Teaching
comprehension in kindergarten has always been a struggle for me. I agree with
the author, that reading without comprehension is just word calling. It is hard
for me to teach comprehension strategies because having been a reader for many
years, I often just comprehend without really thinking about the strategies I
use to do so. It is just second nature when I read. While reading chapter 8 a
lot of the strategies they discussed, I realized I do. When I read textbooks I
tend to reread and do so out loud so that I can get a better understanding of
what I am reading. This chapter gives me a lot insight on how to better
organize my teaching of comprehension strategies and specific skills that
students will benefit from the most.
Learning to read requires a lot of
effort. Students are expected to read the words and comprehend the text all at
the same time while using many different strategies to do so. It is truly
amazing to see them progress as readers and watch so many of them become lovers
of reading.
I think modeling how to comprehend
texts to students is extremely important. As a student myself, I always needed
to see an example to better understand what I was expected to do. Allowing them
the opportunity to see me try to read and comprehend also helps them to know
that everyone has to work at reading, so they will not get as frustrated. I
will keep in mind the 20% - 80% ratio on teaching strategies and allowing them
to practice. I always struggle with how far in depth and how much guided
practice I should give them. I feel like I tend to go overboard on explaining
it. This leaves all of us exhausted and doesn’t leave enough time to practice
what I taught them, in turn making the lesson less effective. Using readers
that students can fluently read also makes a big difference with learning
comprehension. The author suggests at least a 95% rate of accuracy with readers
in order to effectively practice the comprehension strategies. Expecting
students to not only use decoding strategies with texts that are challenging
and incorporate comprehension strategies will often leave students frustrated
and come to hate reading.
Fluency is very important but like
the author, I believe it is only a part of reading. It is important to start in
the lower grades with comprehension strategies so that they become second
nature to them as they further their reading. Word calling will not excite a
student to read. Understanding the story and really diving into the text will
lead them to want to continue reading.
You are so right!! Teaching comprehension is so hard for us because we do it without thinking about it. Our challenge lies in making an invisible, automatic process visible and strategic for our readers, even in K. I think the decodable readers also make comprehension really difficult--"comprehension" becomes more of a recitation of basic facts ("Who was in the story?" "What did they see first?" etc.). In K especially, the high-quality children's literature we share through read-alouds lends itself to comprehension work through think-alouds. Like you mentioned, I also have started paying more attention to the work I do as a reader--it's really quite fascinating!!
ReplyDeleteJennifer, this chapter really made some great points about comprehension and the importance of not isolating reading skills and strategies when we are teaching. She explains that meaning is the heart of reading and everything we do needs to be modeled in the context of reading. That made a lot of sense to me.
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