Focusing on the Setting to Improve Reading Comprehension

Decoding and comprehension go together. It’s important to teach kids to decode, but it’s also necessary to teach them how to understand and care about what they are reading. She was very motivated to read, and learned to read quite quickly. She is a second grader and reads a variety of chapter books. She is also a very fast reader, which had me wondering how much of the books she was really understanding. Rather than ask her a list of questions about a book, I decided to teach her a small lesson focused on the setting and then work with her to try out the strategy. For school, she is required to read each night and lately the teachers have been asking the students to draw and write about the setting in the books. So, I decided to stay in line with the work happening in the classroom. Here’s what I planned and how it went:

The anchor chart I made to review the setting and teach the strategy.

Setting Strategy

I decided to teach my daughter the strategy Where Am I Now? from @jennniferserravallo’s book The Reading Strategies (the new 2.0 version is coming out sometime soon). This strategy teaches students to pay attention to where the character is and find the language in the book that tells something about the setting. This supports comprehension because the reader needs to attend to the details in the book that explain about the setting. Sometimes these are very subtle and require the reader to slow down or re-read. That was the case for my daughter. She read the first chapter from book one in the Snow Sisters Series – The Silver Secret by Astrid Foss. This is a four-book series about three sisters and their magical powers. The sisters must stop the Shadow Witch from turning their world dark. Based on the description of this series, there are many different settings to pay attention to!

The anchor chart I made to focus on the question that I was focusing on.

Before reading the chapter, I introduced my daughter to the strategy. We discussed different setting in books that we had previously read together. Then, I told her that while we are reading, I want her to focus on the question – Where are the characters? I explained that in one chapter, the setting can shift, and we want to pay attention to the shifts so that we know where the story is taking place. We read the Prologue together and as we were reading, I would stop her and ask, “Where are the characters now?” I was modeling how I was doing the work of paying attention to the shifts in the setting. She needed that modeling so that she can later do the work on her own. Though Jennifer Serravallo introduced a few questions that can be asked to address this strategy, I focused on one with my daughter. My goal was for her to understand how to do this work of paying attention to the setting rather than get confused with too many questions to focus on. For this, I figured, less is more!

How It Worked

We read the Prologue and Chapter 1 together. I read the first few pages and she read the next one or two. While we were reading, I stopped and asked, “Where are the characters?” I noticed that she was able to pay attention to more of the details and the language in the text. For example, when the Snow Sister’s parents came to a cave, the cave was described as having a “shadowy entrance” and the light in the cave changed. She was more attentive to details like these. Additionally, after reading the Prologue and chapter 1, she was able to make connections to other books she has read and Frozen! After reading, she didn’t just put the book away and move on to something else, she wanted to discuss what she had read because she was thinking more critically about the text. That’s what we want with the comprehension work – we want kids to be more excited and engaged in the reading work that they are doing.

 How to Try This At Home

For parents who want to try this at home, I say go for it! It doesn’t take too long and does not require many materials. I made the anchor charts (pictured with the blog) and I let my daughter pick the book. While you are reading with your child, stop occasionally and ask, “Where are the characters now?” and “Can you tell me more about this setting? How does the author describe the setting?” You can also model this first with your child. So, you could say something like, “I’m noticing that the characters are now in the house. They are actually in the kitchen. See, the author is describing the kitchen table and the refrigerator.” So, you show your child how you are making sense of where the characters are by focusing on the language the author used to describe the setting. Try to do this for 10-15 minutes or read 1-2 chapters together. The goal is to make it fun!