In Part 2: The Importance of Teaching Comprehension in F–2, Diane Snowball captivates listeners with her invaluable insights on teaching comprehension to Foundation through Year 2 students in Part 2 of this illuminating podcast series. Her wisdom bridges the gap between theory and practice, empowering educators to weave decoding and comprehension seamlessly into their teaching.

The Role of Shared Reading
Diane paints a vivid picture of shared reading (together, all eyes on enlarged text)as a powerful tool for nurturing young readers. She delves into teaching cohesive ties—those linguistic threads that connect ideas in texts—and offers practical strategies, like revisiting pronouns to establish meaning. Through examples such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, she demonstrates how teachers can encourage students to actively engage with texts and illustrations, fostering critical thinking from the very first page.

Inferring: Unlocking Meaning Beyond Words
Through her discussion of Rosie’s Walk and Saturday Mornings, Diane underscores the importance of inference. She highlights how teachers can guide students to combine textual and visual clues, transforming them into confident meaning-makers. These skills, she asserts, are just as crucial for nonfiction as they are for narrative texts.

Integrating Decoding and Comprehension
Diane champions a holistic approach where decoding and comprehension grow in tandem. Shared reading becomes the conduit, combining phonics, vocabulary, and sentence structure with comprehension strategies in authentic contexts. This integrated method enhances literacy and maintains the joy of reading.

A Focus on Quality Texts
Diane emphasises selecting rich, multifaceted texts that offer opportunities for repeated readings. She encourages teachers to harness the power of these texts for decoding, writing, and comprehension instruction, simplifying planning while maximising learning.

A Lifelong Literacy Foundation
By embracing Diane’s practical, intentional methods, educators can set their youngest learners on a path to literacy success. With cohesive teaching strategies, meaningful texts, and a love of learning, the foundation for lifelong readers is built.

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RESOURCES

• Duke, Nell K., Ward, Alessandra, E. and Pearson, P. David. (2021) The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction.
• Duke, Nell K. And The Science of Reading Progresses: Communicating Advances Beyond the Simple View of Reading
• Kambach, Anna Elizabeth and Mesmer, Heidi Anne. (2024) Comprehension for Emergent Readers: Revisiting the Reading Rope.
• Melissa and Lori Love Literacy Podcast, Episode 66: Re-thinking the Reading Rope with Nell Duke.
• Science of Reading: The Podcast, Season 3, Episode 10: Deconstructing the Rope: Language structures with Kate Cain.
• Sedita, J. (2020, May 16). Syntactic awareness: Teaching sentence structure (part 1). Keys to Literacy
• Timothy Rasinski - Fluency Rubric
• Trevor Cairney Blog

TEACHIFIC

• Teaching Comprehension, F-2  Quick Guide
• Teaching Comprehension, F-2  Comprehensive Guide
• Picture Books to Read Aloud to F-2 Students

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FURTHER INFORMATION

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