A few months ago several teachers here at the Oasis formed a study group to read Cathy Collins Block’s latest book Teaching Comprehension: The Comprehension Process Approach. We met once a week over a period of nine weeks, discussing roughly one chapter a week. We chose this particular book for two reasons. First, even though our respective students ranged in ages from six to sixteen, many of them—to a greater or lesser degree—struggled with comprehension. Second, the book provides a list of reflection questions and activities at the end of each chapter. When we finished chapter one, for example, we chose the following activity to try:
Suppose that you are preparing to introduce this chapter to your students. Till the text. After you have selected the aspects of the chapter that you will preteach, describe how you will do so and why.
Instead of the chapter suggested by Block, we each chose a chapter in a classroom textbook that we were preparing to teach. We each “tilled the text,” selected aspects that we would preteach, and then, at our next meeting, described how and why we did what we did. It was both fascinating and edifying.
We progressed this way through the book for the next few weeks. We all agreed that it was truly one of the most helpful group studies we had experienced. We also agreed that Teaching Comprehension is one of the finest books available on the subject.
In the book’s preface, Block describes succinctly what her latest work is all about: “Teaching Comprehension: The Comprehension Process Approach presents newly developed, research-based methods that improve students’ comprehension.” At the heart of the book is the premise that comprehension—or the making of meaning—should be taught as a process, at the point of need.
The Comprehension Process Approach (CPA) involves:
1. teaching students how to identify the thinking processes and meaning-making tools that they need to understand text;
2. how to initiate several thinking processes at points in a text when understanding is interrupted.
Block also sets out five goals for which teachers need to assume responsibility. Those are:
1. Giving choices during scaffolding and performing pivotal point scaffolding to avoid the slight rejection phenomenon.
2. Omitting teacher dominated one-to-one conferences by holding more student-dominated discovery discussions.
3. Avoiding the tendency to merely give instruction by tilling the text, showing how, and storytelling.
4. Leading students to initiate rather then merely contribute.
5. Seeking students’ increased understanding through respondent-centered questions, the power of three, and effective responses during discussions.
Each of these goals is thoroughly explained and illustrated in the text.
Especially helpful are the vignettes that Block provides at the beginning of each chapter. They take you into real classrooms where teachers are teaching lessons or discussing comprehension strategies with their students. Also helpful are the graphic organizers which help make students' thinking (and comprehension) visible. Block also includes detailed lesson plans at the end of each chapter that will inform and motivate you.
Teaching Comprehension is a valuable resource and deserves a wide audience. Readers will come away with the knowledge, inspiration, and tools necessary to teach comprehension in a way that will benefit their students throughout their lifetimes.
An excellent, detailed index and bibliography is included. Highly recommended.
Reviewed by the Education Oasis Staff
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