Target Audience

• Grades 4 & 5

Program Benefits

• Teaches nine crucial reading comprehension strategies
• Instructional methods motivate students to become independent readers and learners
• Materials include an easy-to-use Teacher's Guide, Student Activity Books, posters, quizzes, and tests
• Includes video demonstrations and training about how to teach comprehension strategies

How It Works

Digging Reading uses a unique and effective approach to teaching reading comprehension strategies that considers the needs of both the teacher and the students.

Teacher Training:
Teachers are expected to assist all of their students in reaching the sophisticated levels of reading comprehension required for success in the classroom and in life. Digging Reading provides extensive resources to help prepare teachers to teach reading comprehension strategies.

Instruction:
Digging Reading uses a synthesis of two methods of teaching strategies that research has shown to be extremely effective—direct explanation of strategies and transactional strategies instruction. This powerful synthesis will equip all students with the strategies they need to become independent learners who are able to deal with various kinds of texts and achieve a variety of purposes as they read.

Student Motivation:
Getting students interested in reading is crucial to their success. Digging Reading emphasizes motivation and engagement.

• Authentic texts were selected with today's students in mind.
• Each lesson begins with an activity to capture students' attention, such as a game or some thought-provoking questions.
• In the lessons, teachers explain to students why reading comprehension strategies are important.

What are Reading Comprehension Strategies?

Reading comprehension strategies are "conscious and flexible plans that readers apply and adapt to a variety of texts and tasks" (Pearson, Roehler, Dole, and Duffy). In other words, comprehension strategies are mental tools that assist students in reading and learning. Accomplished readers engage in them in order to better understand, learn from, and remember what they read. For all students— including able students, English language learners, and students who struggle in reading—strategies lead to independence in reading.

The Digging Reading Program teaches nine crucial reading comprehension strategies:

• Having a Purpose
• Recognizing Text Structure
• Using Prior Knowledge
• Making Inferences
• Questioning
• Predicting
• Determining What is Important
• Summarizing
• Being Metacognitive

Teacher Materials:

Student Materials:

A Teacher Training DVD is included in the Digging Reading materials. The training utilizes video and other multimedia to explain the rationale and guiding principles of the program, introduce the lessons, and provide critical background information about reading comprehension strategies. There are six sections to explore.

Welcome to Digging Reading
This section describes what is included on the DVD, provides a short definition of reading comprehension strategies, and gives a brief tour of the DVD.

Reading Comprehension Strategies

• Characteristics of Comprehension Strategies presents several characteristics of reading comprehension strategies
• Key Comprehension Strategies describes the nine reading comprehension strategies that are integral to the Digging Reading curriculum

Critical Concepts
A number of concepts underlie the approach to strategy instruction used in Digging Reading. These critical concepts fall into three groups:

• Preliminaries – concept to consider prior to instruction
• Pedagogical Principles – concepts to consider while planning and implementing instruction
• Post-instructional Principles – concepts to consider while providing follow-up to initial instruction

Our Approach
This section describes the Digging Reading approach to teaching reading comprehension strategies and how the Digging Reading lessons are structured. In addition, this section provides recommendations for pairing students and customizing your classroom.

Curriculum Overview
This section presents an overview of each unit, including goals, strategies covered, an introduction to the reading selection(s), and a “Week at a Glance�? feature, which briefly describes the activities for each day of the week.

Video and Resources
This section provides access to the videos referenced in the Teacher's Guide. It also includes PDF files of posters, transparencies and graphics.

To draw students in and add an element of adventure, the Digging Reading materials are designed around an archaeology theme. The theme supports the program's motto—Unearth the Full Meaning— and provides a metaphor for learning about the strategies.

Archaeologist's Tools

Each reading comprehension strategy is associated with an archaeologist's tool.

The Digging Reading curriculum teaches nine reading comprehension strategies.

The strategies are grouped into 5 units and are taught over a 13-week period. There are 4 lessons per week, for a total of 53 lessons in all. This table shows the scope and sequence.

Lesson Structure

Each lesson begins with an overview page that includes:

• Key Messages - The Key Messages are the points to be emphasized during the lessons and reinforced at the lesson's conclusion.
  
  
  
  
• Objectives - Objectives describe what students will be able to do by the end of the lesson.
  
  
  
  
• Lesson at a Glance - The Lesson at a Glance provides a quick overview of the lesson structure.
  
  
  
  
• Materials - Look under Materials for a list of supplies needed for the lesson.

The overview page is followed by the actual lesson, which is divided into sections:

• Focus
  Every lesson begins with a Focus activity designed to capture students' attention. The Focus activity may be a game, some thought-provoking questions, or a brief review.
  
  
• Teach/Model
  Teaching and modeling is especially important early in the week. In Teach/ Model, the teacher explains a strategy and then thinks aloud while reading to demonstrate how a strategy is used.
  
  
• Guide
  In this lesson section, the teacher interacts with the entire class at once. It usually involves reading aloud and then guiding students to use a strategy by prompting them with questions.
  
  
• Practice/Apply
  Students practice using a strategy, either independently or with a partner.

Product Alignment to Common Core Standards in English Language Arts

The goal of the Digging Reading program is to equip students with the comprehension strategies they need to become independent learners who are able to deal with various kinds of texts. This goal directly aligns with the Common Core Standards. The following tables list the Reading Standards relevant to the Digging Reading program and note the units in which the standards are addressed.

Reading Standards for Literature, Grade 4

Reading Standards for Literature, Grade 5

Reading Standards for Informational Text, Grade 4

Reading Standards for Informational Text, Grade 5

Reading comprehension is generally defined as the ability to understand text. Understanding occurs when a reader is able to actively extract and construct meaning from the text, the context, and their own knowledge and experiences.

The Three Elements of Reading Comprehension

According to the Rand Reading Study Group's Reading for Understanding: Toward an R&D Program in Reading Comprehension (2002) report, comprehension entails three elements:

• The reader who is doing the comprehending, including their capacities, abilities, knowledge, and experience
• The text that is to be comprehended, including both print and electronic text
• The activity in which comprehension is a part, including the purposes, processes, and consequences associated with the act of reading.

Furthermore, it is assumed that these elements occur within a greater sociocultural context.

Components of Reading Comprehension

The What Works Clearinghouse's WWC Evidence Review Protocol for Adolescent Literacy Interventions (Grades 4-12) states that comprehension depends on various underlying components:

• Decoding, or the ability to translate text into speech
• Knowledge of word meanings
• Fluency, or the ability to read text accurately and automatically
• Language comprehension, or the ability to understand spoken language

Deficiencies in one or more these areas is often the source of reading difficulties.

Chall's Stages of Reading Development

Jeanne Chall (1983, 1996) proposed that reading development occurs in six stages. Stages 0-2 are commonly categorized as "learning to read" phases while Stages 3-5 are known as "reading to learn" phases. Stage 3 is highlighted as this is the time when reading comprehension becomes the major focus of reading. It usually occurs around fourth grade.

Reading comprehension strategies are tools students learn to use to construct meanings from the text. They have several characteristics in common:

• They are conscious efforts.
• They're meant to be used flexibly.
• They should be used only when and where they are appropriate.
• They are widely applicable.
• They may be overt or covert.

Importance of Reading Comprehension

• Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading.
• Comprehension is critically important to the development of children's reading skills and therefore their ability to obtain an education (NRP, 2000).
• 62.5% of employers rank reading comprehension as the #1 "very important" basic skill for high school graduates (Conference Board, 2008).
• Poor reading skills correlate heavily with lack of employment, lower wages, and fewer opportunities for advancement (NEA, 2007).

Importance of Reading Comprehension Strategies

• Reading comprehension strategies provide students with tools they can use on their own to help them become self-directed, independent readers and learners.
• Reading comprehension strategies have been shown to help all types of students—proficient, struggling, and ELLs.

Reading Comprehension and the 4th Grade Slump

Fourth grade is a pivotal year for students' reading development.

• Students shift from "learning to read" to "reading to learn" (Chall, 1983, 1996).
• Texts become increasingly complex and challenging, with an increase in expository (or informational) texts.

Some students who previously were on par with their peers, begin to struggle. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as the "4th Grade Slump, " and often disproportionately affects students from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds. Researchers have come up with a number of possible causes:

• Lack of fluency and automaticity in reading (Chall & Jacobs, 2003)
• Types of assessments prior to 4th grade and a lack of rich vocabulary (Hirsch, 2003)
• Lack of background knowledge (Pressely, et al, 1989)
• Reduced in-school time for reading as instructional time becomes dedicated to other subjects, testpreparation, etc.
• Lack of interesting and engaging texts available for students
• Low levels of language and reading exposure/experiences at home

The Comprehension Crisis

Today's workplace requires a higher level of literacy than ever before, yet few students are being taught the reading comprehension strategies they need to do the sophisticated reading required in today's world (Duffy, 2002; Pressley, 2002; RAND, 2002; Sweet & Snow, 2003). This is the case for a few reasons.

1. Teaching reading comprehension strategies was not a part of the whole language agenda, which dominated in U. S. classrooms throughout most of the last decade (Pearson, 2000), and thus teaching comprehension strategies was simply not a priority during the decade.
2. Even with training, teaching comprehension is very challenging (Duffy, 2002; Pressley, 2002; Pressley & El-Dinary, 1997; RAND, 2002).
3. For most teachers, successfully teaching comprehension strategies is dependent on having appropriate and powerful materials to use in teaching the strategies (Graves & Liang, 2002; Graves, Juel, & Graves, 2004), but while books of helpful hints for teaching comprehension strategies (e.g., Oczkus, 2004; Ellery, 2005) can be found, substantial programs of instruction are rare.

Did You Know?

According to the Nation's Report Card: Reading 2011 (NCES, IES):

• Two-thirds of the nation's 4th graders are performing at basic or below basic reading levels.
• There are disproportionately more 4th graders of minority backgrounds performing at the below basic reading level.
• Students who are eligible for free or reduced-price lunch tend to have lower scores than those who do not qualify.

National Percentages at Each Achievement Level (nationally and by race/ethnicity)

National Average Scores of 4th Graders by Income Level
(based on eligibility for reduced/free lunch)

No Child Left Behind

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) identifies reading comprehension strategies as one of the essential components of reading instruction. The NCLB Act, policy documents, reauthorization information, and other resources can be located on the U.S. Department of Education website.

National Center for Education Statistics - National Assessment of Educational Progress

The National Assessment for Educational Progress (NAEP) administers assessments in 12 subject areas. For reading, NAEP assesses student performance every two years in grades 4, 8, and 12 for the nation, and in grades 4 and 8 for states. NAEP is overseen by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), Institute of Education Sciences (IES). NAEP is the largest national representative and continuing assessment of what America's students know and can do in various subject areas.

Report of the National Reading Panel: "Teaching Children to Read" Reports of the Subgroups

The National Reading Panel (NRP) was created in order to "assess the status of research-based knowledge, including the effectiveness of various approaches to teaching children to read." The Panel was assembled by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), in consultation with the Secratary of Education, at the request of Congress. This report details their findings, which is broken into 5 subgroups: Alphabetics, Fluency, Comprehension, Teacher Education, and Computer Technology and Reading Instruction.

Institute of Education Sciences - What Works Clearinghouse

The What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) initiative was created in 2002 to be a central and trusted source of scientific evidence for what works in education. Find information about various types of interventions including programs, products, practices, and policies.

Research–Based Teaching Strategies

Digging Reading uses a synthesis of two methods of teaching strategies that research has shown to be extremely effective—direct explanation of strategies and transactional strategies instruction. The instruction combines the best features of these two methods with the latest research-based techniques for promoting motivation and engagement (e.g., Guthrie, WIgfield, & Perencevich, 2004, National Research Council, 2003).

Direct explanation of strategies is a very explicit, step-by-step approach and has been repeatedly validated and endorsed over the past two decades (e.g., Duffy, 2002; Duffy et al., 1987; Duke & Pearson, 2002; Graves et al., 2004; National Reading Panel, 2000; Pearson et al., 1992, RAND, 2002, Sweet & Snow, 2003). A typical unit used to initially teach a strategy—for example, a unit on summarizing—might last three weeks. Gradually, over those three weeks, the instruction progresses from a situation in which the teacher does most of the work to one in which students assume primary responsibility for use of the strategy.

Transactional strategies instruction is in some ways an offshoot of direct explanation. It too has been described and researched in a number of studies (e.g., Brown, Pressley, Van Meter, & Schuder, 1996; Pressley, 2000, 2002; Pressley et al. 1992; Reutzel, Fawson, & Smith, 2003). Like direct explanation of strategies, transactional strategies instruction includes direct explanation as part of the initial instruction on strategies. However, as compared to direct explanation, transactional strategies instruction is much less structured and heavily embedded in the ongoing reading activities in the classroom. There is solid evidence that transactional instruction is effective, and such instruction has been shown to be particularly useful in giving students approaches that they use in their actual reading in and out of school (e.g., Anderson, 1992, Pressley, et al., 1996, Reutzel et al., 2003).

Principles Underlying the Digging Reading Instructional Approach:

• Provide a description of the strategy and information about when, where, and how it should be used
• Model use of the strategy for students on a text the class can share
• Guide and support students as they use the strategy over time—gradually releasing more and more responsibility to the students
• Work over time to help students use the newly learned strategy in various authentic in-school and out-of-school tasks
• Review the strategy and further discuss students' understanding of it and responses to it from time to time
• Discuss with students how the strategy is working for them, what they think of it, and when and how they can use it in the future
• Motivate students to use the strategy by explaining and discussing its value

Other Research-based Elements and Techniques used in Digging Reading:

• Cooperative learning
• Use of authentic text
• Use of a variety of texts, both narrative and expository
• Scaffolding
• Gradual release of responsibility
• Teacher modeling
• Instruction is multifaceted and long-term
• Review and reinforcement
• Promoting transfer

Field tests have shown the program to be highly effective:

• More than 80% of students who completed the Digging Reading curriculum indicated they learned each of the Digging Reading strategies.
• 95% of teachers who utilized the Digging Reading curriculum would recommend it to a colleague.
• Teacher knowledge about how to teach increased significantly through the use of the Digging Reading materials, and teacher knowledge was directly related to student outcomes.
• Teacher knowledge was a significant predictor of student knowledge.
• When Digging Reading test items were sorted by the nine reading comprehension strategies, students using Digging Reading did better than the control group on every strategy.

Field testing of the program included 34 fourth and fifth grade teachers from nine schools in the Minneapolis/St. Paul metro area were selected and randomly assigned to either a treatment or control condition. The 865 students in these classrooms represented a range of socioeconomic, racial, and linguistic backgrounds. Observations of teachers and questions to students about what took place in their classrooms confirmed that the treatment was implemented as intended.

Digging Reading - Background Research

Describes the nature of reading comprehension strategies, what strategies are worth teaching, researchbased procedures for teaching strategies, and provides information about references and further reading.

Teaching Reading Comprehension Strategies: Methodologies & Research Results