text and readers. Think of a transaction in terms of a business deal made between two parties which results in a certain outcome.

For reading, the transaction is the give and take interplay between the author’s words and the reader’s input. The outcome of this transaction produces the meaning of the text.

The key point to understand about reader-response theory is that meaning exists outside of the author’s text and outside of the reader. For our purposes, meaning is another way of saying reading comprehension. So, how does this text-reader transaction affect what you understand and remember as you read?

When you sit down with a cup of coffee and your phone to read the morning news, you scroll down and click on an article headline which interests you, and you begin to read the text. All the input of the author, such as her research on the news story, her past experience and biases, her on-the-scene interviews, the facts of the event, her writing style, and her word choice are combined into the text that we read. The text acts as a stimulus to which you respond as a reader.

Some of your reader response will, undoubtedly, be the same as other readers. For example, if you are reading an article on a school shooting, everyone reading that same story would feel sad, angry, and perhaps a bit helpless. Certain words in the text, such as “tragedy,” or “heroic” would evoke similar connotations. No doubt, each of us will make a mental connection to a previous mass shooting. If we read the article byline and see that a teacher at that same school wrote the article, we would be especially empathetic to the writer’s experience. If a pop-up ad interrupted our reading, we would all be briefly annoyed. If our spouse or friend is in the room, we most likely would say, “Did you hear? There’s been another school shooting.”

However, your reaction to the article will differ from that of other readers, because your input as an individual reader is different. Personal associations, experiences, opinions, and feelings certainly influence how you understand and react to the text, as well what else you’ve read or watched on television. If you’ve read a few articles by the reporter and tend to disagree with her reporting or point of view, this will influence your personal reaction. Environmental factors may also affect your reader-response, If you woke up grumpy or the coffee is cold, your response to the stimulus produced by the article may be different than if the sun is shining and you have the day off.

If the Reader-Response Theory is accurate, the meaning that the author’s text and your reading produces entirely depends upon the circumstances of the transaction. In fact, Dr. Rosenblatt claims that both the author’s text and the reader are equally important and necessary in the production of meaning. In other words, the meaning of any novel, poem, song, article, or even this lecture is a co-creation of both what the author has to say and what the reader hears. Both the text and reader are partners in this transaction. So, if the good doctor is right, I’m not the only one to blame if you haven’t found this lecture to be scintillating so far!

As I previously mentioned, Dr. Rosenblatt’s position is in the mainstream of reading-response theorists. While she stresses the important role of the reader in shaping the meaning of text, particularly in terms of the reader’s emotional response to the author’s stimulus, she also values the role of the author’s text. The text serves as a blueprint to guide and and a check-point to restrain the reader’s response, so that the subjective experience of the reader is balanced with the objective text.

Now, a few of the buzzwords I just used to summarize Dr. Rosenblatt’s theory may have have stimulated your critical response. Good, we’re supposed to be partners in this transaction! Some of you may have wondered about the phrase, “equally important and necessary.” You may be asking, “Is the reader really just as important as the author’s words in determining meaning?”

You might think back to reading Act 2, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet. Is your interpretation of Romeo’s “But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks?” soliloquy of equal value in determining what the character means as what the author of the text, William Shakespeare says and intends? I’m thinking that you would feel a bit unimportant, or at least uncomfortable, sharing your literary insights and interpretations if Will happened to be in your book club. Doesn’t Shakespeare’s play remain objective, despite your subjective interpretations?

You aren’t alone in your questions about Reader-Response Theory. But even more extreme positions regarding the transaction between text and reader have come in and out of fashion since Dr. Rosenblatt’s first publication. I’ll briefly describe two of these sub-camps.

Some reader-response theorists have trotted out George Berkeley’s “If a tree falls in the midst of the forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound” conundrum to question whether the author’s text has any meaning whatsoever apart from that of its reader. So, according to these reader-centered theorists, the text only exists as it is being read in the mind of the reader, just as the tree makes no sound unless some one hears it. No right; no wrong interpretations because there is no objective benchmark. So, every student would get an A+ on their Romeo and Juliet final exam.

Others have expanded the reader-centered position and would argue that the social nature of reading has an important impact on the creation of meaning. Of course, we don’t read in a vacuum solely of our own experience. As literacy critics we all have somewhat of a herd mentality. Think about how social media creates meaning.

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FREE DOWNLOAD TO ASSESS THE QUALITY OF PENNINGTON PUBLISHING RESOURCES: The SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies includes class posters, five lessons to introduce the strategies, and the SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Strategies FREE Resource:

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The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Literacy Centers, Reading, Spelling/Vocabulary, Study Skills author-reader relationship, Mark Pennington, monitor comprehension, reader author relationship, reader response theory, reading comprehension, reading strategies, Teaching Reading Strategies

How Can I Get My Child to Read?

“How can I get my child to read?” is probably the question that I am asked most by parents. I’m Mark Pennington, M.A. Reading Specialist, teacher, and author of Teaching Reading Strategies. Variations of the question tend to include “My child hates to read!” and, sadly, “My child doesn’t understand what she (or often he) reads.” Don’t worry, parents. You are not alone. These are also the questions that your teachers ask me privately (never in front of their colleagues).

As a dad of three boys, I’ve dealt with the same questions. Despite the fact that we have a literate household with books galore, book gifts for birthdays and Christmas, places to read with good lighting… Despite the fact that my wife and I are voracious readers… Despite the fact that I am a teacher (and reading specialist)… The boys did not like reading.

Yes, we read every day with each of our boys. Yes, all three were reading quite fluently before entering kindergarten. As an aside, the kindergarten teacher (now retired) of our youngest son now lives in our neighborhood. She told me recently how Kenny was such a pain because he knew all of his letter, sounds, and spellings on Day 1 and was frustrated that every other child did not. The teacher told me that one day she asked a student to tell her the sound that the letter m makes. As she waited patiently for the child’s response, Kenny shouted out, “He needs to be in that special group you have.” How embarrassing!

But, aren’t the teachers supposed to get my child to read? Isn’t this their job?

They certainly did so, in class. But independent reading was another matter entirely. My wife and I can’t remember any teachers from kindergarten through sixth grade who did not assign nightly independent reading (usually 15 or 20 minutes) for our three boys. I still think it’s the best homework to assign. However, I can’t remember any accountability attached to this reading, except for the required parent signature to indicate that the reading was done. Three unfortunate exceptions were reading response logs from one teacher that were graded with check marks for completion (not read), a few oral book reports, and a couple of dreaded book projects–one a paper maché mask representing the theme of the book (Yes, really) and a few shoebox dioramas. The take-away is that the assigned reading and few attempts at accountability did not increase my boys’ love of reading.

And, I’m going to be a bit harsh here… The nightly independent reading assignments did not improve the reading fluency and comprehension skills of my boys. My wife and I had to do that.

I remember watching, okay spying, on my oldest son (unknown to him) doing his independent reading in a terrific book, which he chose, when he was in third grade. I watched him stare at the same page without turning to the next page for twenty solid minutes. The microwave beeper went off, and he dutifully closed the book and got up from his desk chair as I appeared in his bedroom doorway.

“All done?” I asked.

“Yep, 20 minutes,” he replied.

I had to do something.

About the same time as the incident described above, I had enrolled in a masters degree program reading specialist program at Cal State Sacramento. One of my professors surprised me (and the class) with the research regarding self-questioning strategies. What surprised us was not that the internal reader-author dialogue was important, but that reader-generated questions of the text produced greater comprehension than did teacher or publisher-generated comprehension questions. Wow!

I wondered if question prompts might help my son and my students generate questions as they read and would these questions increase concentration and reading comprehension.

I designed the SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) Comprehension Strategies to permit the reader to explore and question a text independently, instead of being solely dependent upon author subtitles, publisher, or teacher questions and/or study helps. I also designed these question prompts to work with both expository and narrative text. Finally, I crafted the strategies to provide a language of instruction between children and their parents at home and students and teachers in the classroom. Yes, you can try them out. Get five free lessons and bookmarks at the end of this article.

Having earned my masters degree as a reading specialist, I moved from my high school teaching position to that of an elementary reading specialist. Assigned to several elementary schools, I began sharing my SCRIP Comprehension Strategy Questions with teachers.

Teachers commented on how the SCRIP method increased reader engagement with the text. Kids said that asking questions of the text “made the authors seem like they were talking to us.”

I loved walking around with principals during class visitations and hearing the words Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict in teacher questions and, especially, in student questions and answers. The language of instruction was really catching on!

Teachers loved how the method worked for both expository and narrative texts. Being teachers, they starting creating. Soon I saw SCRIP questions as part of marginal annotations (margin notes). A perfect application! Next, I saw SCRIP questions added to Cornell Notes templates. Fantastic… it works with lectures, too! Teachers also began using the SCRIP questions in literature circles and in online book clubs.

I developed SCRIP Comprehension Bookmarks (you’ll get these in your free download… don’t worry) to serve as nice prompts. Parents begin noticing the bookmarks and asked how to use them to supervise independent reading. I started doing more and more parent workshops to teach them how to provide accountability for nightly independent reading homework. The SCRIP comprehension strategy questions gave parents and their children something specific to talk about regarding the child’s schoolwork and reading. At last! Something better to discuss than the dreaded “How was your day at school?” Teachers even began reducing the amount of in-class independent reading because the parents were doing at home with their child what the teacher could not do with thirty or so kids. Accountability need not destroy a child’s love of reading. In fact, parents even told me how much more their children are enjoying reading, now that they understand what they are reading.

Try the SCRIP Comprehension Strategy Questions with your children (or students). Get five one-page fairy tales, each introducing the SCRIP strategies, and a nice SCRIP bookmark to print.

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 5 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness and Morphology 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). Plus, digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (55 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (30 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program (25 minutes-per-day, 18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

Literacy Centers, Reading academic literacy centers, academic reading, close reading, Close Reading Article Template, Close Reading Article Worksheet, Close Reading Expository Worksheet, Close Reading Narrative Worksheet, close reading strategy, Common Core Standards, comprehension strategies, literacy centers, literary analysis, reader author relationship, reading academic literacy center, Reading Anchor Standards, reading comprehension, reading comprehension questions, reading literacy centers, reading stations, reading strategies, reading worksheets, SCRIP, SCRIP Comprehension, self-question strategies, SQ3R, text dependent questions

A reader of my Pennington Publishing Blog asked me to explain how my PQ RAR reading-study strategy (Preview-Question-Read-Answer-Review) for textbooks and expository/informational writing works with my SCRIP Comprehension Strategy Questions.  An excellent question.

Background

I used and taught the classic SQ3R (Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review) method of textbook reading for years and asked one of the reading professor in my MA program about the technique. He stated that considerable research had demonstrated the efficacy of the S and Q steps (Survey and Question); however, no empirical research seemed to warrant using the last two “R’s” (Recite and Review).  By the way, the related PQ3R strategy simply substituted Preview for the anachronistic Survey.

I went home and over the next few days hammered out my PQ RAR reading-study strategy (Preview-Question-Read-Answer-Review). I added the last R, Review, to the professor’s suggestion of A, Answer, because not all of the reader’s self-generated questions will be answered by the text. Some were answered by the author, but were not noted by the reader during the initial reading; some were not addressed by the text; some require additional research.

As a reading specialist, I shared the PQ RAR reading-study strategy with quite a few teachers at seven different sites and through professional development. Teachers and their students much preferred the PQ RAR reading-study strategy compared to the traditional SQ3R or PQ3R strategies. However, I knew that a critical element was missing.

Weeks later I shared my PQ RAR reading-study strategy with the same professor and my colleagues in the class. One of my fellow teachers commented on the first R (Read) saying, “Simply telling a student to read, looking for the answers to subtitle questions, is clearly inadequate. To build comprehension, we have to teach readers to cue themselves as they read to “talk to the text.” Brilliant!

The professor responded, “It’s both/and.” He first affirmed the importance of the Q (Question) step of developing and writing text-dependent questions from the subtitles and the end of chapter publisher questions. Next, affirmed the importance of the internal reader dialogue and self-monitoring comprehension during the R (Read) step. What he said next surprised all of us in the class.

SCRIP Comprehension Strategy Questions

The professor shared the research regarding self-questioning strategies. He summarized, ” The research shows that reader-generated questions of the text produce greater comprehension than teacher or publisher-generated comprehension questions.” Clearly, I needed to add something to the R (Read) step in my PQ RAR reading-study strategy.

So, back to the drawing board.

I designed the SCRIP (Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict) comprehension cues to cue the reader to explore and question a text independently, instead of being solely dependent upon author subtitles, publisher, or teacher questions and/or study helps. Now the first R (Read) made sense in my PQ RAR reading-study strategy .

Also, although the PQ RAR reading-study strategy is designed for expository text, I carefully designed the SCRIP question prompts to work with both expository/informational and narrative text.

Read-Study Method

Teachers commented on how the SCRIP method increased reader engagement with the text. Students said that asking questions of the text “made the authors seem like they were talking to us.”

I loved walking around with principals during class visitations and hearing the words Summarize, Connect, Re-think, Interpret, and Predict in teacher questions and, especially, in student questions and answers. The language of instruction was really catching on!

Teachers loved how the method worked for both expository and narrative texts. Being teachers, they starting creating. Soon I saw SCRIP questions as part of marginal annotations (margin notes), in literature circles and in online book clubs. Next, I saw SCRIP questions added to Cornell Notes templates. Fantastic… it works with lectures, too!

Years later I wrote and published the digitally-based Reading Fluency and Comprehension Toolkit. This affordable program provides 43 expository animal fluency articles and 43 corresponding animal comprehension worksheets (fillable PDFs for distance learning)–each with five SCRIP strategy questions (answers provided)–along with CORRESPONDING YOUTUBE VIDEOS WITH ALL 43 FLUENCIES RECORDED AT 3 DIFFERENT READING SPEEDS–129 IN ALL. PERFECT FOR MODELED READINGS.

Get the SCRIP Comprehension Cues FREE Resource:

The Science of Reading Intervention Program

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Word Recognition (Phonemic Awareness, Spelling, and Phonics) includes explicit, scripted instruction and practice with the 6 Daily Google Slide Activities every reading intervention student needs: 1. Phonemic Awareness 2. Blending, Segmenting, and Spelling 3. Sounds and Spellings (including handwriting) 4. Heart Words Practice 5. Sam and Friends Phonics Books (decodables). 6. Elkonin Sound Box Spelling Dictations and digital and printable sound wall cards and speech articulation songs. Print versions are available for all activities. First Half of the Year Program (18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Language Comprehension resources are designed for students who have completed the word recognition program or have demonstrated basic mastery of the alphabetic code and can read with some degree of fluency. The program features the 5 Weekly Language Comprehension Activities: 1. Background Knowledge Mentor Texts 2. Academic Language, Greek and Latin Morphology, Figures of Speech, Connotations, Multiple Meaning Words 3. Syntax in Reading 4. Reading Comprehension Strategies 5. Literacy Knowledge (Narrative and Expository). Second Half of the Year Program (18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program: Assessment-based Instruction provides diagnostically-based “second chance” instructional resources. The program includes 13 comprehensive assessments and matching instructional resources to fill in the yet-to-be-mastered gaps in phonemic awareness, alphabetic awareness, phonics, fluency (with YouTube modeled readings), Heart Words and Phonics Games, spelling patterns, grammar, usage, and mechanics, syllabication and morphology, executive function shills. Second Half of the Year Program to Pair with Language Comprehension (18 weeks)

The Science of Reading Intervention Program BUNDLE  includes all 3 program components for the comprehensive, state-of-the-art (and science) grades 4-adult full-year program. Scripted, easy-to-teach, no prep, no need for time-consuming (albeit valuable) LETRS training or O-G certification… Learn as you teach and get results NOW for your students. Print to speech with plenty of speech to print instructional components.

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