Kelli Wolfe Blog #6 - Comprehension Leads to Critical Thinking

At the beginning of Routman’s Chapter 8 – Teaching Comprehension, she suggests that our current emphasis on word calling and fluency is keeping students from thinking and comprehending what they are reading.  We are creating students who sound like good readers and look like good readers, but they are unable to discuss what they have read on any deeper level.  I would say that I have seen this to be true over and over this semester as I have administered IRI’s with students from 2^nd-5^th grade.  MANY of them have very few miscues, but when we get to the comprehension portion of IRI, they show very little evidence that they took any meaning from the words they read so eloquently. 

  

Routman says that teaching comprehension strategies in isolation is valuable, but only if it is paired with teacher modeling.  She shares the 80/20 rule . . . 20% of our instructional time should be spent on instruction and 80% should be spent on application.  I need to remember this during the Inquiry Unit I am going to do with my small group over the next few weeks.  I need to make sure that my mini-lessons are in fact mini.  I need to be sure and model my own thinking while I am reading.   I need to give them the opportunity to apply what we have learned during the rest of our time together. 

Many times, as a classroom teacher, I would model my own thinking (and use of strategies) while I was reading a novel aloud: “That part reminds me of when . . . and it makes me wonder . . . “   I would ask students questions to give them an opportunity to share their thinking, too. However, sometimes DURING strategy instruction, I might have pushed them too hard to make connections or to come up with a question for a certain page instead of allowing it to happen naturally and encouraging them at that time.  

Finding the balance is sometimes hard, but I don’t want to just teach strategies. I want to teach students to THINK critically so they can talk about what they have read and find that words have meaning that can change us.  Reading is WAY more than word call, and helping students to comprehend what they are reading is just the beginning of growing students into adults who can evaluate and analyze and then make decisions based on their knowledge.