L AU R E N A I M O N E T T E L I A N G JA N I C E A D O L E Help with teaching reading comprehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks Five instructional frameworks to teach reading comprehension are presented in this article All five have been researched to show their effectiveness in improving reading comprehension Various aspects of the frameworks are discussed to assist educators in making instructional decisions about their use A fter years of sitting on the “should be hot” list with the other wallflowers, comprehension instruction is finally “hot,” at least according to over 75% of the contributors to the International Reading Association’s annual “What’s Hot, What’s Not” list (Cassidy & Cassidy, 2004/ 2005) Although comprehension instruction has always been an important part of reading research and teaching, it has been somewhat overlooked in the last few decades in favor of issues related to beginning reading, phonics, and decoding Attention to comprehension instruction has increased recently, however, particularly in the federal arena The influential publication of Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998) included a focus on reading comprehension and a review of comprehension literature The Reading Excellence Act and Reading First efforts, while concentrating primarily on early reading and emphasizing the teaching of phonemic awareness, phonics, and fluency, did in- 742 clude wording on comprehension instruction The National Reading Panel’s report Teaching Children to Read (National Institute for Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], 2000) also addressed comprehension instruction, albeit not as much as some reading researchers believe they should (Graves, 2004), by identifying comprehension as one component of its five-part curriculum In 1999, the Department of Education’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) began an initiative on reading education and formed the RAND Reading Study Group, which met from 2000 to 2002 The RAND group, which was composed of a panel of reading experts, greatly increased the attention to comprehension instruction by making reading with good comprehension its primary topic and stating that one of our main purposes as reading researchers is to increase our knowledge about reading comprehension instruction The group’s report, titled Reading for Understanding: Toward an R & D Program in Reading Comprehension (RAND Reading Study Group, 2002), encouraged OERI (now renamed Institute of Educational Sciences, or IES) to create a new Program of Research on Reading Comprehension This program has begun a series of research grants for reading comprehension, beginning with several grants funded in 2002, and is expected to grow significantly in the future (Sweet & Snow, 2003) Despite all this recent research interest, and despite the many reports advocating the importance of reading comprehension and its instruction, many © 2006 International Reading Association (pp 742–753) doi:10.1598/RT.59.8.2 teachers are still not sure about how to teach comprehension When we ask them what they do, we find they are always looking for more ideas and more concrete ways to improve their students’ comprehension skills, even if they are using a district-adopted basal reading program Teachers ask questions such as “What is the best way to teach comprehension?” “Where can I find a researchbased comprehension program?” “What about my students who can read fluently but don’t understand what they are reading?” “What can I to support my struggling readers?” In fact, there are several research-based comprehension instructional frameworks that teachers can use to improve their students’ comprehension The problem is that many teachers not know about these comprehension instructional frameworks What are comprehension instructional frameworks? A framework is commonly defined as a set of ideas or principles that provides the basis or outline that is more fully developed at a latter stage When teachers use frameworks—a set of ideas or principles—to organize their instruction, we can say that they are using an instructional framework The set of ideas or principles serves as an outline for later developing more complete lessons for their instruction A common instructional framework for comprehension that many teachers know is Reciprocal Teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1984) This instructional framework is based on the principles of teaching students four important strategies: predicting, summarizing, asking questions, and clarifying If teachers used this particular framework, all their lessons would revolve around teaching students these four basic strategies If teachers simply put together a set of lessons to teach comprehension, we would not say they are using a framework Instead, teachers must put together the lessons based on some organizing principles or ideas Most instructional frameworks for comprehension are not scripted programs that educators can purchase They are not found in teachers’ catalogs of instructional materials And they are not simple procedures that teachers can read about in an article, like K-W-L (Ogle, 1986) or a graphic organizer Information about these frameworks can be found in several journal articles and books, some of which are not easy to find Without assistance, it is often too time-consuming for classroom teachers to get the information needed about the frameworks in order to learn more about them and make decisions about using them The purpose of this article is to assist teachers in learning about several research-based instructional frameworks for teaching comprehension Our goal is to provide enough information and references for teachers, literacy coaches, and administrators so that they can determine if they would like to use them Selecting instructional frameworks We used several criteria to select the instructional frameworks for this article First, we examined the research base behind many comprehension programs and frameworks We only selected frameworks or programs in which the whole program had been researched, rather than simply pieces of the program Second, we looked at the focus of the comprehension instruction We selected a balance, with half focusing on understanding a text and half focusing on using comprehension strategies Last, we looked at only those programs and frameworks that were less familiar to educators We next discuss these criteria in more detail There are two types of “research-based” programs or frameworks The first kind is the program or framework that has many instructional activities in it that are based on research Most current commercial programs claim they are “research based.” By that the developers of the programs mean that several instructional activities in them have been found to be effective in and of themselves For example, a basal reading program contains many activities, like graphic organizers or cooperative learning These individual activities have a research base in their own right (NICHD, 2000) However, the total program or framework has not been researched and found to be effective The second kind of program or framework that is research based is one in which the whole program or framework has been researched, not just the individual activities in the program For example, Reciprocal Teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1984) is a familiar comprehension instructional framework Each of Reciprocal Teaching’s four comprehension components has been researched Help with teaching reading comprehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks 743 individually and found to be effective for improving comprehension But Palincsar and Brown also conducted considerable research on the whole framework itself, using all four of the components together This is the true test of being “research based.” The whole instructional framework has to be shown to be effective, not just the individual parts The instructional frameworks we present in this article have been tested as a whole in real classroom settings Research on the whole framework has shown that the individual activities together improve comprehension The developers of the frameworks discussed in this article have put all the pieces of the framework together to see if they work in the classroom to improve comprehension This is the criterion we used to determine whether a framework was research based In addition to looking at the research base as one selection criterion, we used a second criterion to select instructional frameworks We were interested in the focus of the comprehension instruction Comprehension instruction is typically divided into two major categories: 1) instruction that focuses on helping students understand the content of a particular text, and 2) instruction that focuses on comprehension strategies to help students understand all texts (Pearson & Fielding, 1991; Tierney & Cunningham, 1984) The first category focuses mainly on students’ understanding of the content of the particular text that they are reading The second category focuses more on students’ understanding the strategic process of comprehending what they are reading and often uses texts more as ways to practice using the process than as something particular from which to learn Currently, much more attention is being paid to the second category, which is often referred to as “comprehension strategy instruction.” The National Reading Panel’s report (NICHD, 2000), for example, concentrated exclusively on comprehension strategy instruction in its metaanalysis of reading studies The current popularity of teaching comprehension strategies has become somewhat problematic, in our view, because it may distract from other parts of comprehension instruction—including understanding the content of a given text The National Reading Panel’s sole reliance on strategy instruction can mislead educators into thinking that comprehension strategies is the only 744 The Reading Teacher Vol 59, No part of reading comprehension that needs to be taught To provide some balance, we selected instructional frameworks from both categories of comprehension instruction Two of the five comprehension instructional frameworks we present in this article focus more on the reader’s understanding of the content of a given text being used Two frameworks focus on teaching the process of reading through comprehension strategies The fifth framework straddles both categories by teaching comprehension strategies within the context of learning about a specific topic A final criterion used to select frameworks to present was to include only those frameworks that are less familiar to most audiences In doing so, we excluded those frameworks that are very familiar, such as Reciprocal Teaching (Palincsar & Brown, 1984) Reciprocal Teaching has been discussed widely; therefore, we feel no need to detail it here Even so, our list is not exhaustive, nor is it meant to be Table presents the five comprehension instructional frameworks discussed in this article and highlights particular characteristics of the frameworks The first characteristic is the main category of comprehension instruction to which the framework belongs, either understanding the content of a text, understanding the strategic process of reading, or both The second characteristic indicates the amount of teacher planning and time involved in using the frameworks The third characteristic involves the group format for lessons The fourth classifies the amount of time it takes to complete a unit of study The fifth characteristic identifies the daily lessons as being varied or repetitive, and the sixth and final characteristic indicates whether the lesson plans used in each framework are created by the teacher or provided by the authors of the framework We not intend to suggest that any one framework is better than another, nor that one sort of framework is more important than the other There is not research to support one framework over another Rather, we are presenting, both in the table and in the following sections, several important attributes about each framework to help educators better understand them and make more informed decisions about using them May 2006 TABLE Characteristics of five comprehension instructional frameworks Major focus Teacher preparation Group format Length of unit Daily lessons Lesson plans SRE Understanding the content High Whole group and small group Short (1 day to weeks depending on text) Varied Teacher generated QtA Understanding the content High Whole group and small group Short (1–7 days depending on text) Varied Teacher generated CSR Learning the process Medium Cooperative learning group Long (Semester to year) Repetitive Provided by authors PALS Learning the process Medium Pairs—higher and lower reader Long (15-week sessions) Repetitive Provided by authors CORI Understanding the content and learning the process High Whole group and cooperative learning group Variable (1 week or longer depending on topic) Varied Teacher generated A focus on understanding the content types of questions to help students understand that specific text In this section, two instructional frameworks are described: the Scaffolded Reading Experience (SRE) and Questioning the Author (QtA) The focus of these frameworks is on understanding specific texts being read The goal is deep understanding of a given text, not to teach a specific skill or strategy These frameworks involve mostly short lessons that last a few days Because the instructional focus is on understanding the content of a particular text, the teacher’s planning time can be considerable Using the framework as a guide, teachers can develop a plan that is specific to the text to be read During the actual implementation of the plan, the teacher remains highly involved The level of involvement may vary over the course of the plan according to the decisions the teacher makes when planning it In part due to a high level of teacher involvement, the two frameworks are easily adaptable for students of varying reading abilities and can be used with students in primary, middle school, and high school classrooms Teachers can select the appropriate text to be used, and through their use of the frameworks, determine the best activities and The Scaffolded Reading Experience (SRE) Isaac’s voice (all names are pseudonyms) rings out with confidence as he reads aloud a page from Because of Winn-Dixie (DiCamillo, 2000) Sarah, his reading partner today, follows along closely, deeply engaged in the text “India Opal is naming the dog Winn-Dixie like the store because he’s not really hers and she doesn’t know his name!” she exclaims to Isaac Both Isaac and Sarah feel confident that they understand the chapter as they read it because of the prereading activities they took part in yesterday The teacher had activated her fifth-grade students’ background knowledge about being a newcomer, just like the main character, India Opal They learned about the characters and the plot of the story and shared stories about how they have felt as a newcomer The teacher read aloud the first few pages of the chapter and stopped to discuss the story, and then had them continue reading in pairs After everyone finishes the chapter today, their teacher will lead the class in a postreading activity The students will go back into the story to discuss how India Opal is beginning to resolve her feelings about being a newcomer This fifth-grade teacher has used an instructional framework known as a Scaffolded Reading Help with teaching reading comprehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks 745 Experience (SRE) to carefully plan and implement reading activities that will scaffold her students’ understanding of the book Because of Winn-Dixie An SRE is an instructional framework designed to foster students’ understanding and engagement with individual texts The SRE format (Graves & Graves, 2003; Rothenberg & Watts, 1997; Tierney & Readence, 2005) gives students supported practice in reading all types of text with understanding, including those that otherwise would be too difficult (Cooke, 2002; Fournier & Graves, 2002; Graves & Liang, 2002) Over time, this repeated practice can help students transfer the competence and confidence they have developed with SREs to reading without SREs, and ultimately increase students’ ability to read and comprehend text An SRE can be developed using novels, short stories, and other texts, including expository texts, at students’ instructional reading level At this level, students can read the text with support SREs are similar to the directed reading activity (Betts, 1946) and the Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (Stauffer, 1969) in that there are specific activities that occur before, during, and after reading The SRE has two major phases: the planning stage and the implementation phase In the planning phase, the teacher considers the students (especially anything that might influence the students’ success or failure in reading a particular selection), the text (including themes, vocabulary, and any potentially difficult or engaging topics), and the purpose for reading Based on the particular students, text, and purpose for reading, the teacher plans very specific activities for prereading, during reading, and postreading that will help students better understand the text and achieve the purposes set for reading it The implementation phase involves all three sets of activities Prereading activities for an SRE include such general categories as relating the reading to students’ lives, preteaching vocabulary, and predicting During-reading activities are really modes of reading, such as reading to students, assisted reading, and silent reading Postreading options include graphic and artistic activities, questioning, discussion, reteaching, and other activities that allow students to revisit the text one more time By choosing activities that will enhance students’ experiences with and involvement in the text, students will better understand the text, learn 746 The Reading Teacher Vol 59, No from it, achieve the purposes for reading it, and engage with it As reported in Table 1, teacher preparation time for an SRE is necessarily high, although the amount of teacher management time during the implementation of the SRE varies Certain activities will require more management time than others, depending on the particular activities selected by the teacher Group format can vary with the SREs Teachers can use whole-class instruction or smallgroup instruction Further, teachers may choose from a wide variety of activities that will help promote students’ understanding and engagement with the text SREs can be developed for a few days or for other short periods of time, say a week or more, depending on the text involved While the daily lessons may vary in length, content, and activities, they are all necessarily teacher generated Additional information about the SRE and its research base, as well as SREs that can be downloaded for classroom use, can be found at www.on linereadingresources.com Questioning the Author (QtA) In another fifth-grade class, the social studies focus has been on the Pilgrims and their arrival in the New World Today the students read about the Mayflower Compact and discover it was created because the Pilgrims had landed outside the land of the Virginia Company This, the author explains in their social studies text, makes it necessary for the Pilgrims to make their own just and equal laws for the good of the colony After the students finish reading this explanation, the teacher stops them and asks, “What did the author tell us is happening with the Pilgrims now?” Anthony quickly raises his hand and responds that “they wanted to make the laws and rules.” The teacher follows up this reply by saying, “You said they wanted to make their own laws What you mean by that?” Sean chimes in and continues, explaining that “they had to, ’cause they didn’t land where they wanted to at the Virginia Company.” The teacher then asks the students what “just and equal laws” means Heidi raises her hand and responds, “Like maybe all religions can come in, and be friends.” Jana adds on, stating, “I think it means they would share with each other, and they have to obey these rules.” Talk about authors and their texts, like this one in a fifth-grade classroom, is common when teachers use the Questioning the Author (QtA) instructional May 2006 framework QtA, like the SRE, is an instructional framework that focuses on students’ understanding of a given text Beck, McKeown, and their colleagues proposed that the purpose of reading is not to extract information from text but rather to construct meaning out of text They developed the QtA approach to teach students to question what they read, to think, to probe, to associate, and to critique (Beck, McKeown, Hamilton, & Kucan, 1997; Beck, McKeown, Worthy, Sandora, & Kucan, 1996; McKeown & Beck, 2004; McKeown, Beck, & Sandora, 1996; McKeown, Beck, & Worthy, 1993) QtA is conceptualized through four essential features: 1) viewing the text as a fallible product written by fallible authors, 2) dealing with the text through questions that are directed toward making sense of it, 3) questioning as students are reading, and 4) encouraging student collaboration in the construction of meaning (McKeown et al., 1993) Once students understand the fallibility of authors, they are then ready to read and interact with the text differently from how they have done so in the past A classroom using QtA is dominated by teacher–student and student–student discussions about texts QtA begins with the premise that teachers use queries, like questions, to generate high-level discussions about a text Queries can be made about an author’s ideas or students’ ideas Queries can be made about just one sentence or longer units of text Further, queries can be made to deepen and broaden students’ thinking about a text As such, QtA can be a quite useful framework for developing higher level thinking In QtA, teachers query students about the text with questions like “What is the author trying to tell us here?” “Where is the author going with this?” “Is that clearly stated?” Through queries such as these, students work with the teacher and with each other to construct meaning as they are reading The goal is for teachers and students to assist one another in building a coherent understanding of a text, not for teachers to evaluate students’ responses The authors argue that student discussions in constructing meaning from the text are motivating to students and create high engagement with the text as well As reported in Table 1, teacher preparation time for QtA is necessarily high Teachers will have to prepare carefully, especially at the beginning of QtA, where they will select and model the queries used for specific texts Teachers are highly involved during the implementation of the framework as they help students generate and answer queries about a particular text Over time, however, teacher involvement decreases as students learn to take over the discussion Group format with QtAs is generally in wholeclass or small-group discussions QtAs, like SREs, can be developed for a few days or for other short periods of time, say a week or more, depending on the length of the text Daily lessons will vary in the types of queries used, and these types depend on the nature of the text itself Lesson plans are quite varied and are teacher generated Additional information about QtA, its research base, and transcripts of actual classroom discussions using QtA can be found in the book Questioning the Author: An Approach for Enhancing Student Engagement With Text (Beck et al., 1997) A focus on understanding the strategic process We have discussed two instructional frameworks that focus on teaching students to understand the content of a given text The two frameworks assist students in comprehending individual texts and give them supported practice at reading all types of text with understanding Students internalize the types of teacher talk and student thinking that occur during lessons Researchers argue that repeated practice can help students transfer the competence and confidence they developed with the frameworks’ support to reading without the support of these frameworks, and ultimately to increase students’ ability to read and comprehend texts However, some researchers have argued that focusing on the understanding of an individual text may not, over time, transfer to other texts Instead, focusing on an individual text may foster teacher dependency, as readers come to rely on the teacher for providing the necessary prompts and activities (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Dole, Brown, & Trathen, 1996; Johnston, 1985) These researchers have argued that it is important for students to learn specific comprehension strategies that they can use on their own with any text they read This changes Help with teaching reading comprehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks 747 the focus of comprehension instruction from understanding the content of a given text to learning comprehension strategies to use with any text In this section, we describe two instructional frameworks whose purpose is to teach students specific strategies for comprehending text: Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) and PeerAssisted Learning Strategies (PALS) Unlike the first two instructional frameworks, these frameworks focus on activities that specifically teach comprehension strategies that students can use with any text they read Here the text content is not important; what is most important is active engagement with text using a set of comprehension strategies Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) Madeline, Tyler, Latashya, and Amber are at work in a cooperative learning group with students of mixed abilities They have a text to read, each student with his or her copy in hand The students also have a set of four cards they use to guide their reading Amber begins the session by reading the title of the chapter of their text, “Women in the Civil War.” Then she reads from her first card, the preview card “What we know about that topic already and what we think we will learn about it?” Each student begins to look at the pictures and subheadings in the text, and a few jot down notes After a few minutes, Amber, who is today’s group leader, tells her group it is time to share with their partners what they know about the topic and what they think they will learn about today The students share in pairs for a few minutes and then begin to read the text CSR is a framework originally designed to aid students at risk and those with learning disabilities to understand texts used in the content areas (Bremer, Vaughn, Clapper, & Kim, 2002; Klingner & Vaughn, 1998, 1999; Klingner, Vaughn, Dimino, Schumm, & Bryant, 2001; Klingner, Vaughn, & Schumm, 1998; Vaughn, Klingner, & Bryant, 2001) This instructional framework is a good example of the focus on using comprehension strategies to understand all texts In CSR the goal is to teach students four specific comprehension strategies they can use with all the informational and expository texts they read As such, the focus is on developing students’ routines and procedures for understanding any expository text they read As can be seen from the example, the text is not the focus 748 The Reading Teacher Vol 59, No of instruction for CSR The individual texts students read are secondary to students’ learning how to use the comprehension strategies with many different informational and expository texts In CSR, students in cooperative learning groups move through four cards, based on four key comprehension strategies, to read and understand their texts First, students use the Preview card to look for key features of the text, brainstorm what they already know about the topic, and predict what they will learn about the topic when they read the text Students use their CSR learning logs to record this information and share it with their groups Next, students read a passage from the text looking for “clicks” and “clunks,” that is, monitoring when they come to a word, concept, or idea that they not understand (a “clunk”) Clunk Cards, or short prompts on individual cards, are reminders for students of strategies they can use to figure out the meaning of the misunderstood word or concept At the end of the passage, students use the Get the Gist card to determine the most important ideas in the passage The process is then repeated with the next passage After the entire text is read, students use the Wrap Up card to help them generate a list of questions with answers that show that they understood the most important information in the text The teacher introduces CSR to students by first teaching it to the whole class Through modeling and think-alouds, the teacher shows students how each of the four key comprehension strategies is used After students are proficient in the use of the individual strategies, the teacher models how to use all four together when reading text Eventually students are divided into small, mixed-ability groups to practice collaboratively using the strategies in reading and understanding a particular text Within the groups, each student has a defined and meaningful role that helps to keep the group on task and to use the strategies correctly As shown in Table 1, the teacher is heavily involved in the introduction of CSR, although the actual planning time is less because the introductory lessons have been scripted out for teachers in a manual This introductory period can take a significant amount of time, and students continue to need scaffolding during the early work in groups Eventually, however, the teacher’s role becomes minimal as students become more practiced in using the strategies Cue sheets that outline the May 2006 procedures to be followed and prompt students in using the cards and conducting the activities appropriately help scaffold the students’ learning Over time, teachers focus more on monitoring the groups and providing ongoing assistance as needed The length of a unit in CSR is usually a semester CSR students are grouped in cooperative learning groups, usually four students of mixed abilities Once the strategies have been modeled and explained by teachers, the lessons themselves are repetitive, because students, using different texts, repeat the same four procedures with each text they use Finally, lesson plans are provided by the authors, leaving less work for teachers to Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies (PALS) “I’m the Coach,” says third-grade student Julie “You’re the Reader so you gotta read first.” José, Julie’s partner and a more advanced reader, begins to read aloud from Doctor De Soto Goes to Africa (Steig, 1992) At the end of five minutes of reading, a bell rings and Julie says, “Now it’s my turn” and begins to read aloud the same passage Jose was just reading José stops her and helps several times The bell rings again after five minutes, and Julie begins to retell the passage to José Once she has finished, José reads his prompt card, “Okay, what happened first?” he reads from his prompt card “See, Dr De Soto is a dentist mouse They get a letter to go to Africa to help an elephant that has a toothache.” “Then what happens?” prompts José, once again using his prompt card “Dr De Soto and his wife go on a ship.” The peer-tutoring evident in this classroom is a key element in the instructional program PeerAssisted Learning Strategies (PALS), a multiplestrategy program developed to improve reading comprehension for elementary and middle school students (Fuchs, Fuchs, Mathes, & Simmons, 1997; Fuchs et al., 2001; Mathes, Fuchs, Fuchs, Henley, & Sanders, 1994; Mathes, Howard, Allen, & Fuchs, 1998) Like CSR, PALS focuses on teaching students a set of comprehension strategies that can be used to help students understand any text they read Here they are using Dr De Soto Goes to Africa, but the strategies will be transferred to many other texts over time PALS consists of three basic activities in which two students, a higher reader and a lower reader, are paired together to take on the roles of “Coach” and “Reader.” Using a text at the instructional read- ing level of the lower reader, each partner reads the text aloud to the other for a period of minutes The higher reader always reads first, serving as a model for the lower reader At the end of minutes, the lower reader reads the same passage for the next minutes After the 10-minute reading session, the lower reader “retells” the passage to the higher reader The higher reader prompts the lower reader with a prompt card saying, “What happened first?” and “What happened next?” This retelling in sequence continues for minutes Next, partners take part in an activity called paragraph shrinking Readers continue reading the same passage they began in the partner read but with no rereading Each reader reads one paragraph, stopping after the paragraph and telling the main idea of the paragraph Readers take turns reading the next consecutive paragraph and telling the main idea Prompts for this activity include cards saying, “Who or what was the paragraph about?” and “Tell the most important thing about the who or what.” As in the partner read, the stronger reader always begins reading first, serving as a model for the less strong reader Finally, in the last activity, called prediction relay, the reading continues, only with larger units of text and a new activity This activity has four steps: (1) reasonably predict about what will happen next, (2) accurately read half a page, (3) accurately check the prediction, and (4) correctly summarize the most important information This activity continues for five minutes per reader, again with the stronger reader going first Readers and Coaches correct word-recognition errors as they occur throughout the session As seen in Table 1, PALS, like CSR, requires considerable teacher involvement in introducing the program Teachers provide extensive modeling, explanation, and guided practice to teach students the strategies of finding the main idea, summarizing, and predicting before they begin the tutoring sessions Teachers continue to play a moderate role even after students become more self-directed in their use of the activities They continue to provide direct support to students during the tutoring sessions, helping them to correct errors and assisting them on the use of the strategies, and giving out points to partners for the correct application of the activities The length of time for a PALS unit is about 30 minutes a day for three days a week in Help with teaching reading comprehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks 749 15-week sessions Additional information about PALS, its research base, and information about a manual for using PALS can be found on its website, www.peerassistedlearningstrategies.net A combined instructional framework Finally, there is at least one particular instructional framework that combines comprehending the content of a particular text with learning to use comprehension strategies This framework, ConceptOriented Reading Instruction (CORI), motivates and engages students with knowledge about a specific topic and comprehension strategies specifically designed to learn more about the topic Concept-Oriented Reading Instruction (CORI) Elena and Darrin huddle around Jean-Marc as he turns the pages of an immense encyclopedia of airplanes and helicopters “I think we should look in the Table of Contents to find the stuff on commercial jets,” Elena suggests As the students turn to the Table of Contents, they notice how long the section is “Let’s practice our searching for information with this one, okay?” says Darrin Their teacher stops by the group and helps to remind them of the important steps in searching for information in a piece of text Jean-Marc writes down a few ideas about “searching for information” in his notebook, and soon the students begin searching through the section looking for information on 747s “I’m really starting to get how these huge planes stay in the air!” comments Darrin as the students finish with the encyclopedia and begin looking through a pile of picture books on planes Small cooperative groups of students pursuing knowledge about a particular topic of interest are a common sight in classrooms where teachers are using CORI CORI is an instructional framework specifically designed to assist teachers in motivating students to learn conceptual knowledge about content area subjects through the use of comprehension strategies (Guthrie, Anderson, Aloa, & Rinehart, 1999; Guthrie & Cox, 1997; Guthrie et al., 2000; Guthrie et al., 1998; Guthrie et al., 1996; Swan, 2003) As such, this framework combines learning about content with learning comprehension strategies 750 The Reading Teacher Vol 59, No There are four phases of the CORI framework In the first phase, observe and personalize, students become motivated and engaged in a subject area through direct observation and personalization One way to this is through direct experiences For example, one CORI unit has the teacher bring in hermit crabs for students to observe As they observe, they ask questions, notice details, and gain motivation to learn more about these crabs In the second phase, search and retrieve, students gather information about hermit crabs They use many different kinds of texts to read and learn from In addition, the teacher teaches various search strategies so students will have success in their search for information After students search and retrieve, they then can comprehend and integrate, the third phase of CORI In this phase, they learn and gain information about hermit crabs Here more comprehension strategies are taught to students to help them comprehend what they read Finally, in the communicate to others phase, students find meaningful ways to present their information to their peers CORI is similar to SREs and QtAs in that one of its goals is to assist students in learning content CORI consists of units of instruction on specific science or social studies topics that motivate students to learn In SREs and QtAs, though, instruction is focused on understanding individual texts; in CORI, instruction is focused on understanding a topic that is learned through the various texts CORI is similar to CSR and PALS in that one of its goals is to teach students how to use comprehension strategies to understand any kind of text they come across The focus of CORI, however, is on learning comprehension strategies in the context of extensive and intensive reading of many texts about a particular topic The goal is not only to learn the strategies but also to gain information through the use of strategies At the center of the CORI model is the goal of student motivation and engagement Motivation and engagement occur as CORI students have direct experiences with a topic and as they get the information they need and want about that topic Teachers encourage the students to constantly apply the strategies in their daily work, to ask and answer questions, and to use their prior knowledge as they learn about the specific topic The CORI framework emphasizes students’ autonomy during May 2006 instruction, encouraging students to make decisions and choices throughout the unit As seen in Table 1, the amount of teacher planning time it takes to prepare to use the CORI instructional framework, like the SRE and QtA, is considerable Teacher management during the implementation of the unit is also high, especially at the beginning, when teachers scaffold students in gaining knowledge about the topic, in practicing the comprehension strategies, and in learning to better collaborate with their peers Over time, though, teachers reduce the amount of support to students, as students become more independent in their learning and their use of the strategies CORI has multiple group formats for instruction, from whole-class discussions about comprehension strategies to small-group work on particular topics of interest CORI units can last a few weeks to several months The daily lessons vary quite widely with CORI, and lessons are teacher generated because they depend so highly on the topic of the unit Additional information about CORI, its research base, and lessons using CORI can be found on its website, www.cori.umd.edu/index.php Choose the best framework for your class In this article we presented five comprehension instructional frameworks to show educators different ways of organizing and teaching reading comprehension All of these instructional frameworks have been researched as a whole and found to be effective in improving students’ reading comprehension We believe that each of the frameworks we present is an excellent example of researchbased comprehension instruction The frameworks vary along a number of dimensions, such as focus of instruction, grouping format, amount of teacher planning, support and assistance, length of time for completion of a unit of instruction, and kinds of texts used for instruction We did not present the frameworks in any particular ranking order, and we not imply that one framework is better than another We think that teachers need to be the instructional decision makers in selecting the frameworks that will work best for the needs of their particular students, based on their practical and professional knowledge We hope this article assists teachers in this process Liang teaches at the University of Utah (Department of Teaching and Learning, 1705 E Campus Center Drive, Room 142, 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Boston: Allyn & Bacon Vaughn, S., Klingner, J.K., & Bryant, D.P (2001) Collaborative strategic reading as a means to enhance peer-mediated instruction for reading comprehension and content-area learning Remedial and Special Education, 22(2), 66–75 Help with teaching reading comprehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks 753 ... an instructional framework known as a Scaffolded Reading Help with teaching reading comprehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks 745 Experience (SRE) to carefully plan and implement reading. .. learn specific comprehension strategies that they can use on their own with any text they read This changes Help with teaching reading comprehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks 747... Developing first-grade reading fluency through peer mediation Teaching Exceptional Children, 34(2), 90–93 Help with teaching reading comprehension: Comprehension instructional frameworks 751 Graves,