Blog
2
Shameeka
Spann
This week I chose chapter 8 in the book Catching
Readers Before They Fall. This chapter was titled “Comprehension: The
Bottom Line.” It focused on comprehension and comprehension strategy
instruction. According to Johnson and Keier (2010) “The end goal of reading
instruction is for the students to be able to comprehend what they read”
(Johnson and Keier, 2010). Johnson and Keier (2010) also state that proficient
readers automatically apply comprehension (Johnson and Keier, 2010). So,
struggling readers are in more need of comprehension instruction. Teachers
should also focus on the transitional readers with comprehension because there
are areas in comprehension that could still be covered with them to succeed.
One thing that stood out to me in this chapter was when Johnson and Keier
(2010) stated, “If we ask top readers to slow down, learn about a strategy,
name it, or learn how it works, it would interfere with their processing
(Johnson and Keier, 2010). So, basically the authors are stating that these
students are able to comprehend so we should not interfere with their fluency
by asking them to slow down when reading or explaining strategies they used.
This actually opened my eyes because when I noticed my strong readers making
errors I would tell them to slow down reading. Then, I noticed they would
struggle to focus. Now I have learned, that those were miscues my students were
making. I was interfering with their fluency. I’ve learned through this process
and the chapter in the text that my strong readers need to be trusted because
as teachers we have a hard time letting our students grow. According to Johnson
and Keier (2010), “Students do not have to be aware of how they comprehend, as
long as they did” (Johnson and Keier, 2010). The gradual release of
responsibility was discussed in this chapter on how teachers should introduce
strategies that includes: modeling, shared demonstration, guided practice, and
independence. I have used this model most of my years of teaching because I view
it as the “I Do, We Do, You Do” concept. In chapter 8, a sample lesson was
presented focusing on what strategy instruction should look like. The teacher,
Pat modeled for the students how to practice the questioning strategy without
naming the strategy, but thinking aloud to model it. Then, students actually
shared what they observed. This is new learning to me because I always thought
I had to name the strategy at the beginning of the lesson for my students
before I modeled. Visualizing was also modeled by the teacher Pat as she used
poems during shared reading. I used Pat’s model of not naming the strategy in
my classroom as I taught a lesson about drawing conclusions. My students were
able to understand the strategy and use the strategy during the read aloud. In
the upcoming week I am also planning to use shared reading as I introduce
author’s purpose without naming the strategy, but involving student
conversation. In conclusion, Johnson and Keier (2010) state that effective
teaching in comprehension should include: text large enough for students to
see, teacher reads as students follow along, students engage in conversation,
students practice strategy with partners as teacher observes, students share
how the strategy was helpful. (Johnson and Keier, 2010). “Comprehension is
thought- and that is definitely the bottom line when it comes to teaching
reading” (Johnson and Keier, 2010).
Comprehension is so difficult to teach. I had a student who could name all of the words, but that is exactly what he was doing - he was naming words. He did not attend to the meaning behind those words. In my second grade classroom, I liked to do picture walks of the book to lay the foundation for understanding the story. Shared reading is another good way to help with comprehension. The teacher can walk students through the process good readers use when they read.
ReplyDeleteHi SHameeka,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your chapter 8 response for your book. I also agree that comprehension is very difficult to teach. It requires a lot of guided practice and independent reading. In the classroom, I find whole class discussions to be most effective when helping my students with their comprehension skills.
I enjoyed reading your blog. I chose the same book as you! I agree, I think it is important to have conversations about what is being read. I love when my students make connections from the books we read. They always have all of these neat stories to share because they are making connections. I think it is very important to discuss and allow them to share!
ReplyDeleteHi Shameeka,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoy reading your blog posts because you not only share what you read and what you thought about it, but more importantly, you share how you've implemented it into your practice. Like you, this chapter really resonated with me because I believe reading really is meaning making so comprehension is at the heart of everything I do as a reading teacher. Over a decade ago when the proficient readers / strategy approach came into popularity with Stephanie Harvey's Strategies that Work and Debbie Miller's Reading With Meaning along with Ellen Keene's Mosaic of Thought I worked hard to provide my students with proficient reader strategy mini-lessons on making connections and building schema, asking questions, making inferences, etc. What I didn't realize is what the authors of your book pointed out - that stopping readers to employ one strategy at a time isn't authentic and also may deter them from focusing and impede comprehension. Everyone of the authors I mentioned have since written and spoken about this and none of them ever intended the strategy lessons to be taught in isolation of "real" reading or to be mastered in isolation but to be taught metacognitively. I am excited that you are going to try out shared reading in your classroom this week. I look forward to reading about it in your strategies in practice discussion.
Sincerely,
Dawn and Melissa
"The end goal of reading instruction is for the students to be able to comprehend what they read." I think this is an important quote because if students aren't comprehending what they are reading, what are they gaining and how is that fun? It's not interesting to read words without understanding what they mean when they come together. This is also prohibiting the student from connecting to the text or learning. I like that you shared your eye-opening experience. I think it's always good to be able to reflect and ask what can be changed. Asking students to slow down when reading is something that I will make sure to try to avoid. I also like that your mentioned modeling a strategy from the book. It's interesting how students can pick up strategies after you model them, even though you didn't explicitly name the strategy.
ReplyDelete