Teaching to the 'match'

By Doug Buehl

Zoonosis!

Ebola, yellow fever, SARS, Lyme disease, West Nile virus – all are examples of zoonosis. The author concedes that zoonosis is unfamiliar jargon to most of us, but warns that in the coming years we will increasingly encounter this phenomenon and need to understand it. Of course, I do know something about this uncommon term; I recognize the prefix “zoo” which means having something to do with animals. I know that zoology is the branch of biology that studies animals, and we all can connect to “zoos,” where animals are kept for exhibition.

The author explains zoonosis as diseases that can jump from other animals to humans, and goes on to profile what scientists are gradually discovering about these often fatal contagions, which are an ever-present reality in our lives. The author has a wealth of new insights about zoonosis to share with us.

In return, however, the author expects a great deal from us as readers. The author assumes that we are already well-versed about the impact of past diseases (like rabies and smallpox), that we are geographically literate, and that we bring a degree of awareness of different cultures and conditions around the world. But in particular, the author posits readers who can tap into an extensive background in science. Terminology such as pathogen, virus, protozoan, prion, pandemic, ecosystem, and host species predominate in this National Geographic Magazine article, and the author especially focuses on standard research methods employed by scientists to expand their investigations of the world around us.

My comprehension of this article, then, is contingent on my abilities to draw on my previous knowledge base to meet this author’s expectations, so that I can understand what the author assumes will be the new knowledge to most readers.

Perhaps the most fundamental question a reader must bring to any text is: “What does this author assume I already know?” Proficient readers become adept at sizing up their reading to determine “the match.” To what extent do the author’s assumptions about what a reader knows match what I do indeed know? If the author and I are “on the same page,” then I “get” what the author is telling me – there was an acceptable match between author demands and my knowledge. However, if the author assumes readers will know things that I do not know, a mismatch results. I am likely to be confused, frustrated, and confronted with a text that doesn’t make sense. Mismatches undermine a reader’s efforts to comprehend.

The Strategy

Daily classroom experiences with reading reveal frequent mismatches; many students capable of understanding fall short because an author assumes background knowledge they lack. Previous Reading Room columns termed this dynamic “hidden knowledge” (see February 2006 column). Indeed, Alexander and Jetton, in their comprehensive review of learning from texts in the third edition of The Handbook on Reading Research, conclude: "Of all the factors considered in this exploration, none exerts more influence on what students understand and remember than the knowledge they possess.” (2000, p. 291)

Teachers can have a significant impact on their students’ comprehension of classroom materials by frontloading instruction – providing students with those missing pieces of assumed knowledge through a variety of classroom activities.

Step 1: With any text students will be reading, it is necessary to initially evaluate the match. Some texts will clearly be a reach for a group of students – author expectation of the background knowledge readers bring is definitely out of synch with your students. In these cases, most of your readers do not know what is essential to make sense of such texts. A text that is a mismatch for nearly the entire class will be too difficult, unless substantial frontloading of background concepts is undertaken.

More typically, many texts will be a match for some of the students, but a mismatch for others. Researchers caution that two unsuccessful approaches are frequently taken for this condition. First, students may be sent into the reading relatively “cold,” which means that those students lacking what the author assumes readers know will flounder during their reading. Some of these mismatched students will give up, others will plug on with only fleeting comprehension, and many will merely skim for answers that ultimately make little sense to them. This situation often plays out in classrooms as some students tend to “get it” and many others “have poor comprehension skills.”

The second unsuccessful approach recognizes student struggles with reading comprehension, and overcompensates by generally eliminating reading tasks as central to learning new content. This practice is especially prevalent in classrooms where mismatches tend to outnumber matches. Because the material is “too hard” for many students to comprehend, instruction focuses on other methods to learn content – telling (lecture), visual media (such as video), and interactive activities. As a result, students do not develop the capacity to learn independently as readers, a potential that could have been realized if their deficiencies in background knowledge had been remedied.

A key factor in differentiating instruction is the identification of potential mismatches and emphasizing proactive responses – activities that narrow the gap between what students know and what they need to know to access an author’s message. Students can then be asked to read material that would have been otherwise too challenging if they had been assigned to read it independently, without supporting instruction.

Step 2: A primary classroom method of assessing this “hidden knowledge” – what an author assumes readers already know – are activities that engage students in brainstorming prior knowledge. Frontloading instruction that includes brainstorming accrues several advantages:

• Students are provided with a social opportunity to revisit what they currently know about a topic; as others share students are reminded of additional things they already know.
• Students who would face a mismatch with a particular text are immersed in conversation about a topic that can build what they know before they read; some of what they will need to know will emerge during the brainstorming activity as they listen to comments from classmates about the topic.
• Students are cued in to what aspects of their knowledge might be most relevant for the specific expectations of the author; in essence, they “prime” themselves to actively bring their current knowledge to constructing an understanding of an author’s message.
• If students display decidedly few connections to the topic, the teacher is alerted that a mismatch may exist for most students, and therefore will need to intervene with further instruction to ensure that comprehension will be possible when students are asked to read the material.

Several classic brainstorming procedures can be employed by teachers. One of the most popular is the KWL-Plus strategy (Carr and Ogle 1987), which begins by asking students to list what they know, or have heard, about a topic central to a text they will subsequently read. All students have an opportunity to tune into the “talk” about the topic, which starts with an immersion into students’ current knowledge base. Students who otherwise would have confronted a mismatch receive a “heads-up” on the topic right before they are asked to read about in more depth.

Other effective brainstorming strategies are outlined in Buehl (2001) Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, 2nd Edition and include the LINK method, ABC brainstorming, and PreP (pre-reading plan).

Step 3: In cases where brainstorming will be insufficient (too many students exhibit mismatches), plan frontloading instruction that extends beyond tapping into what students currently know and focuses on building new background knowledge. Of course, teachers sometimes reflect: “Shouldn’t students already know these things?” However, clearly in our classrooms today many students do not, presenting us with a prime teachable moment.

At this point, use of media such as video or highly visual resources such as illustrated texts, as well as teacher presentations, can be effective means to build missing “hidden knowledge.” A common temptation is to substitute these activities for learning from text, as mentioned above. However, using such classroom methods to prepare for reading, rather than replace reading, will lead to students who can increasingly learn to comprehend content-rich texts.

Short clips from video can be especially effective for mediating classroom mismatches. Often video is shown after students read, but it can be a particularly powerful frontloading technique. Judicious use of clips, rather than showing entire works, keeps the focus on building sufficient knowledge for a successful reading experience.

Step 4: Finally, encouraging students to read broadly about a topic, in texts that are at appropriate individual difficulty levels, can lessen classroom mismatches. Much of the background knowledge we bring to texts is incidental – we read general works such as newspapers, magazines, and books and gradually accrue deeper understanding of various topics, even though that is not necessarily our intention for reading. For example, some students have become much more sophisticated about life in the Middle Ages in Europe through their reading of fantasy novels.

Taking the effort to incrementally grow classroom “text sets” can help students develop useful background knowledge for content learning. Locate materials on multiple reading levels related to significant classroom topics of study that can be used for independent background reading. Although such materials may not specifically focus on the aspects emphasized in the curriculum, they can be intensely valuable in deepening general background knowledge on particular topics.

Advantages

Teaching to the Match is an often overlooked but essential factor in improving student comprehension of classroom texts.

• Students become prepared to handle challenging texts, even though some of them would have otherwise experienced mismatches and insufficient comprehension.
• Students gain the necessary daily practice they need to develop as readers, as they are provided opportunities which make them more likely to succeed.
• Students begin to aggressively analyze the match between their knowledge and author’s assumptions as a regular habit of mind as readers.

Further Resources:

Alexander, P. & Jetton, T. (2000). Learning from Text: A multidimensional and developmental perspective. In Kamil, M., Mosenthal, P., Pearson, P. D., and Barr, R. Edited. Handbook of Reading Research, Volume III. Mahway, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 285-310.

Buehl, D. (2001) Classroom Strategies for Interactive Learning, 2 nd Edition. Newark: DE: IRA.

Carr, E., & Ogle, D. (1987). K-W-L Plus: A strategy for comprehension and summarization. Journal of Reading, 30(7), 626–631.

Doug Buehl, WEAC member, Madison
Wisconsin State Reading Association.
dbuehl@madison.k12.wi.us

Reading Room archives

Posted October 8, 2007