Beginnings
During my 18 years as a primary classroom teacher I was often perplexed by the students who arrived in my classroom at the beginning of the new year with overinflated reading ages. When I started working with them in reading groups it was quickly apparent that while they could decode the text they didn't have a good understanding of the content.
I looked for ways to assess comprehension only to find that the research was inconclusive; comprehension is a very illusive cognitive process, difficult to measure. In my search for some way of providing comprehension benchmarks for students, I created a series of Informal Prose Inventories. In addition to the traditional running record component that provides a measure of accuracy and decoding strategy use, I included comprehensive retelling and question prompts as measures of understanding to provide a more valid scoring system than the subjective measures used in the past. These are now used extensively in New Zealand, Queensland and Western Australia.
My next goal was to develop a guided reading process that would improve the students comprehension. Traditional guided silent reading sessions (read a page silently followed by the teacher checking comprehension by questioning) frustrated me. I was merely checking their understanding but not teaching them ways to become better comprehenders.
Reciprocal Reading
I used the Reciprocal Reading model, which has a strong research base, for some time. This model majors on the use of four strategies to get the reader to process text more deeply. Eventually I was discouraged by the superficiality of the readers responses. No matter how hard I tried they didn't buy into the strategies; they didn't see them as being purposeful and there was no evidence that they were taking responsibility for monitoring their comprehension.
Tom Nicholson and Text Structure
I liked Tom Nicholson's work on text structure which provided me with a valuable insight into text level comprehension, especially with narrative text. This remains a big part of CSI (Stage 5). Once I had taught my students to look for a very simple text structure (characters, setting, problem, feelings, action, outcome) they were able to quickly summarise a story, separating the important information from the minor supporting detail and move away from painstaking blow by blow sequential retelling – significant gains in text processing here.
However, I was still doing far too much in the reading lesson. I was still having to unpack the story for them with my questioning so that they could get at the story structure.
Michael Pressley and Gerald Duffy
It was at this point that I came across the work of Michael Pressley and Gerald Duffy which provided much greater insight into the teaching of a range of comprehension strategies at a sentence level. Pressley’s research with what he called "Transactional Comprehension Strategy Instruction" strongly reinforced what I was looking for - a teaching process that recognised the need for developing the metacognitive awareness of strategies and the application of these strategies during reading. This became the springboard for my own comprehension strategy programme (CSI – Comprehension Strategy Instruction).
CSI - The Point of Difference
The notion of a set of comprehension strategies that can be taught is now widespread. The issue I have with the delivery of these strategies (what I have seen for many years and continue to see in classrooms) is they are presented as a smorgasbord which the teacher dips into in a haphazard manner. As a result the students are not provided with a systematic framework within which they can apply them and develop fluency with their use, and the focus for practise is often on after reading activities rather than during reading.
The key to CSI’s delivery is a simple highly predictable teaching routine which we call the Three Steps. This routine, coupled with a systematic unfolding of strategies, frees up the student to focus more closely on the processing of text as they read. Their thinking does not become overloaded but is carefully developed as they are constantly being reminded of the need to own their reading.
For the teacher this is more easily understood because of our clear connection to Bloom's Taxonomy where we have ensured a clear developmental pathway through the CSI stages, moving from sentence level comprehension to text level comprehension.
This puts the unpacking of text firmly in the hands of the student as they uncover their own misunderstandings, and then use strategies to remove roadblocks and deepen understanding, at the same time moving away from clumsy, predetermined teacher led questioning. It also provides flexibility for the teacher to adjust the learning to the developmental needs of the reader.
Developing CSI at NZGSE – Action Research
Since 2000 I have been responsible for the reading programme for interns training to be teachers at the New Zealand Graduate School of Education. NZGSE, a private teacher training institution in Christchurch, uses a classroom based training model where teaching interns spend 6-7 weeks every term in a classroom with tutors working alongside them.
This has provided a fantastic environment for action research and CSI has grown and evolved to meet the needs of my trainee teachers. I have trained literally hundreds of teachers in CSI who are now using this programme with great results in classrooms throughout NZ. We have many stories of children ‘coming alive’ as they move from being passive superficial readers to active well engaged readers who are digging into text and discovering the magic of reading.
Developing CSI ONLiNE
In the last 3 years fellow NZGSE tutor Brian Parker has worked with me to convert CSI into a format that can be delivered to teachers anywhere via the internet. We have continued to refine the teaching process, breaking it down to small bite sized pieces and collected video footage that would suit this medium of online delivery. We see this as a real alternative to current models of PD delivery which recent data has shown to be ineffective.
Trialing in Schools
At the beginning 2009 we took our online programme to four local schools and one in Tasmania, Australia. This was our first trial. The interaction we have had with that first set of teachers, and those on subsequent trials, has helped us to do much soul searching and much rewriting as we continue to refine this programme. We have now completed 3 trials and continue to value the input we receive from teachers.
With only two exceptions, all the schools who have completed their initial 12 month access to CSI ONLiNE have resubscribed for a second year, testimony to the integrity and longevity of the programme.
As of August 2010 there are now 43 schools working on CSI ONLiNE, mainly in New Zealand and Australia, but also in the UK, Northern Ireland, Samoa, and the USA.
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