Video Table of Contents

• 0:00 Introduction (slides 1-6)
• 1:22 Real life example of Repairing Comprehension (slides 8-14)
• 1:44 Watch the example: California Surfing
• 3:15 Get more information / revise your understanding based on new information

5:06 4 PRO TIPS to REPAIRING COMPREHENSION (slides 15-24)

• 5:10 Pro Tip #1 Read a paragraph (or sentence) and then say something.
• 6:10 Pro Tip #2 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you know about the world?
• 6:36 Pro Tip #3 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you have already read in this text.
• 6:58 Pro Tip #4: Let’s talk about the PEEP strategy to double check our ideas.
• 7:23 Graphic organizer to help us figure out our Point, Evidence, and Explanation (PEEP).

11:04 REPAIRING COMPREHENSION reading example Part 1 – Modelled Reading with teacher think-aloud

• 11:11 Pro Tip #1: Say Something
• 12:02 Pro Tip #2 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you know about the world?
• 12:22 What’s a stereotype?
• 13:33 Pro Tip #4 PEEP
• 14:20 Pro Tip #3 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you’ve already read?

14:33 REPAIRING COMPREHENSION reading example Part 2 Practice – Modelled / Shared Reading with teacher think-aloud (slides 24-42)

• 14:50 Pro Tip #1: Say Something
• 15:20 Pro Tip #2 Does your “Say Something” fit in with what you know about the world?
• 16:20 Pro Tip #4 PEEP
• 16:50 Pro Tip #3 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you’ve already read?
• 17:42 Pro Tip #4 PEEP

18:28 REPAIRING COMPREHENSION reading example Part 3 More Practice (Your Turn) – Whole Class Shared Reading (with pauses for student response) (slides 43-51)

• 18:31 What’s the first thing we have to do? (Pro Tip #1)
• 18:41 What are our 4 strategies to say something?
• 19:57 What do we do next? (Pro Tip #2)
• 20:11 Use PEEP to clarify your thinking (Pro Tip #4)
• 20:20 What do we do now? (Pro Tip #3)

21:45 SUMMARY of the 4 pro tips(slides 52)

22:51 BIG PICTURE: Reading for Meaning / 21st Century Learning (slide 53-61)

https://youtu.be/M2sw01t2IVk

Repairing Comprehension Strategy Lesson

Today as part of our Reading for Meaning series, we’re going to be talking about the Repairing Comprehension reading strategy 

In this lesson, we’re going to be doing some active reading.

• Active reading means we think about the text as we read.
• It’s the opposite of passive reading which is when we see the words, but we’re not really thinking about what they mean. We’re just saying the words. 

In active reading, if we use strategies, we can get better at reading. 

Comprehension strategies help us figure out what’s going on in a text. 

Today we’re going to be looking at a reading strategy called Repairing Comprehension… 

… also known as the “Oh, I get it now” strategy. (Get it?) 

Repairing Comprehension is when we actively monitor and check our understanding of the text as we read.

So we’re reading, and we’re paying attention and if something doesn’t make sense, then we have to figure out why: We re-read that section and try to figure things out.

What does Reading Comprehension sound like when it works? 

You might hear people say things like, “Wait, what?!” or “Oh, I get it,” or “I thought it meant this…, but it’s actually about that… “

We do this all the time.

We figure stuff out and we’re constantly repairing and updating our understanding of things. 

Here’s an example. 

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the phrase, “California surfing.” 

Today’s lesson is going to be about California Surfing. What images comes to mind?

Okay, now watch this video 

Source: Cottons Mat Meet 2010 https://youtu.be/BL7EMLipZrI 

https://youtu.be/BL7EMLipZrI

Does this video make sense to you? 

Does this fit your ideas about California Surfing? Does it fit the image you had before we watched the video?

Most people think about surfboards, but in this video, they’re not using surfboards to surf. So maybe you had this “aha moment” where you said, “Huh? I guess this is surfing, but they’re on inflatable mats? Are those things toys?”

Let’s keep on going with this example.  

Based on the information we have so far, answer the following questions: 

• When did this event take place? 
• Explain why you think that 
• Explain what evidence you can find to support your ideas. 

Okay, now let’s get some more information.

Click the YouTube link and go to the full YouTube page.

Here, we get a little bit more information from YouTube itself. Let’s ask the same questions: 

• When did this event happen? 
• What evidence can you find and 
• explain what the evidence means. 

Here’s a close-up of a screenshot of the YouTube page. Let’s see if we can figure out when this event took place. 

Well, we can see right there on the title screen – it says Mat Meet 8.22.20 so August 22, 2020

But, at the bottom of the video, it says August 22, 2010.

Wait, what? 

That doesn’t even make sense. The date should be the same, shouldn’t it?

We have to fix our understanding of what’s going on here. 

Let’s try to figure out what this new information means… 

Why does it say 8.22.20 at the beginning of the video on this blue title screen? 

• Well, that’s a title slide made by the person who created this video
• They typed in 8, 22, and 20 into their program to make that slide. 

What does the bottom date “August 22, 2010” mean? 

• Well, I know from watching a lot of YouTube videos that that’s the date the video was uploaded to YouTube.
• I also know from making YouTube videos that you can’t change that date – YouTube sets it when you upload your video. 
• It’s an automatic timestamp, so that must be when the video was made (or at least uploaded) 
• and maybe the person who made this video made a typo in the title slide.

As we get new information. we need to constantly update our understanding of what’s going on.

Here are 4 Pro Tips to help us Repair Comprehension as we read.

Pro tip #1 Read a paragraph (or sentence) and then say something.

When I say “say something”, I mean do one of the following reading comprehension strategies: 

• You can ask a question (and then you try to answer your own question.) 
• You can make an inference (and figure out what the text is saying, even though it doesn’t explicitly say it like that.)
• You could make a connection. (So, for example, connect what you are reading to something else.) 
  • You could make a Text-to-Text connection where you connect the paragraph you just read to another text that you’re familiar with.
  • You could make a text to self connection where you connect what you’re reading with something that you have experienced 
  • Or, you could make a text to world connection where you connect the information you just read with something happening in the world, or something that people just know – so, general knowledge about life.
• Finally, you could “say something and form an opinion where you agree or disagree with something you just read.

Pro Tip #2 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you know about the world?

• If not, you need to go back and reread the paragraph and double check your thinking. 
  • Why doesn’t it fit in with what you know about the world? 
  • Did you misunderstand the information?
  • Is the stuff you just read something new that you haven’t thought about before?
• Later on, we’ll look at a strategy called PEEP to clarify our thinking. 

Pro Tip #3 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you have already read in this text. 

• If not, we re-read the paragraph we just read. 
• But then we also go back and read the earlier stuff to try to figure out what’s going on.
• Again, we’ll use the PEEP strategy to try to figure out why things don’t make sense. 

Finally, Pro Tip #4: Let’s talk about the PEEP strategy to double check our ideas.

• PEEP is an acronym. It means, 
  • We make a POINT by “saying something” about the text.
  • We give EVIDENCE (or an example) from the text.
  • We EXPLAIN how our evidence proves the point that we made, and then 
  • Finally, we restate our POINT. 

Here’s a graphic organizer to help us figure out our Point, Evidence, and Explanation. 

Remember, “your POINT” is the “Say Something” you make after you read a paragraph or a section. For example, 

• I think today, we’re going to be learning about people standing on surfboards and going down big waves 
• because it says right here “surfing” and 
• I know that you need a board to surf on … kind of like skateboarding, but on the water…  
• So, that’s why I think this article is going to be about surfing on longboards. (At the end, we just restate the point we’re trying to make.) 

Here’s another example of using the PEEP graphic organizer…

(By the way, it doesn’t matter if you start with the evidence or the explanation. Just start with whatever first comes to mind.) So for example, 

• I saw in the video, people were lying down on mats to surf the waves. (That’s my evidence)
• So I think people can surf on other things and not just surfboards. (That’s my point)
• and the video proves my point because they’re still balancing and surfing down the water because they’re surfing something down the waves. 
• It’s kind of like how in winter you can use a sled or giant snow tubes or toboggans or crazy carpets to go sledding down hills. You can slide down the snow on a bunch of stuff, so I guess you can surf down water on a bunch of stuff, too. (That’s my explanation)
• I guess surfing is just about going down waves – it doesn’t matter what you use to surf down the waves. (See? I just restated my point)

As we get new information, we constantly revise and fix our understanding of what’s going on.

At first 

• I thought today’s lesson was going to be about people standing on surfboards and going down big waves 
• because it says right here surfing and 
• that usually you surf on a surfboard by standing up and balancing on the board. (At least that’s what you usually see on TV and movies) 

But now, 

• I think you can surf on other things, and not just surfboards 
• because it shows right here in the video, people lying down on mats to go down the big waves and they’re not always on surfboards 
• so I think this lesson is going to be about surfing – how you have to balance and ride something down the waves, but it’s not always a board that you’re balancing on. 
• so maybe, the lesson is going to be about how you can surf on a bunch of different things and not just surfboards. (It makes me wonder what else you could surf on…) 

Here’s another example of repairing comprehension. 

At first …

• I thought this video was made on August 22, 2020, 
• because it says on the title screen, Mat Meet 8.22.20 
• and usually the 22nd day of the 8th month in the 20th year, well, that would be August 22, 2020. 
• It can’t be 1920 because the gear they’re using is just way too modern and they probably wouldn’t have equipment to film in 1920 like this.

but now… 

• I think this video was probably made on August 22, 2010 (and now 2020) and there’s probably a typo on that title slide – maybe it meant to say 8.22.2010 but the last 2 characters got cut off by accident.
• and I think this because right here on the YouTube page on the video upload date, it says August 22, 2010 
• and I know that you can’t change the upload date of a YouTube video. So the person can’t have uploaded the video in 2020 and changed the date on YouTube to 2010. So I know that this video was uploaded to YouTube on August 2010 and the video was filmed on that day or maybe just before that. 

Right, practice time.

Let’s practice repairing comprehension as we read part of an article.  

Pro Tip #1: Say Something

The very first thing I have to do is read a paragraph or sentence (or in this case, the title) and then come up with something to say.

I know when I do a “Say Something”, it can be a question, an inference, a connection, or an opinion. 

The title says “California surfer break stereotypes.” 

Okay let’s ask a question: 

• I wonder what stereotypes this person breaks? 

If I ask a question, I have to try to answer my own question: 

• So, now, I’m going to make a connection and I might say, one time, I saw this video where people were riding mats on surf waves instead of surfing on boards… 
• so maybe the stereotype that gets broken is that you can only surf on surfboards. 
• Maybe that’s a stereotype?

Pro tip #2 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you know about the world?

And if not, reread the paragraph. Okay. 

• Does this make sense? This idea that there’s a stereotype about how you can only surf on surfboards… 
• Are there even stereotypes about California or surfing?
• What’s a stereotype? I know what it means, but what is it exactly? What’s the criteria or definition of a stereotype?

Let’s just take a moment here to think more critically about what a stereotype is… Let come up with some criteria to figure out if our “Say Something” is a stereotype…

According to the Dictionary of Psychology, a stereotype is a fixed, often simplistic generalization about a particular group…”

So in other words, a stereotype is a generalization about a group of people or a group of things.

There’s a great quote about stereotypes from this TED talk about the Danger of a Single Story: 

“The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” 

So, a stereotype is a generalization that is true, but incomplete. It’s not the only story. 

Okay, so coming back to our article and our “Say Something”… maybe the stereotype in this article is that you can only surf on surfboards and this California surfer breaks that stereotype.

I’m going to use PEEP to try to clarify my thinking. 

• Remember, Point, Evidence, Explanation…
• and then at the end, if I was writing a paragraph or trying to convince someone in a conversation, I would restate my point to try and make things more clear.

So, 

• I think this article is about a surfer who break stereotypes because they ride surf mats instead of surfboards 
• because it says right here, “break stereotypes” 
• and I think most people think of surfers as standing on surfboards but that’s an incomplete idea because there are also surfers who ride waves using mats. I think that’s what the point of this article will be – just challenging this single-story that people ride surfboards when they surf.

Pro tip #3 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you’ve already read?

In this case, absolutely. 

The title is the only thing we’ve read so far, so we’re done. Let’s move on. 

Now we’re going to keep on reading the article. 

Again, remember the first thing we do is we read a paragraph or a section and come up with something to say.

“Local California surfer writes for over a decade detailing her journey through surfing, surgery and life.”

So, I have to come up with something to say about that. 

This time, I’m going to make an inference – that’s when you figure out something that’s implied but not explicitly written in the text. 

• Maybe, something dramatic happens in her life 
• and maybe, that’s why this person needs surgery 
• and maybe because they need surgery and this was such a big moment in their life, she’s writing about it for other people – maybe as a warning or for inspiration? Not sure yet.

What’s next? 

Does your “Say Something” fit in with what you know about the world?

If it doesn’t make sense, re-read the paragraph…

Ok. Does our “Say Something” make sense? 

I think so. I could see this happening in a movie… 

• you know, in the beginning of the movie, something big happens… 
• and then the surfer needs some sort of life-changing surgery but they’re upset because they can’t surf any more,
• but then they keep going and eventually at the end of the movie, they’re surfing again… 
• and it’s a warning to other people about something… or maybe it’s a story of hope and resilience 
• There’s probably a montage somewhere with some uplifting music as they get stronger and start to recover from the surgery….

Hmm, if it was a movie, then I would wonder who they would get to play the lead role?

• What would they look like? 
• Are they a famous actor or someone new and upcoming?
• Who would be the love interest (because there’s always a romantic love interest in these kinds of movies…)

Okay, now I’m going to use PEEP to clarify my thinking. 

• I think something dramatic happens to this person and they need surgery and then they write for 10 years about it 
• because it says right here at the bottom, “surgery and life” and it also says “writes for over a decade” 
• and why else would you write for 10 years, unless it was really important to you? 

So, I think a major surgery changed this person’s life and they wrote about it because they wanted other people to know about this dramatic event that led to their surgery. 

Pro tip #3 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you’ve already read?

And if not, you need to reread the paragraph but you also have to reread the other stuff you read, so it’s fresh in your mind. 

Okay, well, earlier I read the title was “California surfer breaks stereotypes” and I know usually a title is a pretty good clue as to what the article is about. 

So now, I’m double checking my ideas and I’m wondering, what does a dramatic event have to do with stereotypes?

• Maybe the surgery has to do with breaking stereotypes about surfing? 

• Maybe people have a stereotype that surfers are really healthy and physically fit but then here’s a surfer who needs surgery – can you even surf after you have major surgery?
• So, maybe that breaks a stereotype? 

I’m going to use PEEP to double check my ideas. 

At first… 

• I thought this was about something dramatic happening to a person who needs surgery and they write for 10 years about it, 

but now… 

• I think the article is about a surfer who breaks stereotypes because they have this injury, but they don’t let it stop them from surfing 
• because it says right there, “stereotypes” and it also says, “her journey through surfing.” 
• So then it makes me think a journey is when you’re going somewhere or through something and so maybe surfing gets this person through their injury and through life, and this is what keeps them going?
• and so I think the stereotype that’s being broken here is this idea that you have to be perfect and physically fit without any injuries to be able to surf.

Okay, more practice. Your turn. 

What’s the first thing we have to do? 

• Read a paragraph or sentence and then say something.

When we try to say something about a text, what are our 4 options? 

• “Say Something” means you can 

• ask a question 
• make an inference 
• make a connection or 
• form an opinion. 

Okay, so here’s the next paragraph: 

• From January 2005 to October 2016, Mary Mills wrote over 1305 blog posts chronicling everything from her daily thoughts, her surf sessions and her titanium knee replacement.

By the way, if you can’t come up with something to say, you need to go back and reread that paragraph until you can “Say something”

So I’ll read this paragraph again and try to come up with a “Say Something.”

• From January 2005 to October 2016, Mary Mills wrote over 1305 blog posts chronicling everything from her daily thoughts, her surf sessions and her titanium knee replacement.

What do we do next? 

• Does the “Say Something” you came up with make sense with stuff you know about the world?

• If not, reread the paragraph.
• We also use PEEP to clarify our thinking. 

What do we do now?

• Look at the ideas in your graphic organizer. Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you’ve already read earlier?

• If not, reread the paragraph but then you also have to go back and reread the stuff that doesn’t agree with this new information. 
• Use PEEP to figure out why things don’t make sense.

So in this example… 

• what does your “Say Something” have to do with information we read in the title about breaking stereotypes? 
• What does your “Say Something” have to do with information we read in the first paragraph about surfing, surgery or life?

As we monitor what we read and look for more clues, it’s important to know that…

• Sometimes, the new information we get helps us repair our comprehension. For example, at first I thought this…. but then I realized that…
• And, sometimes new information confirms what we already knew. At first, I thought this but after reading this section, I also think that…, and this continues to confirm my point because… 

Let’s recap. 

Here are four strategies to help us repair comprehension as we read 

• Pro tip #1 Read a paragraph and say something. “Say something” means that you 
  • Ask questions 
  • Make a connection 
  • Make an inference or 
  • Form an opinion about what you just read 
• Pro tip #2 Does your “Say Something” make sense with stuff you know about the world? 
  • If it doesn’t fit in what you know about the world, reread that paragraph.
  • Use PEEP to clarify your thinking.
• Pro tip #3 Does your “Say Something” fit in with stuff you’ve already read earlier in this text. 
  • If it doesn’t, then you have to double check and reread the paragraph you just read, but also go back and reread the other stuff that you read 
  • Use PEEP to try to figure out why it doesn’t make sense – where’s the disconnect?
• Pro tip #4 PEEP is an acronym. It means you make a Point, you find Evidence, you Explain how that evidence backs up your point, and then you restate your Point

BIG PICTURE: Reading Comprehension and 21st Century Learning

Reading for Meaning is one of the many strategies and skills we use when we read. 

We don’t know what tomorrow will look like! Repairing comprehension is something we do in life, and when we read… Understanding and thinking about changing things is an important skill to help us survive and thrive in today’s changing world. 

One 21st Century Learning Competency that will help us get through today’s reading challenges and tomorrow’s tough obstacles is our Character. 

* One way to work on our Character is to try to be in a growth mindset. This means recognizing tough moments are an opportunity for us to check what we’re doing, figure out what things mean, and come up with ways to overcome obstacles. Learning from our mistakes is something we do when we repair our comprehension. 

Struggling through a text, reading for deeper meaning and reflecting on the strategies we use is an opportunity for us to develop character.