PORPE (PREDICT, ORGANISE, REHEARSE, PRACTICE,
EVALUATE) IN READING
Definition of Porpe (Predict, Organise, Rehearse,
Practice, Evaluate)
According to Simpson (1984) PORPE is a
study strategy that can be used in any content area course that uses the essay
exam to measure learning or any test
format that encourages higher levels of thinking such as synthesis,
application, and evaluation. Before examining the specific ways in which PORPE
can be used in the content area classroom, the rationale and steps of PORPE will
be discussed.
PORPE is an approach to studying textbook materials in
which you create and answer essay questions. It can be a time-consuming
process, but it is an excellent tool for preparing for essay exams.
Based on Jennings. et. al (2001: 268-26) PORPE is a
writing strategy useful for studying and learning content from your textbook
reading assignments. The PORPE strategy is especially useful for test
preparation. PORPE is an acronym that stands for the following 5 steps:
Predict, Organize, Rehearse, Practice, and Evaluate.
Step of Porpe (Predict, Organize, Rehearse, Practice,
Evaluate)
According to Simpson (1984) The five
steps of PORPE operationalize the
cognitive and metacognitive processes that effective readers engage in to
understand and subsequently learn content area material. Baker and Brown (1984)
have described effective readers as those who: (a) clarify the purposes of
reading (understanding both the explicit and implicit task demands), (b)
identify the important aspects of a message, (c) focus attention on the major
content rather than the trivia, (d) monitor ongoing activities to determine
whether comprehension is occurring, (e) engage in self-questioning to determine
whether goals are being achieved, and (f) take corrective action when failures
in understanding are determined.
With the first step, Predict, students generate higher
level essay questions that cover the content to be mastered and call for
organized essay responses. By posing several general or higher order essay
questions that ask for a synthesis and discussion, a comparison and contrast,
or an evaluation of the key concepts
from a unit of study, students are stimulated to process the text in a more
active or elaborative manner as they read and study (Bean, Readence, & Baldwin,
2007).
The second step of PORPE,
Organize, involves students in constructing the information that will
answer the self-predicted essay questions. In constructing, students build internal connections among ideas so that information becomes reorganized
into a coherent structure (Cook & Mayer, 1983). For each predicted essay
question, students outline their answers in their own words or formalize them
in a map or chart.
The third step of PORPE, Rehearse, engages students in
the active recitation and self-testing of the key ideas recorded in their maps,
charts, or outlines. In a sense, students are verbally answering their
self-predicted essay questions so that the key ideas can become transferred to
working memory.
The fourth step of PORPE,
Practice, is the validation step
of learning because students must write from recall the answers to their
self-predicted essay questions in some public and observable form. They are involved
in what Vygotsky (1962: 100) aptly calls the “deliberate structuring of the web
of meaning” . This process of writing can lead students from passive and
literal-minded responses to higher levels of thinking and reasoning such as
analysis and synthesis (Langer, 2000).
The final step of PORPE, Evaluate, requires students to
use their writing in order to validate whether they have created a meaningful
text that demonstrates their understanding of the key ideas and to
evaluate their text as another reader,
such as the content area teacher, might. To facilitate this monitoring and evaluating, students are
given a checklist that guides them in determining the completeness, accuracy,
and appropriateness of their written
product in terms of the original task, the self-predicted essay
question. Hence, the students’ essays written in step four, Practice, provide
them a specific and immediate feedback and reinforcement to their own learning
and understanding
