Text Base and the Mental Model
Literacy Navigator was developed using the most current research on reading comprehension, which is based on the premise that there is more to reading than skill and strategy. The research of Walter Kintsch and others (van Dijk, Perfetti, Graesser, Person, Van Den Broek, et al) has shown that comprehension is a dynamic cognitive process in which information from the text blends with information from the reader’s mind.
Two components within the mind are critical to successful comprehension. The first component is the textbase, which is a network of ideas that links the meaning drawn from phrases, clauses, and sentences in the text into larger ideas. The ideas from the textbase are enriched by the reader's experience to form the second component, a mental model. When these two components are sound—the student understands and retains an understanding of the text—there is comprehension.
To comprehend texts containing abstract ideas, readers must build their knowledge base by integrating their understanding of the textbase and their mental model of the discipline they are reading about.
The interactions essential to this process can break down at any point. Students may be unable to synthesize the language, information, and ideas in the text (a breakdown in the textbase) or they may lack the background experience needed to process, understand, and remember effectively (an underdeveloped mental model). A deficiency in either the textbase or mental model results in the reader being unable to fully comprehend what is being read.
As students advance through the grades, they encounter increasingly complex text in increasingly unfamiliar content areas. Even students who are able to comprehend texts become challenged to effectively build a strong textbase or draw on pertinent knowledge to form a mental model.
Literacy Navigator is the first program to address these issues comprehensively. This innovative approach can help struggling students
- Build vocabulary using tier-two words used by mature language readers (Beck, McKeowan & Kucan 2002)
- Focus on understanding connecting words, trace pronoun reference and understand substitute words and phrases
- Use graphic organizers to illustrate relationships between ideas
- Reflect on the meaning of the text
- Develop a reasoned understanding of text by using discussion to highlight differences in understanding and address misconceptions
- Convey the meaning of what they have read by putting it into their own words
- Build a mental model by exposing them to increasingly complex text
- Develop the ability to think critically and evaluate information—to literally become smart (Schmoker 2006)
Instructional Strategies
Each Literacy Navigator lesson contains multiple comprehension strategies based on the Construction-Integration Model of Comprehension (Kintsch, 1974, 1988, 1998) described above. Some of these strategies are used to build an understanding of the textbase
- Saying What the Text Means [link to this part of intro in Foundations TE]
- Making Ideas Cohere [link to this part of intro in Foundations TE]
- Addressing Vocabulary [link to this part of intro in Foundations TE]
- Focused Reading—Questioning During and After Reading [link to this part of intro in Foundations TE]
- Text Structure Knowledge [link to this part of intro in Foundations TE]
- Using Graphic Organizers to Display the Relationship Between Ideas [link to this part of intro in Foundations TE]
Other strategies are aimed at constructing a mental model
- Think Alouds [link to this part of intro in Foundations TE]
- Discussion [link to this part of intro in Foundations TE]
- Writing [link to this part of intro in Foundations TE]
