Reading Roles: Teaching Metacognitive Reading Comprehension Strategies
What is (or are) Reading Roles?
Reading Roles is a resource designed to aid children’s metacognition when reading.
Metacognition can be defined simply as ‘thinking about thinking’.
Reading Roles takes familiar job titles and assigns them to reading strategies and skills thus giving children an easy-to-refer-to system for being more deliberate with their thinking during reading, with the ultimate goal of being able to comprehend texts. Most children will already understand what the jobs entail in real life and therefore will fairly immediately be able to gain an understanding of each cognitive domain.
Alongside the job title (or role) there is a symbol which can be used as a further way to prompt certain kinds of thinking – some children may find these easier to remember. The Reading Roles developed from the areas of the content domain in the KS2 test framework are also colour-coded in order to be another memory aid.
Each of the Reading Roles promotes a different metacognitive strategy which children can actively use as they read. Below is a summary of each strategy but for more details and ideas a quick google search will arm you with plenty more information – these strategies are well-known and borne out by research.
There are 13 Reading Roles. The first 5 are based on research-backed reading strategies. The remaining 8 are based on the content domain areas in the KS2 test framework.
Reading Roles Based on Research-Backed Reading Strategies
Student
The student knows that they don’t yet understand everything and they work hard to make sure they understand new things.
Focus: clarifying/monitoring
Pupils identify areas of uncertainty, which may be individual words or phrases, and seek information to clarify meaning.*
For more on this Reading Role, see: www.aidansevers.com/post/reading-roles-based-on-research-backed-reading-strategies
Professor
The professor thinks about what they already know and uses the information to help them understand new things.
Focus: using background/prior knowledge
Pupils think about what they already know and make links. This helps pupils to infer and elaborate, fill in missing or incomplete information and use existing mental structures to support recall.*
For more on this Reading Role, see: www.aidansevers.com/post/reading-roles-based-on-research-backed-reading-strategies
Quiz Master
The quiz master asks lots of questions.
Focus: questioning
Pupils generate their own questions about a text in order to check their comprehension.*
For more on this Reading Role, see: www.aidansevers.com/post/reading-roles-based-on-research-backed-reading-strategies
Director
The director uses words and makes them into pictures and moving images.
Focus: visualising
Pupils make mental images of a text as a way to understand processes or events they encounter during reading.∞
For more on this Reading Role, see: www.aidansevers.com/post/reading-roles-based-on-research-backed-reading-strategies
Reading Roles Based on Research-Backed Reading Strategies and Content Domain Areas in the KS2 Test Framework
Editor
The editor finds only the most important information in a text.
Focus: summarising
(2c) summarise main ideas from more than one paragraph†
For more on this Reading Role, see: www.aidansevers.com/post/reading-roles-based-on-research-backed-reading-strategies
Detective
The detective works things out (makes conclusions) based on clues in a text.
Focus: inferring
(2d) make inferences from the text/explain and justify inferences with evidence from the text†
For more on this Reading Role, see: www.aidansevers.com/post/reading-roles-based-on-research-backed-reading-strategies
Weather Forecaster
The weather forecaster uses information from a text to say what will happen next. The weather forecaster uses information from the reporter and the detective.
Focus: predicting
(2e) predict what might happen from details stated and implied†
For more on this Reading Role, see: www.aidansevers.com/post/reading-roles-based-on-research-backed-reading-strategies
Reading Roles Based on Content Domain Areas in the KS2 Test Framework
The KS2 test framework can be found here.
Translator:
The translator knows and can explain what individual words in a text mean.
Focus: vocabulary
(2a) give/explain the meaning of words in context†
Reporter
The reporter finds the main facts in a text and writes them down.
Focus: retrieving
(2b) retrieve and record information/identify key details from fiction and non-fiction†
Author
The author explains why language and structural choices are made.
Focus: explaining language and structure choices
(2f) identify/explain how information/narrative content is related and contributes to meaning as a whole†^
Interpreter
The interpreter understands and can explain the meaning of words which have been put together to make phrases, sentences and paragraphs.
Focus: authorial intent
(2g) identify/explain how meaning is enhanced through choice of words and phrases†^
Librarian
The librarian thinks about all the information in the text and finds similarities and differences.
Focus: comparing
(2h) make comparisons within the text†^
An Additional Reading Role
Philosopher
The philosopher asks and answers questions that don’t always have a correct answer.
Focus: thinking
Pupils think about what they have read, connecting it to life and giving opinions based on their own interpretation. They are able to discuss moral issues raised by what they’ve read.
For more on this Reading Role, see: https://www.aidansevers.com/post/reading-roles-the-philosopher-role-and-answering-philosophical-questions-about-texts
What are the benefits of using Reading Roles?
Unlike other similar systems that are available, teachers and children already have a good idea of what each role entails because they are familiar with what people with those jobs do in real life. Therefore, they only have to attach the new understanding of the different domains to previously-held understanding, rather than learning two new sets of information - usually an abstract name for each domain, and its meaning.
Reading Roles help teachers to be more deliberate in their teaching of reading skills. Rather than just ask a question inspired by the text, teachers can be more deliberate about asking particular kinds of questions, making their lessons more focused. For example, a teacher might spend a day or a week, asking only 'Editor' questions (summarising) ensuring that they model and children practise that particular skill. Other similar systems advocate a less focused approach where lessons are not focused on particular skills.
Teachers and children are able to use different cues to remember the different elements of the content domain: some remember them by colour, some by the symbol and others by the name. Each Reading Role has a child-friendly explanation of what the domain entails.
Using Reading Roles
A useful document which gives a summary of reading strategies is the IES Practice Guide 'Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten Through 3rd Grade' where its first recommendation is to teach students how to use reading comprehension strategies (pages 10 - 16).
Both the EEF's guidance document and the IES practice guide point out that responsibility for the use of these strategies should gradually be transferred to the child. The intention of assigning familiar job titles to reading strategies is that children are given an easy-to-refer-to system for being more deliberate with their thinking during reading, with the ultimate goal of being able to comprehend texts. Therefore, Reading Roles should only be used until children are using the strategies automatically.
In addition to this, DT Willingham, in his article Can Reading Comprehension Be Taught?, says that research shows that "the strategies are helpful but they are quickly learned and don’t require a lot of practice... And there is actually plenty of data showing that extended practice of reading comprehension strategies instruction yields no benefit compared to briefer review... Ten sessions yield the same benefit as fifty sessions."
Again, to reiterate, these Reading Role strategies should only be described, modeled and practised collaboratively and individually until the strategies are seen to be internalised - this will most likely occur at different points for different children.
It is also worth mentioning that the Reading Roles are not designed to be assigned one to each child in a group. Children should be working towards being able to select strategies to use and therefore should be allowed to practise all of them. Having said this, in some sessions you may choose to only focus on one strategy at a time whilst the children become familiar with them.
The Reading Roles can be used to colour-code questions used in class - the symbols can also be assigned to written comprehension questions so children begin to identify question types.
Here are some examples of that:
For more examples, download the Reading Roles resources for free, here:
All the questions in the above examples were generated using question stems from the Key Stage 2 tests. Alison Philipson, a Literacy consultant in Bradford, has put together some very useful documents containing question stems taken from the KS1 and KS2 SATs which are all organised by the domains. These documents have been invaluable in our implementation of the Reading Roles.
The following resources of mine will also be useful when writing questions:
Blog Post: How To Write Good Comprehension Questions
† taken from ‘KS2 English reading test framework’
* taken from ‘Improving Literacy In KS2’
∞ taken from ‘Key Comprehension Strategies to Teach’
^ not included in 'KS1 English reading test framework'
With thanks to: Herts for Learning for the focus of each area of the content domain; and colleagues: Luke Swift for the Philosopher Reading Role; Rachel Bonner for the Professor Reading Role; and Laura Speight with whom I first dreamed up the idea of Reading Roles.
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