FAQs answered

Teaching Comprehension

Interview with Diane Snowball

Click on the links below to see Diane Snowball answer your most frequently asked questions. You will need QuickTime Player to view the following 9 videos.

Question One
What kind of work does A.U.S.S.I.E do and who are the consultants?
 Duration: 1.37 min

Question Two
Why did A.U.S.S.I.E. Interactive develop Teaching Comprehension?
 Duration: 1.35 min

Question Three
What resources are available on the CD ROM to help teachers and coaches learn about comprehension teaching?
 Duration: 2.31 min

Question Four
What is the research base of Teaching Comprehension?
 Duration: 1.02 min

Question Five
How will Teaching Comprehension help teachers, coaches and administrators?
 Duration: 2.53 min

Question Six
What are some of the ways to use Teaching Comprehension for planning and teaching throughout the year and across the grade levels?
 Duration: 7.41 min

Question Seven
How are related reading components, such as vocabulary, fluency, decoding and world knowledge, dealt with in Teaching Comprehension?
 Duration: 2.06 min

Question EightWhat materials does Teaching Comprehension provide in addition to the CD ROMs?
 Duration: 3.13 min

Question Nine
What feedback have you received about Teaching Comprehension?
 Duration: 1.14 min


Text based Q&A

Why was Teaching Comprehension developed?

Who created the Teaching Comprehension series?

What are the strategies proven to make students better readers?

How is content organized?

Why CD-ROMs?

What are the product features?

How can Teaching Comprehension be used for professional development?

What kinds of learners will benefit from Teaching Comprehension?

What are the Technical Requirements?

Why was Teaching Comprehension developed?

Despite significant gains in knowledge about how comprehension can be taught, classroom practice lags behind research in this crucial area.

Diane Snowball, Teaching Comprehension's creator notes that: "We're very excited about this CD-ROM course. At last, six of the most important comprehension strategies are presented in a form that can be put into practice immediately, and you will love all of the videos that show you and your students how these strategies improve reading."

Who created the Teaching Comprehension series?

Diane Snowball is an internationally recognized author, educator and literacy expert. Because of the scope and breadth of these CD-ROMs, Diane recruited 13 other high-profile educators to help her write Teaching Comprehension. These were Faye Bolton, Neilma Collins, Michael Collins, Leonie Dodd, Dale Gordon, Pat Grumont, Sam Grumont, Sheena Hervey, Mary McQuilten and Lorna Ward. Other contributors were Noel Ridge, Vicki Froomes and Alan Wright.

Along with Diane, what these writers have in common is: hands-on classroom experience, in-depth understanding of comprehension theory and practice, expertise in providing professional development for teachers and authorship of highly regarded publications. The writing team was made up of professionals with distinguished careers in education and all have been in the field for over 30 years.

What are the strategies proven to make students better readers?

The International Reading Association (in What Research Has to Say About Reading Instruction) and the National Reading Panel Report have identified six comprehension strategies proven to make students better readers. Teaching Comprehension is built around these strategies:

  1. Prediction / Prior Knowledge
  2. Questions and Questioning
  3. Think-aloud
  4. Text Structure & Features
  5. Visualizing
  6. Summarization

How is content organized?

Teaching Comprehension has been created for grade levels K-2, 3-6 and grades 6-9. There is one CD-ROM for each level, with modules focused on the six comprehension strategies, and these modules are adapted to suit each group of grade levels. Each module contains:

Other content includes an overview of reading comprehension theory and practice, guiding principles of learning, assessment and planning.

Why CD-ROMs?

CD-ROM technology was selected because unlike text, its format allows the use of rich resources, such as video. It's one thing to read about how to teach comprehension strategies, but it's an entirely different learning experience to actually see real teachers work with real children modeling best practices. Each CD-ROM has at least 10 different video segments, all high-end broadcast quality productions.

If a school has multiple copies of the CD-ROMs each teacher can have easy access to the resource for planning and teaching.

What are the product features?

How can Teaching Comprehension be used for professional development?

Teaching Comprehension is both a professional development course and a curriculum for teaching comprehension grades K-9.

The professional development course has been created for teachers, literacy coaches, principals, those involved in teacher training, and all educators committed to improving students' reading and encouraging students to become lifelong readers.

An accompanying book, Professional Development Planning Guide, provides multiple ways that the CD-ROMs may be used for professional development at grade level meetings, faculty meetings and workshops, study groups, and extensive PD courses. The plans are based on some of the focus studies that the material in the CD-ROMs may be used for, such as studying how to teach each of the comprehension strategies and how competent readers integrate them, or studying how to teach comprehension in guided reading, or focusing on teaching comprehension at a particular grade level.

We know that each teacher will want their own copy of the CD-ROM so a site license is available as well as packages with multiple CD-ROMs, allowing teachers to use these at school or home any time that suits each person.

What kinds of learners will benefit from Teaching Comprehension?

The curriculum plans and activities are designed for ALL kinds of learners: struggling readers, gifted students, English as a second language or bilingual students, and all students who seem to be reading well, but don't really understand what they are reading.

What are the Technical Requirements?

MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Windows
Pentium II processor or greater
Windows 98, NT4 or higher
32 MB or more of installed RAM
16-bit color
800 x 600 display
4-speed CD-ROM drive

Macintosh
120 MHz PowerPC
MAC OS 8.6 or later
64 MB or more of installed RAM

RECOMMENDED SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS

Windows
500 MHz processor or greater
Windows 98 or higher
64 MB or more of installed RAM
16-bit color
800 x 600 display
12-speed CD-ROM drive

Macintosh
Mac, iBook, Power Macintosh G3 running at 350Mhz,
OS 9.x or higher
64 MB RAM
16 bit color
800 x 600 display
12-speed CD-ROM drive

Other System Requirements to utilize all applications on the CD:

To find out more information about our CD-ROM products, or to place an order please call sales, Curriculum Corporation, (03) 9207 9600.

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