Teaching Comprehension

Book excerpt: "Teaching Comprehension: The Comprehension Process Approach" is unparalleled to any other text in its coverage of how to teach comprehension to students of all ages. Renowned scholar Cathy Collins Block takes on the challenging task of providing what every student needs to know about teaching comprehension, in a concise manner. This text is packed with innovative lessons and approaches based on the latest developments in research-based practices. Designed to suit one's needs, each chapter ends with a complete lesson plan that can be implemented in classrooms with a wide range of student reading ability levels. Features Presents the "Thinking Process Approach" to comprehension instruction through highly effective, research-based lessons. Provides in-depth treatment of literal comprehension processes, inference, imagery, metacognition, and non-fictional texts. The text teaches higher-level comprehension processes based on what students need to fully understand more than ten distinct genres (Chs. 5-12). Addresses the comprehension needs of "Generation Y" students, the roles and responsibilities of teachers and students; and curriculum and instructional activities, featuring specific actions that teachers can take to capture the attention of a new generation of students. Describes new methods of empowering students throughout the text, which advance their own comprehension abilities. An entire chapter is dedicated to new assessment tools that diagnose and prescribe student's comprehension needs and accomplishments (Ch. 10). These assessment tools have been successfully tested in more than 2,000 classrooms throughout the United States and Canada. Heavy emphasis throughout the text on how to use technology to improve comprehension instruction to meet the needs of the 21st century classroom. Rather than merely listing Web site addresses, the text integrates discussion of strategies for using technology into the text. Includes selections of current, children's and adolescent literature as well as many examples of non-fiction selections covering grades K-12. Covers comprehension needs at each stage of students' intellectual development. Contains vivid graphics that thematically recur within chapters and easily guide students' reading throughout the text and demonstrate how to use graphics effectively to teach comprehension.