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The Role of the Scroll Bar In Helping Students Read

Last month, I talked about how the scroll bar can help students with consuming texts. That’s because the scroll bar is a visual representation of text structure. Each passage has an intro, a body, and a conclusion—regardless of the genre. By using the scroll bar as a reference, students can anticipate what should be happening in the text, monitor their own comprehension, and find evidence more readily.

Good readers adjust their purposes as they read. First, they decide what kind of thing they are reading—the genre. When they know the genre, they can adjust their purposes for reading based on where they are in the text.

Related: Genres or Text Features and Scroll Bar Characteristics: Onions, Apples and Grapefruit

In general, the scroll bar tells the reader how long the text is. And, the reader can tell if they are at the beginning—introduction, the middle—the body, or at the end—the conclusion. This helps relieve confusion. If a reader gets to the body and doesn’t realize what the text is about, they know they need to reread. If a reader gets to the bottom without realizing the author is coming to a conclusion, they can retrace and see what the author is doing.

Using the Scroll Bar with Each Genre

Specifically, the reader’s purpose changes by genre.

Narrative: The reader knows that when the scroll bar is at the very top, they are looking for characters, setting, and the character’s motivation or problem. When the scroll bar is in the middle, the reader knows to collect information about HOW the character gets what they want or resolves the issues. As the scroll bar nears the bottom, the reader is cued to focus on the ending.

Narrative Poetry: The scroll bar will connect to the same characteristics as narrative text.

Descriptive Texts: The scroll bar indicates the introduction where the reader should find the introduction to the topic and perhaps a preview of the org structure or main ideas. When the scroll bar is in the middle, the reader knows they are collecting information about the topic and how the author has chosen to organize the ideas and how they present graphic elements to support the ideas. As the scroll bar moves to the end, the reader knows they are reading to confirm the thesis given in the introductory paragraph.

Descriptive Poetry: The scroll bar will connect to the same characteristics as descriptive or informational texts.

Drama: Drama follows the characteristics of narrative texts.

Argumentative Texts: When the scroll bar is at the beginning, the reader knows they should be seeing the topic, the author’s stance, and the claim they are making about the topic. As the scroll bar is in the middle, the reader is looking for the main supports, reasoning, and evidence from sources the writer uses to explain their stance. The reader is alert to where a writer might offer a counterclaim. As the scroll bar moves to the end, the reader knows they should be looking for confirmation of the claim established in the introduction and supported in the body.

Persuasive Texts: When the scroll bar is at the beginning, the reader knows they are looking for the writer’s opinion on a topic. As the scroll bar moves through the body, the reader is looking for the evidence and reasoning that causes the author to believe what was stated in the claim. The reader is alert to logical fallacies in this section. As the scroll bar moves to the end, the reader is alert for how the writer concludes with things such as a call to action or a reprimand.

Using the Scroll Bar to Retrieve Evidence

The scroll bar is also a trigger to help students remember where the evidence resides as they consider questions. Many students are frustrated by having to read or scan the whole text for evidence to confirm or refute answer choices. If they use the scroll bar to segment the text into sections, they can select a place to begin that makes the most sense … the intro, the body, or the conclusion.

As students move into revising, the sentences and segments that need revision are tied to text structure and meaning. If a sentence needs revision in the fifth sentence, it’s probably connected to what an introduction should provide. In many cases, the issue is with the thesis.

The students can also reference a visio-spatial understanding of text. With a physical book, we’d often remember where the reference or ideas were in the text—left or right side … about halfway down the page. The same is true with digital texts. We use the tools, visually, to help us remember where we are seeing ideas, headings, and main points. The language now sounds like, it was at the end of the screen area … after the picture … etc. Having a sense of where the scroll bar is helps the sense of comprehension by genre characteristics. For example—I can see that I’m at the end of a page now. Time to stop. 🙂

TEKS Commentary

Foundational Language Skills: Listening, speaking, reading, writing and thinking—self sustained reading. The student reads grade-appropriate texts independently. The student is expected to read self-selected texts and read for a sustained period of time. Really, what we are all working toward is what happens in a reader’s brain when we aren’t with them to break down and consume the text. Our job is to teach them how to do all the reading things without us.

Comprehension Skills—The whole strand. All of them, but especially (I)—monitor comprehension and make adjustments such as rereading, using background knowledge, asking questions, and annotating when understanding breaks down.
Response—All of it. Let’s be honest for test taking purposes. The whole point of reading any of it is to respond. To a question. To an SCR. To an ECR.

Multiple Genres—Both strands. People want to break down reading into TEKS they can associate with each lesson. But it really doesn’t work that way. A good reader internalizes all of these ideas and uses them to make decisions about the meaning and impact of a text.

Author’s Purpose and Craft—Listening, speaking, reading, writing, and thinking using multiple texts. The student uses critical inquiry to analyze the author’s choices and how they influence and communicate meaning within a variety of texts. The student analyzes and applies the author’s craft in order to develop his or her own products and performances. The student is expected to A, B, C. In this lesson about the scroll bar, the reader becomes more aware of the physical layout of the text and how the author has planned the order of ideas and path of reasoning. It’s a deeper, more mature approach to text that needs to be explicitly referenced and understood. It’s one of those things that we think everyone knows and is aware of. But an awareness … like peripheral vision in the mountains. … can be a clear asset in a “bear-attack comprehension-problem” sense.

Composition—The writing process. I’m tired of copying TEKS. So just let me say here that this lesson helps kids with revising passages. They look at where the question asks them to revise, use the text structure to focus on the org structure, and make decisions accordingly. You can’t really revise a weak thesis if you don’t know what the body and conclusion say. And you can’t really revise a sentence if you don’t really know what it’s supposed to be doing in the text.

Inquiry and Research C, D, E, F, G, Hi, ii—The reader’s approach to the text really is one of inquiry. What is the writer saying? Why does it matter? How can I demonstrate that I’m not a fool and that I can understand what I read?

Next time

Digital Tools for Comprehension: The Notepad