Reading Comprehension: Assisting students with autism, hyperlexia

10/2/2015
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Reading Comprehension
Dr Gary Woolley
University of the Sunshine Coast
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Outline
Part 1
Poor comprehension
Part 2
Teaching – vocabulary
and levels of cognition
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Types of reading disabilities
LLD
Decoding deficits
(Dyslexia)
(Syntactic, Semantic,
Pragmatic Deficits,
Hyperlexia)
Metacognitive
Deficits (ADHD)
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Poor comprehenders

Children known as poor comprehenders exhibit significant
reading comprehension difficulties but good reading decoding
skills (Adlof & Catts, 2015).

Some have estimated that 5-10% of young children show the
poor comprehender profile (Nation & Snowling, 1997).
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Hyperlexia
 Children
with hyperlexia are noteworthy because
they have advanced word-recognition abilities
despite having other language related impairments
such as autism.
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Language difficulties

A growing body of research has provided strong evidence that
Poor Comprehenders have learning difficulties in:
1.
oral language,
2.
vocabulary
3.
semantic processing, and
4.
inferencing
In contrast they generally good phonological skills (Adlof & Catts, 2015).
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Comprehension: A complex issue

Comprehending written text is a complex task.

A reader must (among other things):
1.
Decode individual words,
2.
Identify connections between them,
3.
Integrate their meanings in:
1.
clauses
2.
sentences
3.
paragraphs
However, the information provided by texts are not always
complete (Tiffin-Richards, 2015).
Mental modeling for Individual texts
Knowledge,
experiences,
propositions from longterm memory
Situation/Scenario Mapping Model
Comprehensive referential meaning of
the real or imaginary situation described
in the text.
Text Macrostructure
Text organisation
Gist or theme
Text Microstructure
Words
Sentences
Cohesive structures
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Assumptions about comprehension
1.
Word-level and higher level inferences are separate functions
2.
Higher level – two distinct functions – construction and
integration
3.
Readers form a mental representation of text during reading
4.
Good readers do not draw on working memory while reading
5.
Working memory provides the working memory capacity for
comprehension
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Three levels of engagement
Perceptual Level Engagement
Cognitive Level Engagement
Behavioural/Metacognitive
Level Engagement
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Typical miscue:
“Despite the scene talking place in the cove…”
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Central
executive
Visuospacial
Sketchpad
Episodic
Buffer
Phonological
loop
Long-term Memory
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Teaching: A balancing act
Cognitive Overload
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Three levels of engagement
Perceptual Level Engagement
Cognitive Level Engagement
Behavioural/Metacognitive Level
Engagement
Monitoring
function
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3 Types of treatments
1. Text enhancements (Perceptual level)
e.g. highlighting, illustrations, repeated readings, vocabulary instruction,
top-down structuring (graphic pre-organizer, using compensatory strategies
2. Cognitive strategies
e.g. summarizing, self-questioning, clarifying, imagining, activating
background knowledge, explaining, elaborating
3. Behavioural treatments (metacognitive)
e.g. goal setting, self-monitoring, self-questioning, selecting strategies,
reflecting, evaluating, forming an opinion, using self-rewards
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Visit my blog for more ideas
Go to:
http://reading4meaning.blogspot.com.au
or
use the QR code below
When you go into the blog
scroll down the side menu until
you come to Blog Archive
2011 June – October
Series called 10 Principles for
Assisting Reading
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3 Types of treatments
1. Text enhancements (perceptual level)
e.g. highlighting, illustrations, repeated readings, vocabulary instruction,
top-down structuring (graphic pre-organizer, using compensatory strategies
2. Cognitive strategies
e.g. summarizing, self-questioning, clarifying, imagining, activating
background knowledge, explaining, elaborating
3. Behavioural treatments (metacognitive)
e.g. goal setting, self-monitoring, self-questioning, selecting strategies,
reflecting, evaluating, forming an opinion, using self-rewards
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Local and Global Integration
Vocabulary knowledge assists working memory.

Local coherence involves integration between successive
sentences, and the partial mediation for global coherence
inferences may reflect the

Higher memory demands of global coherence inferences. It
involves the integration of ideas throughout the text and also
with background knowledge external to the text.
(Currie & Cain, 2015).
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hot
Little
water
What is it?
Post-it notes with
thoughts
Features
Little
vegetation
Pictures
or
drawings
Examples
DESERT
Cactus
Salt bush
Examples
Sonora
Mojave
Sahara
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Rocky soil
Little rain
Question-Answer Relationship – Local
Coherence
Right there:
On my own:
Answers to literal questions
can be answered there in
the text.
The answer is not in the
text. The reader uses his
own background
experiences to answer the
question.
Author and me:
Think and Search:
The answer is in the text
but the reader must pull it
together from two or more
sentences in the passage.
The answer is not in the
passage. It is found in the
reader’s own background
knowledge and from the
text.
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Graphic
organizers
Graphic organizers can be used before the reading or after the
reading.

Before - can be used to connect with background information and
to be a prediction tool.

After - can be used to reorganize information and to help
summarize.
+ Inferences
Teaching the strategy explicitly
1.
Explain what is involved
2.
Model the process (think aloud)
3.
Share the task
4.
Additional practice
5.
Integrate the process into a reading assignment
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3 Types of treatments
1. Text enhancements (Perceptual level)
e.g. highlighting, illustrations, repeated readings, vocabulary instruction,
top-down structuring (graphic pre-organizer, using compensatory strategies
2. Cognitive strategies
e.g. summarizing, self-questioning, clarifying, imagining, activating
background knowledge, explaining, elaborating
3. Behavioural treatments (metacognitive)
e.g. goal setting, self-monitoring, self-questioning, selecting strategies,
reflecting, evaluating, forming an opinion, using self-rewards
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Comprehension monitoring
Students need to learn to take control of their own
learning by:
 setting
a goal
 monitoring
 reflecting
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Question Generating
Comprehension is about getting answers to questions
that you are asking.
 Encourage
students to form their own questions,
monitor, reflect and refine.
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Multiple Strategy Use
 KWL plus
strategy
 QARs
 Reciprocal
Teaching
 Predicting
 Questioning
 Clarifying
 Summarising
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KWL plus strategy
 K-know
 W-want
to learn
 L-learned
 Plus-students
engage in a selected writing
activity to summarise what they have
learned.
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Part 2: Levels of Teacher
feedback
Dr Gary Woolley
Assoc. Prof. Rod Gardner
http://reading4meaning.blogspot.com.au/2014_11
_01_archive.html
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Research Questions:
How are the three levels: P, C, M play out in classroom pedagogical
interactions.
1.
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a.
Do experienced teachers give feedback at three different levels? If so, how
and what?
b.
What sorts of questions do teachers ask in small groups (e.g. “I wonder…)?
When do they ask these?
c.
How do teachers/students manage turn taking in a small dialogic group
situations?
COR Literacy Framework
Dr Gary Woolley
Visit my blog:
http://reading4meaning.blogspot.com.au/2013/04/c
or-literacy-framework-part-1.html
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Multiple strategies

“Some of these types of instruction are helpful when used alone,
but many are more effective when used as part of a multiple-strategy
method.”

“In general, the evidence suggests that teaching a combination of
reading comprehension techniques is the most effective.”
NRP 2000
+ External and internal expertise
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Teacher
developed
resources
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COR Literacy Framework
Phases
Before
During
After
Levels
of Cognition
Perceptual
Level
Cognitive Level
Metacognitive
level
viewing &
scanning
clarifying
summarising
What do I
know?
Predicting
questioning
What have I
learned?
What do I want
to know?
monitoring &
organising
revising How did I learn?
How can I
improve?
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Hyperlexia & the Matthew Effect
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When reading volume does
not pay dividends
Vocabulary

Poor comprehenders (and those with hyperlexia) do not
connect words to meaning.

The teaching of vocabulary is often front loaded e.g. the
children are given a list of words and their meanings or the
children are asked to look up the words in a dictionary before a
literacy activity.
In the following section the teachers were observed to be leading
a group discussion about the words in a text.
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Three levels of engagement
Perceptual Level Engagement
(Task)
Cognitive Level Engagement
(Process)
Behavioural/Metacognitive
Level Engagement (Selfregulation)
(Hattie & Timperley, 2007)
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References

Currie, N. K., & Cain, K. (2015). Children's inference generation: The role
of vocabulary and working memory. Journal of Experimental Child
Psychology, 137, 57–75.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of Feedback. Review of
Educational Research, 77(1), 81-112.

National Reading Panel (2000). Teaching children to read: Report of the
comprehension instruction subgroup to the National Institute of Child
Health and Development. Washington, DC: NICD.

Lee, S. H., & Whang, M. (2015). Word and non-word processing without
meaning support in Korean-speaking children with and without hyperlexia.
Reading and Writing, 28,217-238.

Woolley, G. E. (2014). Developing literacy in the primary classroom.
London: Sage.

Adlof, S.M., Catts, H.W. (2015). Morhosyntax in poor comprehenders. Reading and
Writing, 28 (7), 1051 - 1070.

Hattie, J., & Timperley, H. (2007). The power of Feedback. Review of Educational
Research, 77(1), 81-112.

Tiffin-Richards, S.P., Schroeder, S. (2015). The component process of reading
comprehension in adolescents. Learning and Individual Differences, 42, 1-9.
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Thank you.
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