The Comprehension Experience: Engaging Readers Through Effective Inquiry and Discussion

The Comprehension Experienceis the rare book that causes us to rethink much of what we thought we knew about comprehension instruction.
-Regie Routman
Author of Reading Essentials

What kind of instruction best supports comprehension? AskDorsey Hammond and Denise Nessel, veterans steeped in both research and classroom practice. "Most important," they assert, "is to promote readers' intellectual and emotional engagement with texts every day through effective thinking and discussion." The Comprehension Experience explains how to do it K-12 with fresh, research-driven practices.

Hammond and Nessel say readers must do more than master skills and learn strategies. They must have highly engaging, deeply satisfying experiences with narrative and informational texts. They must think actively, talk productively, and focus on meaning. Hammond and Nessel show how to do this by:

• engaging readers' curiosity to draw them into texts
• using teaching language to stimulate students' thinking
• leveraging the reading-writing connection to strengthen understanding
• making comprehension a priority for emerging readers
• ensuring that instruction leads to effective self-directed reading.

To support what they say, Hammond and Nessel provide rich classroom dialogues to illustrate exemplary instruction in action. ReadThe Comprehension Experience and discover how to guide all readers to better thinking and deeper understanding.

Denise Nessel is an associate of the National Urban Alliance for Effective Education (NUA), where she focuses on teaching reading and writing as thinking processes in grades K-12. She has worked as a secondary English teacher, elementary reading specialist, reading clinician, university professor, district-level curriculum supervisor, co-director of a statewide staff development project, curriculum manager at educational software companies, and consultant to schools around the country and abroad. Nessel has conducted numerous workshops and demonstration lessons for teachers and administrators and has served as a consultant and writer for educational publishers and multimedia firms. She has written several books and classroom resources for teachers and a number of articles for professional journals.