Coding

Coding/Comprehension Monitoring
Description This strategy helps students to engage and interact with text and monitor comprehension as they read.

Purpose Use during reading to: Support content-area learning by focusing on key concepts Provide a way for students to engage in a dialogue with the author Help students identify how they process information while reading Help students identify what is difficult in the text so they can select and apply comprehension strategies to support their reading Develop metacognitive awareness and ability to monitor one=s own comprehension

Directions 1. Explain that this strategy helps readers monitor their reading so they can identify what they do or don’t understand. 2. Choose 2–3 codes that support the purpose of the reading and reinforce targeted literacy habits and skills. 3. Model the strategy, using an overhead or whiteboard. Do a Think-Aloud while marking the codes so students witness the metacognitive process. 4. Guide the students to apply the coding strategy. Review the codes and have students code their reactions as they read on the page margins, lined paper inserts, or sticky notes.

Possible Codes: + New information I know this information ? I don't understand/I have questions P Problem S Solution C Connection  I agree X I disagree

Extensions Have students compare and discuss how they coded sections of the text. After students are comfortable with coding using teacher-provided codes, encourage them to develop additional codes appropriate to the purpose for reading a particular text.

Coding/Comprehension Monitoring Template

Course Title: __Name:__ _

Page Page Page Page Page

Directions Insert this sheet in your book behind the reading assignment. As you read each page, write the page number at the top of the column. Then place the code directly across from the part of the text you are coding. Each time you read a new page, pull out this sheet to the corresponding next page and add your codes.

Select 2–3 of the following codes to monitor your comprehension as you read the assignment.

+ = New information ? = I don’t understand/I have questions P = Problem S = Solution  = I know this information C = Connection X = I thought differently

OR Use the codes assigned by your teacher for this assignment

__=__ _

__=__ _

__=__ _

__=__ _

__=__ _

__=__ _

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Activity: Coding for Comprehension Monitoring

Code the following passage by marking these symbols in the margins as you read:

Y = I agree with this X = I think differently ? = I don’t understand H = I wonder how this actually works

Elements of Differentiation In this text, Carol Tomlinson offers guidance to educators who want to provide consistent, effective lessons that respond to students’ learning differences. She stresses that there is no single formula for differentiating learning in the classroom, but that several key ideas about differentiation are key to the successful implementation of differentiated instruction. Knowing that the brain is structured so that much of what is learned is soon forgotten, Tomlinson states the importance of carefully fashioning differentiated instruction around the essential skills and concepts of the content area. However, she notes that while struggling learners need support with essential understandings and concepts so they don’t get confused by being unable to relate facts in relationships together, advanced learners need to spend time grappling with important complexities rather than repeating work on what they already know and understand. Students learn through different timetables and different paths, and their experiences, culture, gender and learning styles affect how and what they learn. In a differentiated classroom, the teacher sets high expectations for all students, accepts students as they are, and differentiates instruction to help students become all they can be. The key concept of her differentiation model is that teachers can differentiate content, process and product according to student’s readiness, interests, and learning profile. Tomlinson continually stresses that teachers should not try to differentiate everything for everyone every day. She respects class wholeness, but encourages teachers to select periods in the instructional sequence to differentiate learning, based on the diagnostic assessments. Tomlinson stresses that assessment and instruction are inseparable. Ongoing, diagnostic assessment is essential in a differentiated classroom to provide day-to-day data on students’ learning readiness and to connect to their interests and learning profiles. Assessment isn’t an activity that comes after a unit to find out what students learned, but instead is a diagnostic to learn how to modify the next day’s instruction. This formative assessment “may come from small-group discussion with the teacher and a few students, whole-class discussion, journal entries, portfolio entries, exit cards, skill inventories, pre-tests, homework assignments, student opinion, or interest surveys.” (p.10) The purpose of these assessments is to create a picture of student understanding of key ideas, to determine who can perform content skills, and to identify differing levels of proficiency so that tomorrow’s lesson can be shaped to help individual students move ahead from their current position of competency.

Coding Content Examples

English Language Arts

Elementary: In a unit about champions, model to students how to code the attributes of what it takes to be a champion, T = talent D = dedication and determination W = hard work and practice ! = passion to be the best

Middle School: During a poetry unit, help students understand the impact that sound has on the reader by coding to identify the techniques the poets use to achieve different sound effects. R = rhyme M = meter A = alliteration and assonance O = onomatopoeia

High School: During a unit on analyzing essays, help students see how literacy devices and style conventions are used by authors to create interest or persuade readers to take their point of view. I = Information D = Description P = Persuasion V = Voice and word choice

Mathematics

Elementary: After reviewing addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division rules, have students code a variety of written problems to find the cue words in the passage that tell them whether adding, subtracting, multiplying, or dividing is required to solve the problem. A = addition S = subtraction M = multiplication D = division

Middle School: Show students that coding of text is similar to coding of math problems. Have them practice mathematical coding by using a set of blocks to illustrate a written expression, such as x2 + 5 + x = y2, followed by rearranging the blocks to combine like terms, 3x2 + 2x + 5. Yellow blocks = constants Blue blocks = variables

High School: While reviewing for the SATs, show students that coding is an effective way to determine how to carry out the operations in the correct order. Give a set of sample problems that require performing more than one operation and have them code the problems using PEMDAS - – Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally P = parentheses E = exponents M & D = multiplication and divisions left to right A & S = addition and subtraction from left to right Science

Elementary: During a lesson on the circulatory system, assess students’ prior knowledge and current understanding by having them code in the margins of the handout. ! = I already know this information V = New vocabulary ? = I don’t understand/I have questions X = I thought differently

Middle School: During a lesson on the reproduction of plants, introduce coding as a method to identify patterns and relationships in text in the same way labels help you identify the patterns or relationships of a photograph or diagram. P = Pollination F = Fertilization D = Fruit development S = Seed dispersal

High School: In a human anatomy and physiology class where coding has already been frequently used, have students skim and code their independent reading handouts, selecting 3-4 codes from this list. V = new vocabulary P = procedure ! = key information to remember A = abnormality F = function S = sequence or cycle T = important theory C = cause M = measurement or calculation E = effect

Social Studies

Elementary: Introduce coding with map study before teaching students how to code text. Have students review the maps of 3 different states and mark the codes on the laminated maps. C = capital city P = places of interest H = historical events happened here W = name of large bodies of water in or bordering the state

Middle School: While reading the text chapter on European explorers and the colonizing of North America, have students code both the text and the maps to identify which countries explored the different areas of North America. P = Portugal S = Spain E = England N = Netherlands F = France

High School: When reading the Declaration of Independence, have students code the document to compare and make connections with the grievances of that time to today’s world: Y = yes, this grievance is still important today N = no, this grievance is not as relevant today ? = I don’t know if this grievance fits our society now or not X = I don’t see why this was a problem then or now Coding Scenario

Mr. Yuan was worried. He knew that a lot more of his students had scored at much lower Lexile levels on the school’s reading assessment than last year’s class. Frontloading information and vocabulary before students were asked to read didn’t seem to be helping enough. He’d heard from Ms. Carson, a fourth grade teacher, that Coding helped her struggling students think about text better. He did a quick online search for some articles and sample lesson plans about Coding, to make sure he knew how to teach this strategy. Then he began to plan.

Before Reading/Learning The next day his students seemed mildly curious when they came back from lunch and saw that each American History book had a small stack of brightly colored sticky-notes on the top right corner. Not surprisingly, Luke placed his sticky-notes on his forehead, Andrew breezed right by the table without even looking to see if there were any materials to pick up, and Brenda’s hands were so full of books and bags that her materials went flying when she paused to pick up the history book. Mr. Yuan helped her pick them up as the other students reached around them for the books and settled down for class to begin.

“How many of you have ever sailed or been out in a boat?” Mr. Yuan asked the class. Only three students raised their hands. There were very few lakes nearby and most students had never seen the ocean. Mr. Yuan realized they’d need a lot of support to understand the difficulties the Europeans had experienced when they first sailed across to America. “But you know what boats look like, right?” Most students nodded but looked puzzled, wondering what the point was of this discussion. “Open your book to page 30 and see if the pictures look like any boat you’ve ever seen.” Most students shook their heads when they saw the old-fashioned boats with large masts and sails. “We’re going to read in a different way today and here’s what you’re going to do. Every time you see something in a picture or in the text that is like something you’ve personally seen, I want you to mark a sticky-note with a large check mark. When you see something you’ve never seen or heard much about before, I want you to place a sticky-note right at that line or picture with a big X on it. So take your first sticky-note and put it by the picture of that mast sailboat and mark it with a check mark or an X.” He walked around as students placed the notes, seeing that only Tanisha used a check mark. “Tanisha, you’ve seen this type of boat before?” he asked. “Yes, Mr. Yuan. Last year we went up to Plymouth, Massachusetts and they had a big boat there, the Mayflower.” Mr. Yuan smiled as he gently corrected her, “Yes that was a replica of the one the Pilgrims used. Does anyone know what a replica is?” “Like a fake?” asked Tim. “Well, it is not the original. But it is meant to be exactly like the original. So in a sense it is a fake. But the purpose is to show as closely as possible what the original was like. So the boat Tanisha saw was a replica of the original Mayflower. Okay! Now back to how I want you to mark your text when you read.”

Jamie raised his hand. “I know what you’re doing, Mr. Yuan,” he said. You’re teaching us Coding. I already know how.” “Great,” responded Mr. Yuan. “Come on up and help me show the others. Anyone else want to help teach Coding with Jamie and me?” Suzette smiled, but shook her head no, but to his surprise Bernard jumped up.

During Reading/Learning Mr. Yuan explained that today they’d be reading Unit 2, Europeans Explore America. “Would you like to read alone, in pairs, or as a whole class together?” he asked. Most students replied pairs, so he asked them to quickly get re-seated. While they all moved, he showed Jamie and Bernard how he had planned to model Coding for the first two pages. “So listen up—Jamie and Bernard are the teachers now.” Jamie began. “Well, it’s pretty cool. What Coding does is help you pay attention to what you read.” Bernard chimed in, “And it sure helps a lot ‘cause you all know I can’t read too well and here I am, teaching you!” Mr. Yuan nodded proudly, noting no one snickered when Bernard admitted he wasn’t the best reader. His emphasis to everyone that learning to improve reading is practice and exercise of the brain, just like learning new sports is practice and exercise with the body, had helped the kids understand that hard work and team work were keys to learning for all of them.

“And we learned last year that if we watch how someone does it, and then try it ourselves working with a partner or group, then pretty soon we’ll be able to do it easily on our own. It’s like a trick to make reading easier. So here’s how I’d code the first paragraph.” Jamie explained how he’d put a sticky-note with an X near Columbus’ birthplace—Genoa, Italy—and another note with an X next to the line that said ‘Columbus first traveled to the Canary Islands.’ Then he showed them how he’d put a note with a check next to the line that said the voyage was filled with danger, especially because of pirates. “I have a great book on pirates and I know that, even today, there are pirates robbing boats over near the Middle East and Africa.” Mr. Yuan chimed in, “And I’d put a note with a check on it where it says they were seeking a sea route to China, because my grandparents were Chinese and they have some old trade maps on the walls of their house.”

“Now it’s your turn,” declared Bernard. “You read and code paragraphs 2 and 3, and Jamie and I will come around and help or answer your questions.” Mr. Yuan noticed almost everyone began to read—some silently, some aloud in whispers to their partner. Bernard went over to Andrew, bringing him a book. “You can put notes on the maps, too.” “On the map?” asked Andrew. “I thought we had to code what we read.” “Sure,” said Bernard, “but you also read graphs and pictures cause there’s a lot of info there that may not be written out in sentences.”

Twenty minutes later most of the students were still reading and Coding, and Mr. Yuan noticed that two sets of partners were discussing their sticky-notes with one another. Good idea, he thought.

After Reading/Learning “Fine job!” he complimented. “I see Sherry and Earl and Bonnie and Jacques are having some fun sharing what they coded. Please turn and talk to another pair of students and raise your hand every time you find a place where all four of you coded with an X.” As the hands began to rise, he moved around the room to see what the common problems were. Vocabulary, he noted, and geographical places. Suddenly he realized that Coding helped him understand what the students’ understood or didn’t understand. Good for the kids, good for me, he thought. In the next chapter on Ponce de Leon, I think I’ll add another code, V for new vocabulary. And maybe the students would like inventing a code of their own. That way they’ll get to own the strategy and be able to do it on their own. Surprised at such a good outcome from a single lesson, he decided he’d sign up for the new after-school literacy book study group and learn more about strategies that help students learn how to learn.