March-April Blog
Routman- Chapter 8- Teach Comprehension
This chapter nails it!
So many of my students can read with automaticity- they know every single
word- yet they cannot tell very much about the story. They have a difficult time sharing the main
idea, giving a concise summary, discussing why the characters behave as they do,
and discovering what the author’s purpose is.
I appreciate the “Try It, Apply It” sections in the chapter. There are some excellent ideas to aim for in
the classroom.
I agree 100% with the list of strategies teachers consider
most important for helping them understand as they read. I would have listed reread as my number one
strategy. “Trust what we do as a reader
to guide our teaching.” The research-based
strategies do not dominate the list. Then why do we spend most of our time on
these? Do we follow the research or go
with our gut?
When I conference with students, I encourage them to
reread. This, however, is not their
favorite thing to do! I hear comments
like this: “Why should I read it again?
I already read it!” I need to model this more when I read aloud to
them or with them individually during conference time. I must make this strategy more visible in the
classroom. I should show them that even adults go back
and reread to make sense of text. I am
guilty of reading an entire page and then realizing I did not comprehend a
single thing. My strategy- go back and read it again. They have to understand this is okay to do.
The three simple, yet powerful self-monitoring questions on
page 125 need to be in every student’s toolbox.
I am constantly telling them to ask themselves if it makes sense. If it does not, stop and go back. I love “Does this sound like language?” as many will just insert a word that begins
with the given letter and keep right on reading! I will add this one to my
list! When I meet with a student and
he/she is already into the book, I will ask them to summarize or tell me what
has happened so far. This helps me
assess if the student comprehends the text.
Many will show me pictures on the pages and jump to their favorite
parts, while others like to start back at the beginning. We are working on summarizing and focusing on
the most important details.
I appreciate that Routman included a section on keeping
fluency in perspective. Let’s don’t just
call words- let’s understand what we read as we read fluently. Just because a student can read an
appropriate numbers of words per minute does not mean he/she comprehends the
text.
Perfect practice makes perfect reading. It is, indeed, important to strategically
teach strategies so the students eventually make them an invisible part of
their personal reading.
All of the IRI's we did at the beginning of the year really showed us that although students were able to call words fluently, very often comprehension wasn't taking place. We talked about Close Reading at our PLC this week. It is very much like "go back to reread" - teaching students to think critically while they read. Making connections, asking questions, inferring, analyzing author's purpose or the mood of something they read will also help with the comprehension piece. We are a "quick fix" world. Students want to be done quickly and without much thought. It's true! We're going to have to TEACH them to think.
ReplyDeleteGreat thoughts in here! Yes, re-reading is a helpful strategy that I use too as an adult. I think where it falls apart for our young readers is when we mandate that they read a story 3 times before doing any kind of comprehension activities. Then we aren't teaching our kids to re-read for comprehension's sake--it's more for a "check-off-the-list" sake. Like you, I re-read all the time not because I'm told to, but because I didn't understand! I love how you say we should make this process visible for our readers.
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