Developing Inferential Comprehension Through DL-TA and Discussion Webs

Overview

From Theory to Practice

OVERVIEW

This lesson uses the narrative text Granddaddy's Gift by Margaree King Mitchell to help students improve their inferential comprehension, prediction, and discussion skills. As part of the Directed Listening-Thinking Activity (DL-TA), students participate in before-, during-, and after-reading activities. Before reading, students answer discussion questions to help activate prior knowledge. During reading, students are presented with a story-specific statement and must argue both sides of the issue and provide reasons for their thinking in small discussion groups. Students are then asked to make predictions as to how the story will end. After reading, comparisons are made between the ending of the story and the students' predictions.

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FROM THEORY TO PRACTICE

Headley, K.N., & Dunston, P.J. (2000). Teachers' Choices books and comprehension strategies as transaction tools. The Reading Teacher, 54, 260–268.

• Construction of meaning requires transactions with the text in which students read and respond to text using their own prior knowledge, attitudes, and ideas. It is also important for students to solve problems, make predictions and inferences, ask questions, and consider the implications of their ideas.
  
  
• The Directed Listening-Thinking Activity (DL-TA) and Discussion Web help students to activate prior knowledge, predict, discuss, organize, integrate, and summarize information from their reading. These strategies promote interactive learning experiences that are important to literacy learning.

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