Chapter 8 Post and Reply Due 10-16-2011 DeVries, B. A. (2011) Literacy assessment and intervention for the elementary classroom Chapter 8- Comprehension of Narrative Text
After reading Chapter eight, over comprehension of narrative text, this chapter reiterated the main goal of reading, which is for students’ to comprehend what they are reading in the text. The text stated from Fortenberry & Fowler, “research indicates that readers use strategies, such as, drawing inferences, predicting, self-monitoring, retell and summarize, draw conclusions, activate prior knowledge, used knowledge of text structures, and visualize before, during, and after reading”(Devries, 179). The chapter also stated that, students require the ability to pull from background knowledge, adequate vocabulary, and motivation as readers to have a deep level of comprehension of the text being read. The book listed many ways for teachers to implement and teach these skills to students and enable them to become proficient readers to reach their ultimate goal of comprehension. Some examples of these would be before the reading, make predictions, set a purpose, and activate prior knowledge to enable the student to comprehend the text. During the reading of the book to the students, teachers should make inferences, teach self-monitoring and visualization, and how to connect prior knowledge to the text. After reading the text, teachers or educators should have the students; retell the story elements, draw conclusions, and elaborate of the authors’ intent.
Students in my tutoring session, scored really well on their comprehension assessments. They received a 7 out of 8 score on the level 5 assessments when they are currently in the second grade. My focus for the rest of my tutoring sessions will be on comprehension with a little of fluency blended in the lesson. Reading this chapter was very informative and gave me much more direction on what strategies to implement and activities to have my group participate in to increase their comprehension skills.
Alison- Your students did do really well on the comprehension assessments! I have 2nd grade also but mine students didn't score so high. All three of mine scored between 3-5 correct out of 8 and they are reading at a level one on CFC passages! We have lots of room for progress! Comprehension sounds like a great focus area for you to work on!
I am focusing my tutoring lessons in comprehension. If you looked at their scores you would probably ask me why, but I think there is something missing skill wise, considering more than half, if not more, of the answers were received after I prompted them with a question. There is so much you can do with comprehension, including incorporating other areas of the Big 5, that I'm okay with it. This chapter definitely just earned it's spot as a new reference in the lesson planning process in the very near future!
I found chapter 8 to be extremely informative and interesting. It is amazing, as an already fluent reading who can easily comprehend most material, the process and steps it takes to actually comprehend material being read. Its interesting how once you actually being fluent you are quickly able to work through the steps of comprehension without even knowing that you are doing it. There are so many strategies listed in the text for comprehension that I was shocked. I didn't know that all of these things worked toward comprehension. The text states that comprehension is the ultimate goal in reading. This makes complete sense. I really enjoyed reading about all of the different forms of assessment that we have available as educators. There are so many ways in which to assess comprehension. One of my favorites, and probably the most practical, are the computer programs. The majority of elementary schools use programs such as accelerated reader and launch pad. These are great because not only do they let us know how our students are doing, they let our students know as well!
The processes were definitely eye opening. There is so much going on in a child's brain when it comes to comprehension, and this book definitely laid it all out simply. I think what shocked me was Figure 8.1 on page 181. When I think of comprehension, several of those strategies came to mind, but other ones had never crossed my mind. Definitely some great resources to incorporate into tutoring sessions!
Kristle - Like you, I didn't realize that all of those strategies were focused on comprehension. I have used several of them just knowing that it was helping students to be better readers, but not how. When I was trained, no one ever told me point blank "This will help with comprehension." It's kind of a relief to know that I already have some tools under my belt that I know how to use:)
Kristle - I agree with you that it is hard to realize how many different steps there are to comprehend something. After reading some kind of material, it seems like a no-brainer to ask yourself draw inferences or wonder why the author wrote what he/she wrote. As Nicole mentioned, I wish somebody would have told me these strategies would help me understand what I read. I don't think I would have spent so much time wondering why I had to do some of those activities. I think if students know what the purpose is behind those strategies, they are more apt to learn how to use them accurately.
Kristie- I also did not realize how many steps there were to comprehend text that is being read. In addition I did not know how many different strategies there are out there to understand the material. I also agree that assessments and AR are a good way to judge what the students are understanding and gives the students feedback as well.
One thing that stood out to me on page 180 was the concept of student choice. The textbook stated in order for students to develop reading comprehension skills they need, “long periods of time for independent reading of texts that interest them.” One thing I always disliked in elementary school was having very little choice in reading materials, unless I was reading outside of school. I read a variety of genres, but have never been able to get into and enjoy certain genres, like sci-fi and fantasy. This absolutely had an impact on my comprehension, because I just wasn’t interested in the material so there was no motivation.
For my students during tutoring I am focusing on comprehension. Instantly, Figure 8.1 on page 181 gave me several ideas as to where I can focus lessons in order to increase and build comprehension skills amongst my students. It makes me feel much more confident in my planning abilities knowing I have hit on several of these strategies already.
I thought was interesting that in the prediction section it was stated that struggling readers will typically make no attempt at coming up with a prediction. I have several lower level readers and it is so hard for me to get them to say anything. My method right now is constant encouragement that there is no right or wrong and insisting that they will not be getting a grade for anything.
This chapter definitely has provided me with a number of ideas when it comes to informal assessments, as well as activities. I hope to incorporate some of these into future lesson plans.
Emily - I agree that giving students choice in reading material makes a big difference! If, at certain times or on certain occasions, they have the freedom to choose books that really interest them, they will be much more inclined to enjoy reading. Some kids may choose magazines or comic books, and that used to bother me. Of course, I would rather them choose a book:) However, I have come to realize (after observing many adults during this past year) that not all kids grow up and continue to read or even enjoy reading. Many of them said it was because they were forced to read stuff they didn't like or that they just don't have the patience or attention span to read a whole book. They do, however, read the newspaper, magazines, or other things. What matters most is that they can read and they can comprehend and understand what they're reading, right?
Emily, at the last school I did an internship at all the students were allowed to read in their classroom were AR reading books. This drove me crazy because they were only reading books to pass their AR reading tests. I mean I completely understand why students wouldn't be excited about reading if they knew after they finished a book they had to take a test. Motivation was one of the aspects needed to comprehend a text at a deep level and I believe students would be more motivated if they were interested in the text.
Emily- I agree that student choice has a major role in the amount of participation a student has with comprehension and their interest in the material. I can remember in school having to read different articles about topics that I had absolutely no interest in and would often find myself reading the same sentence over and over because I would forget what I just read.
I agree about improvement in comprehension due to student choice. I struggle and have struggled through school with reading comprehension, and I do better with comprehending what I am reading if it is on my own time and something of interest that I chose. Comprehending was always a more challenge when the instructor provided us with the book and had a time limit.
Nicole Schell 1. Analysis of the reading/issue: Chapter 8 talks about the reading skills that students need to develop to have good comprehension. Decoding, fluency and vocabulary play a huge part in comprehension and a child’s ability to understand what they are reading. The strategies that we can teach children to do before, during and after they read a text can really help them paint a picture of what they’re reading, engage their inquisitive minds and imagination, and help them understand the whole purpose of the text. The section on critical literacy really gives a good explanation about how students can use comprehension to really understand the world around them, the difference in view points, and how those things connect with the student. Finally, the assessments discussed in the book are wonderful! There is literally an assessment for any type of information you might want to test for or learn about in regards to a student. With this variety of assessments in our arsenal, we should be able to really see the thinking process of our students and be able to target the specific skills our students are lacking. We will then be better equipped to utilize the strategies that will help them make progress toward being on grade level.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue: One question I do have relates to my tutoring focus. I originally had decided that fluency was the way to go. Even in the text it said about the traits of fluency…”Students with these traits do not necessarily comprehend everything they read.” This is the epitome of what my students demonstrated on their testing! They did very well on the first two, were a little below on their timed CFC passages, and then scored 5 or less on their comprehension questions. As far as wpm, the students are reading above their grade level. In relation to the level of passages they were reading, however, they were below that level. Since I have an MTSS group at our local school, their teachers want me to focus on fluency and comprehension. Here’s the question: Shouldn’t I focus on the fluency first and then move to comprehension once I see improvement in their fluency?
Nicole Schell cont... 3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently? The reading reflects me in that I have been teaching most of the comprehension strategies for the last two years with struggling readers. I do find that the predicting, inference, visualizing, and connecting all work really well. I have not, however, used the retell or elaborating on the author’s intent. I am excited to know about these things and be able to incorporate them into my tutoring instruction in the next several weeks. I can see how those particular strategies could really make a difference in a student’s comprehension and understanding of a story. Any strategy we can use to help students become more proficient readers is a blessing.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience: My tutoring students have recently been doing their DIBELS testing. I did somewhat of an “experiment” to see if retelling would help them. After a minute, I had them retell about what they read. They then read for another minute, retold, and then read to the end of the story. At that point, I asked them to do a retell of the whole story. They did so much better than the retell from the CFC passages! I feel like if my students are able to get into the practice of doing a retell to themselves after they read a short amount of text before continuing to read on, they would be able to really think about what they just read and come away with better comprehension at the end. I have done something similar with older students. After each chapter, the student takes a sticky note and writes down at least 3 important things from that chapter. Before their next reading, they review the sticky notes and then read the next chapter. By the end of the book, they have developed a way to retell important information and they have a way to review their book before taking a test. It’s a great way for them to use a sort of self-assessment.
-Chapter 8 discussed comprehension of narrative text. I felt that there was a lot of useful information covered in this chapter. First of all, comprehension is an active process that requires complex, higher-level thinking skills. Research indicates that there are many strategies that readers use to help them comprehend what they read. These strategies include drawing inferences, retelling and summarizing, drawing conclusions, and activating prior knowledge. In order to comprehend text, readers need fundamental skills like decoding, fluency, and vocabulary. Students need to be able to recognize sight words and decode words they do not know quickly. If students are fluent readers, they are able to accurately and automatically recognize a large number of words. Finally, when students that attempt to decode written words already in their listening vocabulary, they recognize and understand their meanings more quickly. There are a number of strategies that are available for students to use before they read, while they read, and after they read. Predicting and setting a purpose are two before reading strategies. Making inferences and connect prior knowledge to texts are strategies to use during reading. Retelling story elements and drawing conclusions are considered after reading strategies. I think the retelling and think-aloud strategies are two great ones to consider when informally assessing a student. To help an English Learner develop comprehension skills, it is useful to ask open-ended questions so a collaborative conversation can develop. -I do not have any questions at this time. -I found the section about instructional recommendations for English Learners to be very helpful. Our goal as a teacher is to get students to understand stories on a deeper and more meaningful level. If we just ask students closed-ended questions, we are not giving them the opportunity to explain their answers. Asking students open-ended questions gives one student an opportunity to answer and other students to make comments and build on the first answer. As every student adds his/her thoughts, the whole class has the opportunity to listen to others points of view and think about the story differently. -I remember being instructed to use some of the before, during, and after reading strategies. I dreaded having to predict the story because I just wanted to read and find out. I did not want to visualize what I thought the author was talking about. However, as I look at these strategies from a teacher stand point now, I understand why teachers ask their students to do these things. I struggled with comprehension, and now that I see these strategies being mentioned again I will give my students that extra motivation to use them because they work! They are not just a waste of time; rather, they allow students to look at stories from different points of view and understand meanings on a whole new level.
It is very important that teacher get students engaged in the reading. While doing my tutoring group I used the surveys at the back of the book to help me determine what my group liked or didn't like. I thought those were very helpful as I am choosing reading materials for them. Open-ended questions are great. I am always having my students answer me with open-ended questions instead of closed-ended. I also think that students learn from other students that way instead of yes or no. The other students will not understand how they came to that conclusion. Good post!
In order for students to comprehend text there are many other skills they need to master first. The book states in order for student to comprehend text they will need to have the background knowledge, adequate vocabulary, and motivation. My 1st graders don’t have all the background knowledge and skills to comprehend a text on their own. Their vocabularies and ability to decode words is not at a high enough level yet. When reading the section on vocabulary I noticed a lot of the suggestions on introducing new vocabulary words is similar to the mastery word learning that we new use. In figure 8.1 on page 181 there are multiple strategies listed for comprehension. I think a student understand and comprehends texts do a lot of these strategies on their own. Whenever I read my students new books I always have them predict what the book will be about by looking at the pictures but I usually forget to check back after beginning the book to see if their predictions are right. This will be something I can word on doing. The book also states that if children rely too heavily on the illustrations of a book to have them make their predictions about just the title. Last week we started putting together a pattern book and I believe the students really enjoyed doing this. They can read the book on their own and can also create a new sentence to add. I think visualizing events and characters in a story is one of the best parts about reading a book. I love it when I read a book and then a movie is made about it because then I can compare and contrast the imagine I had with the character in the movie. One thing that seemed to keep being repeated in this chapter was to always ask our students why. This is important because it gets them thinking at a higher level. There is many great strategies listed at the end of this chapter to use before, during, and after reading a story. I really liked the painting metal pictures strategy. I do believe my 1st graders rely very heavily on illustrations to help them read. By getting them to think what the pictures would look like on their own is a good strategy to practice with them.
Andrea: I agree that students need to master a lot of skills to master prior to comprehension. It’s good that you use prediction during your class because it does make them dip into their prior knowledge. Practicing the before, during, and after comprehension skills at a young age is a good thing because the younger they start mastering and understanding what they should be doing when they begin to read on their own.
1. Analysis of reading/issue. Chapter 8 includes information about comprehension and how to build this skill so students can be better at understand narrative texts. This chapter includes assessment information, the skills that makes a good reader and relates them to comprehension, different strategies for before, during, and after reading, and activities at the end of the chapter. 2. Questions/contradictions about the reading/issues. I don’t have any questions about comprehension at this time. 3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently? While I was reading the before, during, and after strategies, I kept relating it to our lesson plans and all the questions we have to come up with. Plus, the guided reading, anticipatory set, and closing we are to be completing in our lessons. I didn’t realize that our lesson plan template was centered on comprehension. I don’t know why I didn’t notice, but I didn’t. 4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience. I don’t remember using comprehension skills when I was younger. I don’t remember actually using them until I was in high school taking the personalized reading class. Now, when I read, I can visualize and actually understand what’s going on in the story, rather than just sitting there guessing.
Katie - I too was unaware that our lesson plan template really is based on comprehension. However, it makes perfect sense. By the time our lessons are complete no matter what lessons we are completing our students should have an excellent grasp at what we are teaching.
I didn't realize how much comprehension we really work into our lessons either. I think as a young child we used comprehension it was just integrated as we integrate it now so children do not realize they are actually comprehending the text.
Chapter eight talks about comprehension of narrative text, it reinforced that the main long term focus in reading should be comprehension. Students as they get older need to understand what they are reading and be able to recite some information they have gathered from reading text. One important statement I took from our book is the statement regarding what strategies students use as they are reading. It states that based on research students us strategies like drawing inferences, predicting, self-monitoring, retell and summarizing. Drawing conclusions, activate prior knowledge, used knowledge of text structures, and visualize before, during, and after reading. As a teacher I would use this information to see which strategies my students use most. Once I find that for each child I will better understand if and why a student is struggling with comprehension. I can relate this to my students whom I am tutoring. During our comprehension assessment I was amazed at how little many of my students really understood about our passage. However, when I back down to the illustrations to tell the story they aced the comprehension. This sent a red flag to me stating that maybe some of my students couldn’t even read the passage to begin with. With my guided reading passages I have been doing the past few weeks I have really tried to grab background knowledge before even beginning our story and I believe that really helps my students as well. I was excited to see that our text book also stated this as well as gathering adequate vocabulary and motivation to keep my students wanting to read. I absolutely loved all the ideas our book talked about for teachers to implement these skills to students to help better their reading in improving their comprehension.
Wow this chapter was great! I felt that comprehension is such an important part of reading. Like I said in my post, although I didn't choose comprehension as my overall content focus I still ask my students comprehension questions I feel like its so important to ask them while and see what they comprehended. I also really liked the ideas our book talked about for teachers to help the students with certain skills to better their reading.
I also found this chapter very helpful. I always thought that comprehension was important, but after reading this chapter I really see how it can make you a good reader or hold you back from understanding what you read. This chapter had some very good strategies that I will be using in my tutoring group even though we are focusing on fluency. As the chapter said they pretty much go hand in hand.
Reading this chapter was very informative and gave me much more direction on what strategies to implement and activities to have my group participate in to increase their comprehension skills. After reading the chapter, I was wondering when they were going to discuss visualization of the text? I haven't read about that yet and at what developmental level the students attain this skill? Just a thought.....
Chapter 8 talks about the comprehension of narrative text. When we are reading we need to make sure we comprehend it or otherwise it would be a waste of time. Although my focus isn’t comprehension during our tutoring sessions, I still think that it’s so important for even my students to be able to retell me the story. Before we do our guided reading I make sure to ask questions before so my students know what to listen for. There are many different strategies we ask students to use like, drawing inferences, predicting, self monitoring, retell, and summarizing. As a teacher giving student background from the story is very helpful for their comprehension. I felt that I as a student have gained more from teachers who have activated prior knowledge. This chapter had many idea for us as future teachers to share with our students to help them in their reading.
I agree that activating prior knowledge or providing some sort of background (if students do not have prior knowledge) before reading greatly enhances the comprehension. There are so many ways to do this too! I am focusing my lessons on comprehension, and I try basing my guided reading on their interests, which I've learned also influences how much the students comprehend.
I completely agree with your first statement about when we read we need to really make sure we're comprehending. I haven't been following through with this with my students but after reading the chapter I realize I need to focus on making sure they are self-monitoring while they read. I like your strategy of informing students of exactly what to listen for before they read. This really helps students focus. As a child I always gained more from reading that I had prior knowledge of. I also really gained a lot more from reading I was interested in. This chapter did have a lot of great ideas for future teachers and that I think will help us be able to get our future students interested in the readings.
I also agree that even though we are not teaching comprehension as a focus we still need to integrate it within because it is a building skill. The students will start out just retelling and progress each year. The background information you provide for students will help them comprehend better.
I am focusing in integrating a bit of comprehension in my lessons along with my focus on phonics. I have one student who struggles a bit with comprehension and I’m not quite sure why. She reads with really good fluency but after reading this chapter I’m thinking she may struggle with comprehension because she’s not using self-monitoring strategies during her reading. The text listed some great reading comprehension strategies such as predicting, setting a purpose, making inferences, and self-monitoring. During my lessons so far I’ve been having my students do a lot of predicting and inference making. I’ve also been giving them a purpose to focus on the reading before they start. But I haven’t been making sure they use self-monitoring strategies while they read. During this reading it occurred to me that the reader who struggles with comprehension may be reading through the text fluently but she may not really be checking to see whether their reading sounds right, looks, right or makes sense. This makes me want to get out my MSV chart to remind myself to ask my students these questions during their reading. I also learned through this reading how to help my students comprehend better after they’ve read the text. I think I really need to have my student delve more into their retelling. It is easy for them to just list the events in the story but this chapter taught me that students need to take those events and relate them to the problem, climax, and resolution. I really need to get my students to think more deeply about what they read. One last part of this chapter I really learned from was the informal assessment part. I’m always all for using computer programs for assessment so the assessment tools listed in this chapter excited me. I really like that with the programs used to assess students current reading levels the information can be shared with parents easily. I don’t have much experience with any of the programs listed on page 191 so I’m wondering if anyone in this class does and would be willing to share their experiences?
In reading chapter 9 on comprehension I found the section on decoding interesting. My content focus is phonics and therefore goes hand in hand with decoding. I did not realize how big of a role decoding played in students' reading fluency. The students must be able to recognize and know the different blends and sounds of individual letters.
I thought that the different reading strategies were very helpful on page 181. I did not know that if a student was a struggling reader they were less likely to make predictions about a book. I also thought it was interesting in the text when it takes about making a connection to prior knowledge in the text. I never really noticed how much I do this until I think back on other material that I have read. I have more of a connection with my readings in class if I have already heard or discussed the material before.
1. Analysis of the reading/issue. Chapter 8 discussed valuable information for teaching comprehension. “Comprehension is the main purpose of reading.” This is a quote from the text. I completely agree, if you are reading, but not understanding then what is the point to reading? The textbook also gave good strategies throughout the entire chapter. The text also stated that growth in fluency correlates with grown in comprehension. If students don’t read fluently then they have a harder time comprehending what they have read. In figure 8.1 the text list a lot of strategies that will help with comprehension. The text also tells what types of strategies to use before reading. One thing that I found to be helpful is to do the predicting. I think that will help get the students interested, to see if they are correct. Students also need a purpose for reading; it is helpful if teachers set a purpose for students. The text continued on to explain many more strategies. The text also went into detail of why it is so important for teachers to use after reading strategies to help with comprehensions. I enjoyed the list of activities with description for using to build comprehension skills. 2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue. I guess my question would be if fluency and comprehension are dependent on one another what one do you start with? I would think fluency because if students can’t read it fluently then they will have a hard time comprehending it. 3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently? I look at comprehension a lot differently after reading this chapter. While writing lesson plans I knew that the questions were important, I just didn’t realize how important they are. Because of this chapter I am going to really give more thought into my questions and try and make them more meaningful. I have tried my best in the past, but I feel more confident after reading this chapter. 4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience. Comprehension is not something that I struggled with as a child. Fluency on the other hand I had a lot of trouble with. I find that the students that I am tutoring struggle with both, however I have decided to work on fluency with them in hopes to improve both fluency and comprehension.
I never really thought of it like this but comprehension is the main purpose of reading. Even though many students struggle with this strategy it is the point of even reading a book. At a younger age we learn the fundamentals of reading and in the end we want children to read for comprehension. There are many strategies that you can use to help children with their comprehension. You can ask your student to retell, compare, or even sequence the events. I like the strategy of asking for predictions before you read. This will activate prior knowledge and get the children to think about the book. I like all the different types of assessment this chapter gives. You can assess comprehension in so many different ways. I think one thing I have learned is to make sure the children are reading at or below their level so they are able to comprehend. If they are reading at their frustration level they will not comprehend as well.
I do agree that comprehension is the main reason to read. I think of reading and writing as a pyramid, with comprehension being at the top. Phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and fluency all build towards that final goal, which is to ultimately understand what we are reading.
One thing I enjoyed when reading Chapter 8, which was talking about comprehension of narrative texts, was the different strategies that students use to comprehend what they are reading. Some of the strategies mentioned were retelling and summarizing, drawing inferences, drawing conclusions, and activating prior knowledge. The main one that I have seen at work in internships and tutoring is activating prior knowledge. The students seem to really understand what they are reading when they can relate it to something they already know about.
The chapter also talked about something we talked about in class, and that was how comprehension can be strengthened by knowing site words. This can be achieved by constantly going over these site words time and time again. Students should also know how to decode words they do not know right off hand, and be able to decode in a timely manner.
Overall I know that reading and writing is learned in "building blocks", and comprehension seems to me to be the pinnacle of the process. Comprehension is a tough concept to master for someone, but so rewarding for the teacher when it is finally solidified.
Cody--I also used the example from the text about sight words strengthening comprehension skills. This is definitely something I am going to try to incorporate into my next lesson plan. There are so many fun activities you could do with sight words and many other activities you can do to increase comprehension skills.
Chapter 8 was over comprehension and different skills a teacher can use to teach this through narrative texts. I really enjoyed reading this chapter and was excited when I seen that we would be reading about comprehension. Comprehension is what I finally decided my content focus was going to be for my tutoring sessions. I thought it was going to be vocabulary but I decided on comprehension because my two students did not score too low on their assessments but more questions were aided than there was unaided questions. I believe comprehension is very important when reading. Just because one can read does not mean they understand what they read or can restate what they just read. I enjoyed learning about different skills you can us to teach comprehension. Just from this class, I know there are many different resources you can use to teach comprehension throughout the classroom. I am really excited to do my tutoring sessions after reading this chapter. I can't wait to bring with me some of the information I obtained from reading the text. This section talked about sight words being a good resource for strengthening comprehension, we also talked about this in one of our lectures. I am definitely going to incorporate sight word flash cards in my next tutoring session.
Don't forget that vocabulary is a key component toward building effective comprehension skills, so you may not want to completely rule it out from your lesson plans. My content focus is also comprehension and about 1/2 of my lesson plans from Criterion 2 are vocabulary based because it was a component of comprehension that I noticed my group needed more help in. They spend too much time decoding words that it takes away from their comprehension of the text. Another aspect that my group struggles with is self-monitoring, which has more to do with syntax than vocabulary.
I agree with this chapter being a great one for giving ideas for teaching comprehension! I am also doing comprehension as my content focus and like that they went into so much detail about it in this chapter and give me great ideas on how to teach it. Throughout reading this text so far though all the chapters have gave me great ideas to not only take with me in the future, but to use in my tutoring group.
"Comprehension is the main purpose of reading." Without comprehension there is no point in reading any type of material; newspaper, emails, Glamour magazine. There is no point in reading the movie summary on the case, just watch it! The text provides developmental skills for students to acquire to improve their comprehension. It also provides before, during, and after reading strategies that instructors should address to assist and improve students reading, minds, and thoughts. Assessments are overwhelming! The text provides a great variety of assessments to aid students with all needs to obtain a higher learning. I feel comprehension is very important, this is an area that I struggled with, therefore this a main part of instructor that I want to incorporate in me teaching. Although there are certain age levels that the text distinguishes for certain content focuses, I feel comprehension should be a part of all age levels continually. Do they not say that it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks? We want to start teaching tricks when they are a pup. I really enjoyed this chapter reading, particularly because it relates to my previous learning experience more. But it gave me great knowledge and many future thoughts and techniques to incorporate in my instruction.
Sheena, the assessments and activities section is useful and provides us, the reader and future teachers, the ability to pull useful information from the text and use it immediately in the classroom. I like you connection to teaching old dogs new tricks. I say lets start teaching the new pups the RIGHT tricks and then as old dogs they will have a easier time comprehending algebra, geometry, and chemistry. This chapter utilizes many of the concepts of earlier reading. The other big 5 play a role in learning how to comprehend text, therefore, this was a chapter that needed to be studies after learning about the other big 5 areas.
Chapter 8 was on comprehension of narrative text. This chapter came at a really good time for me because we just finished Criterion 2 and comprehension is my content focus for the remainder of the lesson plans. One thing that stood out to me was “the primary purpose of reading narrative test is to find out who did what, when, where and why?” which is actually one of my objectives for a lesson plan, so it sounds like I am on the right track. Throughout reading this chapter, I learned about all of the components that aid in comprehension, such as decoding, fluency, vocabulary, predicting, setting a purpose, making inferences, self-monitoring, visualizing, connecting prior knowledge to texts, retelling, drawing conclusions, and elaborating the author’s intent. There are so many components to comprehension that it is difficult to rely on just one, and it’s no wonder why when students have trouble with comprehension, it is sometimes difficult to pinpoint where at – but as with my group of students, I have to start at one point and begin “weeding” out the components that they are able to do. I use to think that comprehension was more of a two-dimensional, black and white area of reading that they just aren’t able to understand the text, but after reading this chapter and several others, it is evident that comprehension is most certainly a multi-faceted and complex reading ability to master.
I thought that the self-monitoring aspect of comprehension that was detailed in the text was very helpful as some of my students are more interested in reading the stories quickly without realizing that they are making simple syntax mistakes. I didn’t realize that a good way to teach the students about those errors and to increase self-monitoring strategies would be to stop the student, repeat the sentence the way the student read it and ask them if that makes sense. I always felt like, especially in larger groups, that this would end up embarrassing a student more than being a helpful technique.
On the same note of comprehension, I love trying to get my students in the tutoring group to make inferences about the guided reading and read aloud stories, but even though I feel that my questions are open-ended and grade-level appropriate, I still receive blank stares or they want to get completely off topic and talk about their brand new dog, or whatever it is. I feel like the interest in reading is really lacking there, so if anyone has any ideas for building interest in reading, I would gladly accept it. Also, I should mention that the stories we read are ones that the students request, so I feel like they should be even more interested in the topics. One technique that I think I will be trying more is having them produce more visualizations and tell me about the scene that it taking place in the stories to see if that helps out some with comprehension and interest.
Jessica, I get those same blank stares! I think it is great that you allow the students to be active participants in their reading. Good luck with your group, I hope the new strategies work well!
Comprehension is my overall unit focus for tutoring so this chapter is especially useful for me. In the introduction of this chapter the author writes that comprehension is an active process. Throughout my tutoring sessions thus far I have see the students really trying to read fast and accurately but I have yet seen them slow down and really 'see' each word for its meaning. As an adult I need to have a quiet environment and be able to really concentrate on the reading if I am going to fully comprehend what I am reading. In educational psychology we are leanring about long term memory and working memory. I can see how comprehension plays a role with these two types of memory recalls. Figure 8.1 is a great chart of strategies to use to increase reading comprehension. I have seen teaching create a chart with these strategies on it and place it in a strategic place in their classroom. Students are then able to refer to this chart for ways to comprehend the text they are reading. And I beleive this chart is also helpful to a beginning teacher who needs reminding to use these strategies while teacing. Figure 8.9 is another chart that may be useful in the classroom as a display. It shows the different methods to use before, during, and after reading to increase reading comprehension. The activities in this chapter are hands on ways to reinforce the meaning in the text the students are assigned. I have found the website www.fcrr.org has been extremely useful during my tutoring sessions. The students do not look at these graphic organizers as worksheets. The graphic orgaizers pull information from the student the students memory and place it in an organized form. Many of the activities found in chapter 8 utilize a some sort of grapic organizer. Great chapter for teachers who need the basics taught in the classroom. I will be making my own comprehension charts to display.
I agree about having to have a quiet place to comprehend, except for when I am reading fictional novels. I can read those anywhere, anytime and understand and remember everything. Give me a textbook or a non-fictional book and I cannot seem to focus or comprehend unless there is no noise. If I am not interested in the topic than forget it I can't even pull it together in the quiet. It's strange to me how our brains work that way. I agree with the charts, my mentor teacher in RLA has great strategies posted all around her room and the students use them to help them with their understanding.
Chapter 8 gave a very detailed review of strategies important for comprehension reading. Much like is provided in the ABDC format objectives, comprehensive reading requires students to predict, self monitor, and visualize while reading. More advanced readers do these strategies automatically, while struggling readers benefit from guidance until their skills improve. The chapter also provides a clear explanation of the different between literary background knowledge, world knowledge, and life experiences, all in relation to a text-to-text connection. Literary background is the knowledge of story elements; whereas world knowledge benefits students who have the ability to depict from fact and fiction; in comparison to life experiences for students that have had multiple concrete experiences. A final element of the comprehension process are the after reading strategies in which students can retell the order of events, the student can draw a final conclusion of the events of the story, and the student can determine the author’s intent of the text.
In my opinion this chapter was very useful for preparing meaningful reading lesson plans. Currently with the group of students that I am tutoring, they would benefit from the directed listening-thinking activity on page 201. This differs from the directed reading-thinking activity that I currently use in that it encourages students to really utilize their brain power to increase their prediction skills. An additional strategy that interests me is the Spin The Decision activity on page 209, this would really encourage students to participate because they can be thinking about the four questions in advanced so they are not unprepared to answer. Additionally, I am really looking forward to the activity Retelling With Puppets on page 210, the students I work with are very hands on learners, this activity would be perfect!
That's one good thing about this chapter is variety. Ideas on how we can help teach children in different ways so we reach all of the children. We see how much we can use these activities and skills now and how much more we will be able to use them when we are in our own classroom.
Chapter 8 comprehension of Narrative text – When I think of comprehension I think of not regurgitating information. Seeing how decoding, vocabulary, and fluency all work together and are all required skills In order to read well, we must work on all the skills the child is lacking in. It doesn’t due the child much justice to set him with students that need vocabulary if he is having trouble decoding. This is especially true due to lack of teaching time. I see how predicting is so hard for some children when they have no background knowledge. I think this is why it is so important for parents to take their children with them, even on errands; store, getting the oil changed, the lumber yard, garage sell, wherever and talk to them about everything. Parents need to answer their questions no matter how silly they might seem. There are so many great reading strategies in this book making it a great resource for your school shelf. I like that there are so many ways to do assessments because it is hard to find time to write out tests and children find them boring and scary. It is also easier to get true result when the children are doing an activity and they don’t know that they are being tested. I like that the book tells what grade level the activities are best for. I like the audio books, especially for struggling readers. Instead of struggling along the text with another student or by themselves they can read along with the book. This is also great for giving them a couple of questions about the story and letting them listen to figure them out. They spend less time struggling over the reading and more time working on comprehension. I’m a really big fan of word webs and story webs. Short sentences for the children to write but requires them to think and figure things out for themselves.
Chapter eight gives information about comprehension of narrative text. It starts out telling all the components of comprehension such as decoding skills, fluency skills, and an adequate vocabulary. Then it gives comprehension strategies: before reading, during reading, and after reading. It also gives assessments to give for comprehension such as retelling think-aloud, and rubrics. Finally in the end of the chapter it gives strategies and activities you as a teacher can give your students to help them with comprehension. This chapter is a really great one for me because I picked comprehension as my focus for my tutoring group. A question I do have for this chapter is how do I get my students to elaborate the author’s intent without myself giving that answer away? As I was saying comprehension is my focus for my tutoring group. This chapter gives me some really great ideas and activities I can use in order to help my students! Last semester I could have used this chapter when I was giving my formal observation for Reading and Language Arts Methods. I did a comprehension lesson for second graders; they did very well considering it was my first time teaching a formal lesson!
Carrie, this chapter was very helpful for me as well because comprehension is also my content focus. In response to your question I think you should simply ask your students what is the author trying to tell us in this story? Why did this author write this story? How do you think the author wanted us to react to this story? I would also ask the students to explain their answers and back them up with evidence from the text. You could also give them some examples of author's intent from commonly known stories, such as Aesop's fables, before asking them to elaborate on the text you are working with.
You’re right Carrie. I wish I would of read this chapter before my formal observation as well. This was such a great chapter to read. Your question is great. I wish I would of thought of that! My only best advice is to guide them. It is hard but it could be done. I hope that makes since, but I could definitely be wrong.
This chapter about comprehension made me think about my internship last semester in RLA. The mentor teacher I had was very good at introducing the reading strategies talked about in this chapter and she is helping students understand a great deal about reading. The text-to-text connection, text-to-self connection, and the text-to-world connection is something that she is very passionate about. She will begin her reading sessions with questions and will praise the students about the connections that they have. She has a Snoopy bobble head doll that she will give to a student who has an especially profound connection and they all love that. This teacher is also very good at guided reading strategies and ensuring that the students are understanding what they are reading. I appreciated the information about how many of the elements of the Big 5 can be affected by comprehension. I like the idea of a student reading a book to themselves and recording it so they can play it back. I think a lot of people adults and children alike refuse to believe that they are doing something wrong unless they can see or hear it. I think that this is a great strategy to help students hear how they sound when they read and to be able to self correct when they hear themselves doing it in the future.
My mentor teacher last semester was also very good at building background knowledge and questioning her students as they read stories together. She definitely did a great job of keeping them very interested, which had a positive effect on how much they learned. I also think that having the students record themselves would be a great activity as well. I think as you said they would be able to hear better where they need help improving.
Chapter 8 is about comprehension of a narrative text, which I found particularly helpful with the guided reading portion of tutoring. While I was familiar with many of the “strategies for comprehension” that were listed, it was still a good refresher of why include those elements into guided reading and how it benefits the students. I particularly liked the sections on making predictions and making inferences, it was a good reminder to use during reading questions that require students to think about what is happening next or how a character feels. I also like the section on after reading activities because it gives some good suggestion for how to extend the story after it has been read once. The text also has some really great activities that allow students to show their comprehension of the story. I really like the “spin the discussion” activity on page 209 and the “reciprocal questioning” on page 203 and think I will try to incorporate these into my lesson plans. Overall, I thought this chapter was full of great strategies and gave a lot of insight into how to aid in a student’s comprehension of a narrative text.
Lindsay, I also appreciate the fact that it gave several different ideas on how to assess student comprehension on narrative texts. It provides a different, yet entertaining, way to assess the students' knowledge without giving them formal assessments.
I believe this chapter was very informative on ways to build and establish comprehension in reading students. We have always known that in order for students to be moved to want to learn, the lessons had to be meaningful, or capture a students' attention and desire to learn. In order to build this drive there must be a connection made. Once this connection is made, the students feel ownership and pride in the lessons being presented and will want to become more active in their learning. With this it will eventually build a foundation that will foster an additional desire to comprehend the materials being presented. The key is to active the prior knowledge with the students and connect it with what interests the students. With this balance, the comprehension and the desire to comprehend will be elevated.
You are exactly right that it is so important to capture students attention in order to making the learning meaningful and connections. Finding a way to make students take ownership and pride in their learning is one of the best ways to encourage learning. It also helps students take an active role in their own learning meaning students are able to self-monitor themselves.
Chapter 8 is over comprehension of narrative text. Comprehension is the main purpose of reading and incorporates all of the other reading skills taught. The skills that are essential for comprehension include syntactic, linguistic and semantic knowledge and vocabulary, decoding and fluency skills. Linguistic knowledge includes understanding stress, pitch and junction while syntax is the word order, punctuation and paragraphs. Semantics refers to the meaning of the words. The skills are the same ones that we all know that students need, a large bank of vocabulary, good fluency skills, and the ability to decode words. The next section is over comprehension strategies before reading; predicting and setting and purpose, during reading; making inferences, self-monitoring, visualizing and connecting prior knowledge to text, and after reading; finding main idea, drawing conclusions, and elaborating the authors intent. Figure 8.1 is very helpful in understanding the different strategies of comprehension. Again at the end of the chapter is a section over the different types of assessments that can be used including the miscue analysis and the cloze test. The one piece of information that I found most important was that teaching comprehension strategies has to directly enhance students reading comprehension. I did have a question. Does anybody know of a good website that gives reading levels for narrative books. I know of accelerated readers but I think it shots the books lower than they are in some cases.
This chapter was especially relevant for me as comprehension is my content focus for my fifth grade tutoring group. I was pleased to see, as I read the Reading Comprehension Strategies section, I have been incorporating many strategies into my lesson plans. However, I became aware of more that I could use to help my students strengthen their comprehension skills. For instance, I would like to use self-questioning strategies. The text mentions the importance of visualization during reading. This reminded me of an activity I saw demonstrated during a presentation on improving reading skills given by Judy Helm. The students sit in pairs facing opposite directions while the teacher reads from a book. One student is shown the corresponding picture. The other student then describes to the first student what he/she believes the picture illustrating the reading should look like using as much detail as possible, and they discuss what the real picture looked like. Finally, everyone gets to see the picture and they switch roles.
Chapter eight explains the importance of comprehension of narrative text. This chapter is very important to me, since my content focus is comprehension. This chapter gave my great ideas that I could implement within my tutoring session. I found the strategies very useful in figure 8.1. It was very nice to read their explanation on predicting, setting a purpose, self-monitoring, and visualizing. All of these need to be addressed when teaching. I liked how the chapter also included decoding, fluency, and vocabulary. These all play important roles when it comes to comprehension. Before reading this chapter I was not too familiar with literary knowledge and world knowledge when it came to comprehension. I also liked how the chapter explained skilled and unskilled comprehenders. Growing up and still today I struggle with comprehension. So this chapter has personal meaning for me. I really think figure 8.4 is very useful to use. I remember using these in school. Also as always I found the activities very useful. My favorite is text mapping. Graphic organizers work so well with me, so I try to implement these as much as a can. I do not have any questions for this chapter. This was a great chapter!
I also found chapter 8 very helpful with literary knowledge. There are times I find myself lost when I go to teaming with my mentor because of some of the terms they use. I now have some new schema. I am also using comprehension for my content focus, so this chapter was very helpful to me too.
Chapter 8 was exactly what I needed to help me with my tutoring sessions. This chapter was about comprehension which is what my content focus is. I found the reading comprehension strategies very helpful. After reading this chapter, I realized what I needed to add to my lesson plans. I need to have the students infer and visualize more about the reading. I also need to include more strategies for after reading the text either through retelling or elaborating on the author's intent. Figure 8.4 and 8.5 will be very useful when my students are reading to me. The end of the chapter reviews different types of informal assessments which I also found beneficial. There were a few that I had not thought about using, so now I have more to choose from. Of course, my favorite part of the chapter was the activities listed at the end. I can always use new ideas to help my students learn.
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After reading Chapter eight, over comprehension of narrative text, this chapter reiterated the main goal of reading, which is for students’ to comprehend what they are reading in the text. The text stated from Fortenberry & Fowler, “research indicates that readers use strategies, such as, drawing inferences, predicting, self-monitoring, retell and summarize, draw conclusions, activate prior knowledge, used knowledge of text structures, and visualize before, during, and after reading”(Devries, 179). The chapter also stated that, students require the ability to pull from background knowledge, adequate vocabulary, and motivation as readers to have a deep level of comprehension of the text being read. The book listed many ways for teachers to implement and teach these skills to students and enable them to become proficient readers to reach their ultimate goal of comprehension. Some examples of these would be before the reading, make predictions, set a purpose, and activate prior knowledge to enable the student to comprehend the text. During the reading of the book to the students, teachers should make inferences, teach self-monitoring and visualization, and how to connect prior knowledge to the text. After reading the text, teachers or educators should have the students; retell the story elements, draw conclusions, and elaborate of the authors’ intent.
ReplyDeleteStudents in my tutoring session, scored really well on their comprehension assessments. They received a 7 out of 8 score on the level 5 assessments when they are currently in the second grade. My focus for the rest of my tutoring sessions will be on comprehension with a little of fluency blended in the lesson. Reading this chapter was very informative and gave me much more direction on what strategies to implement and activities to have my group participate in to increase their comprehension skills.
Alison- Your students did do really well on the comprehension assessments! I have 2nd grade also but mine students didn't score so high. All three of mine scored between 3-5 correct out of 8 and they are reading at a level one on CFC passages! We have lots of room for progress! Comprehension sounds like a great focus area for you to work on!
DeleteI am focusing my tutoring lessons in comprehension. If you looked at their scores you would probably ask me why, but I think there is something missing skill wise, considering more than half, if not more, of the answers were received after I prompted them with a question. There is so much you can do with comprehension, including incorporating other areas of the Big 5, that I'm okay with it. This chapter definitely just earned it's spot as a new reference in the lesson planning process in the very near future!
DeleteI found chapter 8 to be extremely informative and interesting. It is amazing, as an already fluent reading who can easily comprehend most material, the process and steps it takes to actually comprehend material being read. Its interesting how once you actually being fluent you are quickly able to work through the steps of comprehension without even knowing that you are doing it. There are so many strategies listed in the text for comprehension that I was shocked. I didn't know that all of these things worked toward comprehension. The text states that comprehension is the ultimate goal in reading. This makes complete sense. I really enjoyed reading about all of the different forms of assessment that we have available as educators. There are so many ways in which to assess comprehension. One of my favorites, and probably the most practical, are the computer programs. The majority of elementary schools use programs such as accelerated reader and launch pad. These are great because not only do they let us know how our students are doing, they let our students know as well!
ReplyDeleteThe processes were definitely eye opening. There is so much going on in a child's brain when it comes to comprehension, and this book definitely laid it all out simply. I think what shocked me was Figure 8.1 on page 181. When I think of comprehension, several of those strategies came to mind, but other ones had never crossed my mind. Definitely some great resources to incorporate into tutoring sessions!
DeleteKristle - Like you, I didn't realize that all of those strategies were focused on comprehension. I have used several of them just knowing that it was helping students to be better readers, but not how. When I was trained, no one ever told me point blank "This will help with comprehension." It's kind of a relief to know that I already have some tools under my belt that I know how to use:)
DeleteKristle - I agree with you that it is hard to realize how many different steps there are to comprehend something. After reading some kind of material, it seems like a no-brainer to ask yourself draw inferences or wonder why the author wrote what he/she wrote. As Nicole mentioned, I wish somebody would have told me these strategies would help me understand what I read. I don't think I would have spent so much time wondering why I had to do some of those activities. I think if students know what the purpose is behind those strategies, they are more apt to learn how to use them accurately.
DeleteKristie-
DeleteI also did not realize how many steps there were to comprehend text that is being read. In addition I did not know how many different strategies there are out there to understand the material. I also agree that assessments and AR are a good way to judge what the students are understanding and gives the students feedback as well.
One thing that stood out to me on page 180 was the concept of student choice. The textbook stated in order for students to develop reading comprehension skills they need, “long periods of time for independent reading of texts that interest them.” One thing I always disliked in elementary school was having very little choice in reading materials, unless I was reading outside of school. I read a variety of genres, but have never been able to get into and enjoy certain genres, like sci-fi and fantasy. This absolutely had an impact on my comprehension, because I just wasn’t interested in the material so there was no motivation.
ReplyDeleteFor my students during tutoring I am focusing on comprehension. Instantly, Figure 8.1 on page 181 gave me several ideas as to where I can focus lessons in order to increase and build comprehension skills amongst my students. It makes me feel much more confident in my planning abilities knowing I have hit on several of these strategies already.
I thought was interesting that in the prediction section it was stated that struggling readers will typically make no attempt at coming up with a prediction. I have several lower level readers and it is so hard for me to get them to say anything. My method right now is constant encouragement that there is no right or wrong and insisting that they will not be getting a grade for anything.
This chapter definitely has provided me with a number of ideas when it comes to informal assessments, as well as activities. I hope to incorporate some of these into future lesson plans.
Emily - I agree that giving students choice in reading material makes a big difference! If, at certain times or on certain occasions, they have the freedom to choose books that really interest them, they will be much more inclined to enjoy reading. Some kids may choose magazines or comic books, and that used to bother me. Of course, I would rather them choose a book:) However, I have come to realize (after observing many adults during this past year) that not all kids grow up and continue to read or even enjoy reading. Many of them said it was because they were forced to read stuff they didn't like or that they just don't have the patience or attention span to read a whole book. They do, however, read the newspaper, magazines, or other things. What matters most is that they can read and they can comprehend and understand what they're reading, right?
DeleteEmily, at the last school I did an internship at all the students were allowed to read in their classroom were AR reading books. This drove me crazy because they were only reading books to pass their AR reading tests. I mean I completely understand why students wouldn't be excited about reading if they knew after they finished a book they had to take a test. Motivation was one of the aspects needed to comprehend a text at a deep level and I believe students would be more motivated if they were interested in the text.
DeleteEmily-
DeleteI agree that student choice has a major role in the amount of participation a student has with comprehension and their interest in the material. I can remember in school having to read different articles about topics that I had absolutely no interest in and would often find myself reading the same sentence over and over because I would forget what I just read.
I agree about improvement in comprehension due to student choice. I struggle and have struggled through school with reading comprehension, and I do better with comprehending what I am reading if it is on my own time and something of interest that I chose. Comprehending was always a more challenge when the instructor provided us with the book and had a time limit.
DeleteNicole Schell
ReplyDelete1. Analysis of the reading/issue: Chapter 8 talks about the reading skills that students need to develop to have good comprehension. Decoding, fluency and vocabulary play a huge part in comprehension and a child’s ability to understand what they are reading. The strategies that we can teach children to do before, during and after they read a text can really help them paint a picture of what they’re reading, engage their inquisitive minds and imagination, and help them understand the whole purpose of the text. The section on critical literacy really gives a good explanation about how students can use comprehension to really understand the world around them, the difference in view points, and how those things connect with the student. Finally, the assessments discussed in the book are wonderful! There is literally an assessment for any type of information you might want to test for or learn about in regards to a student. With this variety of assessments in our arsenal, we should be able to really see the thinking process of our students and be able to target the specific skills our students are lacking. We will then be better equipped to utilize the strategies that will help them make progress toward being on grade level.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue: One question I do have relates to my tutoring focus. I originally had decided that fluency was the way to go. Even in the text it said about the traits of fluency…”Students with these traits do not necessarily comprehend everything they read.” This is the epitome of what my students demonstrated on their testing! They did very well on the first two, were a little below on their timed CFC passages, and then scored 5 or less on their comprehension questions. As far as wpm, the students are reading above their grade level. In relation to the level of passages they were reading, however, they were below that level. Since I have an MTSS group at our local school, their teachers want me to focus on fluency and comprehension. Here’s the question: Shouldn’t I focus on the fluency first and then move to comprehension once I see improvement in their fluency?
Nicole Schell cont...
ReplyDelete3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently? The reading reflects me in that I have been teaching most of the comprehension strategies for the last two years with struggling readers. I do find that the predicting, inference, visualizing, and connecting all work really well. I have not, however, used the retell or elaborating on the author’s intent. I am excited to know about these things and be able to incorporate them into my tutoring instruction in the next several weeks. I can see how those particular strategies could really make a difference in a student’s comprehension and understanding of a story. Any strategy we can use to help students become more proficient readers is a blessing.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience: My tutoring students have recently been doing their DIBELS testing. I did somewhat of an “experiment” to see if retelling would help them. After a minute, I had them retell about what they read. They then read for another minute, retold, and then read to the end of the story. At that point, I asked them to do a retell of the whole story. They did so much better than the retell from the CFC passages! I feel like if my students are able to get into the practice of doing a retell to themselves after they read a short amount of text before continuing to read on, they would be able to really think about what they just read and come away with better comprehension at the end. I have done something similar with older students. After each chapter, the student takes a sticky note and writes down at least 3 important things from that chapter. Before their next reading, they review the sticky notes and then read the next chapter. By the end of the book, they have developed a way to retell important information and they have a way to review their book before taking a test. It’s a great way for them to use a sort of self-assessment.
-Chapter 8 discussed comprehension of narrative text. I felt that there was a lot of useful information covered in this chapter. First of all, comprehension is an active process that requires complex, higher-level thinking skills. Research indicates that there are many strategies that readers use to help them comprehend what they read. These strategies include drawing inferences, retelling and summarizing, drawing conclusions, and activating prior knowledge. In order to comprehend text, readers need fundamental skills like decoding, fluency, and vocabulary. Students need to be able to recognize sight words and decode words they do not know quickly. If students are fluent readers, they are able to accurately and automatically recognize a large number of words. Finally, when students that attempt to decode written words already in their listening vocabulary, they recognize and understand their meanings more quickly. There are a number of strategies that are available for students to use before they read, while they read, and after they read. Predicting and setting a purpose are two before reading strategies. Making inferences and connect prior knowledge to texts are strategies to use during reading. Retelling story elements and drawing conclusions are considered after reading strategies. I think the retelling and think-aloud strategies are two great ones to consider when informally assessing a student. To help an English Learner develop comprehension skills, it is useful to ask open-ended questions so a collaborative conversation can develop.
ReplyDelete-I do not have any questions at this time.
-I found the section about instructional recommendations for English Learners to be very helpful. Our goal as a teacher is to get students to understand stories on a deeper and more meaningful level. If we just ask students closed-ended questions, we are not giving them the opportunity to explain their answers. Asking students open-ended questions gives one student an opportunity to answer and other students to make comments and build on the first answer. As every student adds his/her thoughts, the whole class has the opportunity to listen to others points of view and think about the story differently.
-I remember being instructed to use some of the before, during, and after reading strategies. I dreaded having to predict the story because I just wanted to read and find out. I did not want to visualize what I thought the author was talking about. However, as I look at these strategies from a teacher stand point now, I understand why teachers ask their students to do these things. I struggled with comprehension, and now that I see these strategies being mentioned again I will give my students that extra motivation to use them because they work! They are not just a waste of time; rather, they allow students to look at stories from different points of view and understand meanings on a whole new level.
It is very important that teacher get students engaged in the reading. While doing my tutoring group I used the surveys at the back of the book to help me determine what my group liked or didn't like. I thought those were very helpful as I am choosing reading materials for them. Open-ended questions are great. I am always having my students answer me with open-ended questions instead of closed-ended. I also think that students learn from other students that way instead of yes or no. The other students will not understand how they came to that conclusion. Good post!
DeleteIn order for students to comprehend text there are many other skills they need to master first. The book states in order for student to comprehend text they will need to have the background knowledge, adequate vocabulary, and motivation. My 1st graders don’t have all the background knowledge and skills to comprehend a text on their own. Their vocabularies and ability to decode words is not at a high enough level yet. When reading the section on vocabulary I noticed a lot of the suggestions on introducing new vocabulary words is similar to the mastery word learning that we new use. In figure 8.1 on page 181 there are multiple strategies listed for comprehension. I think a student understand and comprehends texts do a lot of these strategies on their own. Whenever I read my students new books I always have them predict what the book will be about by looking at the pictures but I usually forget to check back after beginning the book to see if their predictions are right. This will be something I can word on doing. The book also states that if children rely too heavily on the illustrations of a book to have them make their predictions about just the title. Last week we started putting together a pattern book and I believe the students really enjoyed doing this. They can read the book on their own and can also create a new sentence to add. I think visualizing events and characters in a story is one of the best parts about reading a book. I love it when I read a book and then a movie is made about it because then I can compare and contrast the imagine I had with the character in the movie. One thing that seemed to keep being repeated in this chapter was to always ask our students why. This is important because it gets them thinking at a higher level. There is many great strategies listed at the end of this chapter to use before, during, and after reading a story. I really liked the painting metal pictures strategy. I do believe my 1st graders rely very heavily on illustrations to help them read. By getting them to think what the pictures would look like on their own is a good strategy to practice with them.
ReplyDeleteAndrea:
DeleteI agree that students need to master a lot of skills to master prior to comprehension. It’s good that you use prediction during your class because it does make them dip into their prior knowledge. Practicing the before, during, and after comprehension skills at a young age is a good thing because the younger they start mastering and understanding what they should be doing when they begin to read on their own.
1. Analysis of reading/issue.
ReplyDeleteChapter 8 includes information about comprehension and how to build this skill so students can be better at understand narrative texts. This chapter includes assessment information, the skills that makes a good reader and relates them to comprehension, different strategies for before, during, and after reading, and activities at the end of the chapter.
2. Questions/contradictions about the reading/issues.
I don’t have any questions about comprehension at this time.
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently?
While I was reading the before, during, and after strategies, I kept relating it to our lesson plans and all the questions we have to come up with. Plus, the guided reading, anticipatory set, and closing we are to be completing in our lessons. I didn’t realize that our lesson plan template was centered on comprehension. I don’t know why I didn’t notice, but I didn’t.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience.
I don’t remember using comprehension skills when I was younger. I don’t remember actually using them until I was in high school taking the personalized reading class. Now, when I read, I can visualize and actually understand what’s going on in the story, rather than just sitting there guessing.
Katie - I too was unaware that our lesson plan template really is based on comprehension. However, it makes perfect sense. By the time our lessons are complete no matter what lessons we are completing our students should have an excellent grasp at what we are teaching.
DeleteI didn't realize how much comprehension we really work into our lessons either. I think as a young child we used comprehension it was just integrated as we integrate it now so children do not realize they are actually comprehending the text.
DeleteChapter eight talks about comprehension of narrative text, it reinforced that the main long term focus in reading should be comprehension. Students as they get older need to understand what they are reading and be able to recite some information they have gathered from reading text. One important statement I took from our book is the statement regarding what strategies students use as they are reading. It states that based on research students us strategies like drawing inferences, predicting, self-monitoring, retell and summarizing. Drawing conclusions, activate prior knowledge, used knowledge of text structures, and visualize before, during, and after reading. As a teacher I would use this information to see which strategies my students use most. Once I find that for each child I will better understand if and why a student is struggling with comprehension. I can relate this to my students whom I am tutoring. During our comprehension assessment I was amazed at how little many of my students really understood about our passage. However, when I back down to the illustrations to tell the story they aced the comprehension. This sent a red flag to me stating that maybe some of my students couldn’t even read the passage to begin with. With my guided reading passages I have been doing the past few weeks I have really tried to grab background knowledge before even beginning our story and I believe that really helps my students as well. I was excited to see that our text book also stated this as well as gathering adequate vocabulary and motivation to keep my students wanting to read. I absolutely loved all the ideas our book talked about for teachers to implement these skills to students to help better their reading in improving their comprehension.
ReplyDeleteWow this chapter was great! I felt that comprehension is such an important part of reading. Like I said in my post, although I didn't choose comprehension as my overall content focus I still ask my students comprehension questions I feel like its so important to ask them while and see what they comprehended. I also really liked the ideas our book talked about for teachers to help the students with certain skills to better their reading.
DeleteI also found this chapter very helpful. I always thought that comprehension was important, but after reading this chapter I really see how it can make you a good reader or hold you back from understanding what you read. This chapter had some very good strategies that I will be using in my tutoring group even though we are focusing on fluency. As the chapter said they pretty much go hand in hand.
DeleteIn response to Matraca.....
DeleteReading this chapter was very informative and gave me much more direction on what strategies to implement and activities to have my group participate in to increase their comprehension skills. After reading the chapter, I was wondering when they were going to discuss visualization of the text? I haven't read about that yet and at what developmental level the students attain this skill? Just a thought.....
Chapter 8 talks about the comprehension of narrative text. When we are reading we need to make sure we comprehend it or otherwise it would be a waste of time. Although my focus isn’t comprehension during our tutoring sessions, I still think that it’s so important for even my students to be able to retell me the story. Before we do our guided reading I make sure to ask questions before so my students know what to listen for. There are many different strategies we ask students to use like, drawing inferences, predicting, self monitoring, retell, and summarizing. As a teacher giving student background from the story is very helpful for their comprehension. I felt that I as a student have gained more from teachers who have activated prior knowledge. This chapter had many idea for us as future teachers to share with our students to help them in their reading.
ReplyDeleteI agree that activating prior knowledge or providing some sort of background (if students do not have prior knowledge) before reading greatly enhances the comprehension. There are so many ways to do this too! I am focusing my lessons on comprehension, and I try basing my guided reading on their interests, which I've learned also influences how much the students comprehend.
DeleteMegan,
DeleteI completely agree with your first statement about when we read we need to really make sure we're comprehending. I haven't been following through with this with my students but after reading the chapter I realize I need to focus on making sure they are self-monitoring while they read. I like your strategy of informing students of exactly what to listen for before they read. This really helps students focus. As a child I always gained more from reading that I had prior knowledge of. I also really gained a lot more from reading I was interested in. This chapter did have a lot of great ideas for future teachers and that I think will help us be able to get our future students interested in the readings.
I also agree that even though we are not teaching comprehension as a focus we still need to integrate it within because it is a building skill. The students will start out just retelling and progress each year. The background information you provide for students will help them comprehend better.
DeleteCh 8 – Comprehension of Narrative Text
ReplyDeleteI am focusing in integrating a bit of comprehension in my lessons along with my focus on phonics. I have one student who struggles a bit with comprehension and I’m not quite sure why. She reads with really good fluency but after reading this chapter I’m thinking she may struggle with comprehension because she’s not using self-monitoring strategies during her reading. The text listed some great reading comprehension strategies such as predicting, setting a purpose, making inferences, and self-monitoring. During my lessons so far I’ve been having my students do a lot of predicting and inference making. I’ve also been giving them a purpose to focus on the reading before they start. But I haven’t been making sure they use self-monitoring strategies while they read. During this reading it occurred to me that the reader who struggles with comprehension may be reading through the text fluently but she may not really be checking to see whether their reading sounds right, looks, right or makes sense. This makes me want to get out my MSV chart to remind myself to ask my students these questions during their reading. I also learned through this reading how to help my students comprehend better after they’ve read the text. I think I really need to have my student delve more into their retelling. It is easy for them to just list the events in the story but this chapter taught me that students need to take those events and relate them to the problem, climax, and resolution. I really need to get my students to think more deeply about what they read. One last part of this chapter I really learned from was the informal assessment part. I’m always all for using computer programs for assessment so the assessment tools listed in this chapter excited me. I really like that with the programs used to assess students current reading levels the information can be shared with parents easily. I don’t have much experience with any of the programs listed on page 191 so I’m wondering if anyone in this class does and would be willing to share their experiences?
In reading chapter 9 on comprehension I found the section on decoding interesting. My content focus is phonics and therefore goes hand in hand with decoding. I did not realize how big of a role decoding played in students' reading fluency. The students must be able to recognize and know the different blends and sounds of individual letters.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the different reading strategies were very helpful on page 181. I did not know that if a student was a struggling reader they were less likely to make predictions about a book. I also thought it was interesting in the text when it takes about making a connection to prior knowledge in the text. I never really noticed how much I do this until I think back on other material that I have read. I have more of a connection with my readings in class if I have already heard or discussed the material before.
1. Analysis of the reading/issue.
ReplyDeleteChapter 8 discussed valuable information for teaching comprehension. “Comprehension is the main purpose of reading.” This is a quote from the text. I completely agree, if you are reading, but not understanding then what is the point to reading? The textbook also gave good strategies throughout the entire chapter. The text also stated that growth in fluency correlates with grown in comprehension. If students don’t read fluently then they have a harder time comprehending what they have read. In figure 8.1 the text list a lot of strategies that will help with comprehension. The text also tells what types of strategies to use before reading. One thing that I found to be helpful is to do the predicting. I think that will help get the students interested, to see if they are correct. Students also need a purpose for reading; it is helpful if teachers set a purpose for students. The text continued on to explain many more strategies. The text also went into detail of why it is so important for teachers to use after reading strategies to help with comprehensions. I enjoyed the list of activities with description for using to build comprehension skills.
2. Questions and/or contradictions about the reading/issue.
I guess my question would be if fluency and comprehension are dependent on one another what one do you start with? I would think fluency because if students can’t read it fluently then they will have a hard time comprehending it.
3. How did the reading reflect you or allow you to look at an issue differently?
I look at comprehension a lot differently after reading this chapter. While writing lesson plans I knew that the questions were important, I just didn’t realize how important they are. Because of this chapter I am going to really give more thought into my questions and try and make them more meaningful. I have tried my best in the past, but I feel more confident after reading this chapter.
4. Connecting the reading to you. Examples of your own experience.
Comprehension is not something that I struggled with as a child. Fluency on the other hand I had a lot of trouble with. I find that the students that I am tutoring struggle with both, however I have decided to work on fluency with them in hopes to improve both fluency and comprehension.
I never really thought of it like this but comprehension is the main purpose of reading. Even though many students struggle with this strategy it is the point of even reading a book. At a younger age we learn the fundamentals of reading and in the end we want children to read for comprehension. There are many strategies that you can use to help children with their comprehension. You can ask your student to retell, compare, or even sequence the events. I like the strategy of asking for predictions before you read. This will activate prior knowledge and get the children to think about the book. I like all the different types of assessment this chapter gives. You can assess comprehension in so many different ways. I think one thing I have learned is to make sure the children are reading at or below their level so they are able to comprehend. If they are reading at their frustration level they will not comprehend as well.
ReplyDeleteI do agree that comprehension is the main reason to read. I think of reading and writing as a pyramid, with comprehension being at the top. Phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and fluency all build towards that final goal, which is to ultimately understand what we are reading.
DeleteOne thing I enjoyed when reading Chapter 8, which was talking about comprehension of narrative texts, was the different strategies that students use to comprehend what they are reading. Some of the strategies mentioned were retelling and summarizing, drawing inferences, drawing conclusions, and activating prior knowledge. The main one that I have seen at work in internships and tutoring is activating prior knowledge. The students seem to really understand what they are reading when they can relate it to something they already know about.
ReplyDeleteThe chapter also talked about something we talked about in class, and that was how comprehension can be strengthened by knowing site words. This can be achieved by constantly going over these site words time and time again. Students should also know how to decode words they do not know right off hand, and be able to decode in a timely manner.
Overall I know that reading and writing is learned in "building blocks", and comprehension seems to me to be the pinnacle of the process. Comprehension is a tough concept to master for someone, but so rewarding for the teacher when it is finally solidified.
Great chapter!
Cody--I also used the example from the text about sight words strengthening comprehension skills. This is definitely something I am going to try to incorporate into my next lesson plan. There are so many fun activities you could do with sight words and many other activities you can do to increase comprehension skills.
DeleteChapter 8 was over comprehension and different skills a teacher can use to teach this through narrative texts. I really enjoyed reading this chapter and was excited when I seen that we would be reading about comprehension. Comprehension is what I finally decided my content focus was going to be for my tutoring sessions. I thought it was going to be vocabulary but I decided on comprehension because my two students did not score too low on their assessments but more questions were aided than there was unaided questions. I believe comprehension is very important when reading. Just because one can read does not mean they understand what they read or can restate what they just read. I enjoyed learning about different skills you can us to teach comprehension. Just from this class, I know there are many different resources you can use to teach comprehension throughout the classroom. I am really excited to do my tutoring sessions after reading this chapter. I can't wait to bring with me some of the information I obtained from reading the text. This section talked about sight words being a good resource for strengthening comprehension, we also talked about this in one of our lectures. I am definitely going to incorporate sight word flash cards in my next tutoring session.
ReplyDeleteKristi -
DeleteDon't forget that vocabulary is a key component toward building effective comprehension skills, so you may not want to completely rule it out from your lesson plans. My content focus is also comprehension and about 1/2 of my lesson plans from Criterion 2 are vocabulary based because it was a component of comprehension that I noticed my group needed more help in. They spend too much time decoding words that it takes away from their comprehension of the text. Another aspect that my group struggles with is self-monitoring, which has more to do with syntax than vocabulary.
I agree with this chapter being a great one for giving ideas for teaching comprehension! I am also doing comprehension as my content focus and like that they went into so much detail about it in this chapter and give me great ideas on how to teach it. Throughout reading this text so far though all the chapters have gave me great ideas to not only take with me in the future, but to use in my tutoring group.
Delete"Comprehension is the main purpose of reading." Without comprehension there is no point in reading any type of material; newspaper, emails, Glamour magazine. There is no point in reading the movie summary on the case, just watch it! The text provides developmental skills for students to acquire to improve their comprehension. It also provides before, during, and after reading strategies that instructors should address to assist and improve students reading, minds, and thoughts. Assessments are overwhelming! The text provides a great variety of assessments to aid students with all needs to obtain a higher learning. I feel comprehension is very important, this is an area that I struggled with, therefore this a main part of instructor that I want to incorporate in me teaching. Although there are certain age levels that the text distinguishes for certain content focuses, I feel comprehension should be a part of all age levels continually. Do they not say that it is hard to teach an old dog new tricks? We want to start teaching tricks when they are a pup.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed this chapter reading, particularly because it relates to my previous learning experience more. But it gave me great knowledge and many future thoughts and techniques to incorporate in my instruction.
Sheena, the assessments and activities section is useful and provides us, the reader and future teachers, the ability to pull useful information from the text and use it immediately in the classroom. I like you connection to teaching old dogs new tricks. I say lets start teaching the new pups the RIGHT tricks and then as old dogs they will have a easier time comprehending algebra, geometry, and chemistry.
DeleteThis chapter utilizes many of the concepts of earlier reading. The other big 5 play a role in learning how to comprehend text, therefore, this was a chapter that needed to be studies after learning about the other big 5 areas.
Chapter 8 was on comprehension of narrative text. This chapter came at a really good time for me because we just finished Criterion 2 and comprehension is my content focus for the remainder of the lesson plans. One thing that stood out to me was “the primary purpose of reading narrative test is to find out who did what, when, where and why?” which is actually one of my objectives for a lesson plan, so it sounds like I am on the right track. Throughout reading this chapter, I learned about all of the components that aid in comprehension, such as decoding, fluency, vocabulary, predicting, setting a purpose, making inferences, self-monitoring, visualizing, connecting prior knowledge to texts, retelling, drawing conclusions, and elaborating the author’s intent. There are so many components to comprehension that it is difficult to rely on just one, and it’s no wonder why when students have trouble with comprehension, it is sometimes difficult to pinpoint where at – but as with my group of students, I have to start at one point and begin “weeding” out the components that they are able to do. I use to think that comprehension was more of a two-dimensional, black and white area of reading that they just aren’t able to understand the text, but after reading this chapter and several others, it is evident that comprehension is most certainly a multi-faceted and complex reading ability to master.
ReplyDeleteI thought that the self-monitoring aspect of comprehension that was detailed in the text was very helpful as some of my students are more interested in reading the stories quickly without realizing that they are making simple syntax mistakes. I didn’t realize that a good way to teach the students about those errors and to increase self-monitoring strategies would be to stop the student, repeat the sentence the way the student read it and ask them if that makes sense. I always felt like, especially in larger groups, that this would end up embarrassing a student more than being a helpful technique.
On the same note of comprehension, I love trying to get my students in the tutoring group to make inferences about the guided reading and read aloud stories, but even though I feel that my questions are open-ended and grade-level appropriate, I still receive blank stares or they want to get completely off topic and talk about their brand new dog, or whatever it is. I feel like the interest in reading is really lacking there, so if anyone has any ideas for building interest in reading, I would gladly accept it. Also, I should mention that the stories we read are ones that the students request, so I feel like they should be even more interested in the topics. One technique that I think I will be trying more is having them produce more visualizations and tell me about the scene that it taking place in the stories to see if that helps out some with comprehension and interest.
Jessica,
DeleteI get those same blank stares! I think it is great that you allow the students to be active participants in their reading. Good luck with your group, I hope the new strategies work well!
Comprehension is my overall unit focus for tutoring so this chapter is especially useful for me. In the introduction of this chapter the author writes that comprehension is an active process. Throughout my tutoring sessions thus far I have see the students really trying to read fast and accurately but I have yet seen them slow down and really 'see' each word for its meaning.
ReplyDeleteAs an adult I need to have a quiet environment and be able to really concentrate on the reading if I am going to fully comprehend what I am reading. In educational psychology we are leanring about long term memory and working memory. I can see how comprehension plays a role with these two types of memory recalls.
Figure 8.1 is a great chart of strategies to use to increase reading comprehension. I have seen teaching create a chart with these strategies on it and place it in a strategic place in their classroom. Students are then able to refer to this chart for ways to comprehend the text they are reading. And I beleive this chart is also helpful to a beginning teacher who needs reminding to use these strategies while teacing.
Figure 8.9 is another chart that may be useful in the classroom as a display. It shows the different methods to use before, during, and after reading to increase reading comprehension. The activities in this chapter are hands on ways to reinforce the meaning in the text the students are assigned.
I have found the website www.fcrr.org has been extremely useful during my tutoring sessions. The students do not look at these graphic organizers as worksheets. The graphic orgaizers pull information from the student the students memory and place it in an organized form. Many of the activities found in chapter 8 utilize a some sort of grapic organizer.
Great chapter for teachers who need the basics taught in the classroom. I will be making my own comprehension charts to display.
Jena,
DeleteI agree about having to have a quiet place to comprehend, except for when I am reading fictional novels. I can read those anywhere, anytime and understand and remember everything. Give me a textbook or a non-fictional book and I cannot seem to focus or comprehend unless there is no noise. If I am not interested in the topic than forget it I can't even pull it together in the quiet. It's strange to me how our brains work that way. I agree with the charts, my mentor teacher in RLA has great strategies posted all around her room and the students use them to help them with their understanding.
Chapter 8 gave a very detailed review of strategies important for comprehension reading. Much like is provided in the ABDC format objectives, comprehensive reading requires students to predict, self monitor, and visualize while reading. More advanced readers do these strategies automatically, while struggling readers benefit from guidance until their skills improve. The chapter also provides a clear explanation of the different between literary background knowledge, world knowledge, and life experiences, all in relation to a text-to-text connection. Literary background is the knowledge of story elements; whereas world knowledge benefits students who have the ability to depict from fact and fiction; in comparison to life experiences for students that have had multiple concrete experiences. A final element of the comprehension process are the after reading strategies in which students can retell the order of events, the student can draw a final conclusion of the events of the story, and the student can determine the author’s intent of the text.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion this chapter was very useful for preparing meaningful reading lesson plans. Currently with the group of students that I am tutoring, they would benefit from the directed listening-thinking activity on page 201. This differs from the directed reading-thinking activity that I currently use in that it encourages students to really utilize their brain power to increase their prediction skills. An additional strategy that interests me is the Spin The Decision activity on page 209, this would really encourage students to participate because they can be thinking about the four questions in advanced so they are not unprepared to answer. Additionally, I am really looking forward to the activity Retelling With Puppets on page 210, the students I work with are very hands on learners, this activity would be perfect!
That's one good thing about this chapter is variety. Ideas on how we can help teach children in different ways so we reach all of the children. We see how much we can use these activities and skills now and how much more we will be able to use them when we are in our own classroom.
DeleteChapter 8 comprehension of Narrative text – When I think of comprehension I think of not regurgitating information. Seeing how decoding, vocabulary, and fluency all work together and are all required skills In order to read well, we must work on all the skills the child is lacking in. It doesn’t due the child much justice to set him with students that need vocabulary if he is having trouble decoding. This is especially true due to lack of teaching time. I see how predicting is so hard for some children when they have no background knowledge. I think this is why it is so important for parents to take their children with them, even on errands; store, getting the oil changed, the lumber yard, garage sell, wherever and talk to them about everything. Parents need to answer their questions no matter how silly they might seem. There are so many great reading strategies in this book making it a great resource for your school shelf. I like that there are so many ways to do assessments because it is hard to find time to write out tests and children find them boring and scary. It is also easier to get true result when the children are doing an activity and they don’t know that they are being tested. I like that the book tells what grade level the activities are best for. I like the audio books, especially for struggling readers. Instead of struggling along the text with another student or by themselves they can read along with the book. This is also great for giving them a couple of questions about the story and letting them listen to figure them out. They spend less time struggling over the reading and more time working on comprehension. I’m a really big fan of word webs and story webs. Short sentences for the children to write but requires them to think and figure things out for themselves.
ReplyDeleteChapter eight gives information about comprehension of narrative text. It starts out telling all the components of comprehension such as decoding skills, fluency skills, and an adequate vocabulary. Then it gives comprehension strategies: before reading, during reading, and after reading. It also gives assessments to give for comprehension such as retelling think-aloud, and rubrics. Finally in the end of the chapter it gives strategies and activities you as a teacher can give your students to help them with comprehension.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter is a really great one for me because I picked comprehension as my focus for my tutoring group. A question I do have for this chapter is how do I get my students to elaborate the author’s intent without myself giving that answer away? As I was saying comprehension is my focus for my tutoring group. This chapter gives me some really great ideas and activities I can use in order to help my students!
Last semester I could have used this chapter when I was giving my formal observation for Reading and Language Arts Methods. I did a comprehension lesson for second graders; they did very well considering it was my first time teaching a formal lesson!
Carrie, this chapter was very helpful for me as well because comprehension is also my content focus. In response to your question I think you should simply ask your students what is the author trying to tell us in this story? Why did this author write this story? How do you think the author wanted us to react to this story? I would also ask the students to explain their answers and back them up with evidence from the text. You could also give them some examples of author's intent from commonly known stories, such as Aesop's fables, before asking them to elaborate on the text you are working with.
DeleteYou’re right Carrie. I wish I would of read this chapter before my formal observation as well. This was such a great chapter to read. Your question is great. I wish I would of thought of that! My only best advice is to guide them. It is hard but it could be done. I hope that makes since, but I could definitely be wrong.
DeleteThis chapter about comprehension made me think about my internship last semester in RLA. The mentor teacher I had was very good at introducing the reading strategies talked about in this chapter and she is helping students understand a great deal about reading. The text-to-text connection, text-to-self connection, and the text-to-world connection is something that she is very passionate about. She will begin her reading sessions with questions and will praise the students about the connections that they have. She has a Snoopy bobble head doll that she will give to a student who has an especially profound connection and they all love that. This teacher is also very good at guided reading strategies and ensuring that the students are understanding what they are reading. I appreciated the information about how many of the elements of the Big 5 can be affected by comprehension. I like the idea of a student reading a book to themselves and recording it so they can play it back. I think a lot of people adults and children alike refuse to believe that they are doing something wrong unless they can see or hear it. I think that this is a great strategy to help students hear how they sound when they read and to be able to self correct when they hear themselves doing it in the future.
ReplyDeleteMy mentor teacher last semester was also very good at building background knowledge and questioning her students as they read stories together. She definitely did a great job of keeping them very interested, which had a positive effect on how much they learned. I also think that having the students record themselves would be a great activity as well. I think as you said they would be able to hear better where they need help improving.
DeleteChapter 8 is about comprehension of a narrative text, which I found particularly helpful with the guided reading portion of tutoring. While I was familiar with many of the “strategies for comprehension” that were listed, it was still a good refresher of why include those elements into guided reading and how it benefits the students. I particularly liked the sections on making predictions and making inferences, it was a good reminder to use during reading questions that require students to think about what is happening next or how a character feels. I also like the section on after reading activities because it gives some good suggestion for how to extend the story after it has been read once. The text also has some really great activities that allow students to show their comprehension of the story. I really like the “spin the discussion” activity on page 209 and the “reciprocal questioning” on page 203 and think I will try to incorporate these into my lesson plans. Overall, I thought this chapter was full of great strategies and gave a lot of insight into how to aid in a student’s comprehension of a narrative text.
ReplyDeleteLindsay, I also appreciate the fact that it gave several different ideas on how to assess student comprehension on narrative texts. It provides a different, yet entertaining, way to assess the students' knowledge without giving them formal assessments.
DeleteI believe this chapter was very informative on ways to build and establish comprehension in reading students. We have always known that in order for students to be moved to want to learn, the lessons had to be meaningful, or capture a students' attention and desire to learn. In order to build this drive there must be a connection made. Once this connection is made, the students feel ownership and pride in the lessons being presented and will want to become more active in their learning. With this it will eventually build a foundation that will foster an additional desire to comprehend the materials being presented. The key is to active the prior knowledge with the students and connect it with what interests the students. With this balance, the comprehension and the desire to comprehend will be elevated.
ReplyDeleteYou are exactly right that it is so important to capture students attention in order to making the learning meaningful and connections. Finding a way to make students take ownership and pride in their learning is one of the best ways to encourage learning. It also helps students take an active role in their own learning meaning students are able to self-monitor themselves.
DeleteChapter 8 is over comprehension of narrative text. Comprehension is the main purpose of reading and incorporates all of the other reading skills taught. The skills that are essential for comprehension include syntactic, linguistic and semantic knowledge and vocabulary, decoding and fluency skills. Linguistic knowledge includes understanding stress, pitch and junction while syntax is the word order, punctuation and paragraphs. Semantics refers to the meaning of the words. The skills are the same ones that we all know that students need, a large bank of vocabulary, good fluency skills, and the ability to decode words. The next section is over comprehension strategies before reading; predicting and setting and purpose, during reading; making inferences, self-monitoring, visualizing and connecting prior knowledge to text, and after reading; finding main idea, drawing conclusions, and elaborating the authors intent. Figure 8.1 is very helpful in understanding the different strategies of comprehension. Again at the end of the chapter is a section over the different types of assessments that can be used including the miscue analysis and the cloze test. The one piece of information that I found most important was that teaching comprehension strategies has to directly enhance students reading comprehension. I did have a question. Does anybody know of a good website that gives reading levels for narrative books. I know of accelerated readers but I think it shots the books lower than they are in some cases.
ReplyDeleteThis chapter was especially relevant for me as comprehension is my content focus for my fifth grade tutoring group. I was pleased to see, as I read the Reading Comprehension Strategies section, I have been incorporating many strategies into my lesson plans. However, I became aware of more that I could use to help my students strengthen their comprehension skills. For instance, I would like to use self-questioning strategies. The text mentions the importance of visualization during reading. This reminded me of an activity I saw demonstrated during a presentation on improving reading skills given by Judy Helm. The students sit in pairs facing opposite directions while the teacher reads from a book. One student is shown the corresponding picture. The other student then describes to the first student what he/she believes the picture illustrating the reading should look like using as much detail as possible, and they discuss what the real picture looked like. Finally, everyone gets to see the picture and they switch roles.
ReplyDeleteChapter eight explains the importance of comprehension of narrative text. This chapter is very important to me, since my content focus is comprehension. This chapter gave my great ideas that I could implement within my tutoring session. I found the strategies very useful in figure 8.1. It was very nice to read their explanation on predicting, setting a purpose, self-monitoring, and visualizing. All of these need to be addressed when teaching. I liked how the chapter also included decoding, fluency, and vocabulary. These all play important roles when it comes to comprehension. Before reading this chapter I was not too familiar with literary knowledge and world knowledge when it came to comprehension. I also liked how the chapter explained skilled and unskilled comprehenders. Growing up and still today I struggle with comprehension. So this chapter has personal meaning for me. I really think figure 8.4 is very useful to use. I remember using these in school. Also as always I found the activities very useful. My favorite is text mapping. Graphic organizers work so well with me, so I try to implement these as much as a can. I do not have any questions for this chapter. This was a great chapter!
ReplyDeleteI also found chapter 8 very helpful with literary knowledge. There are times I find myself lost when I go to teaming with my mentor because of some of the terms they use. I now have some new schema. I am also using comprehension for my content focus, so this chapter was very helpful to me too.
DeleteChapter 8 was exactly what I needed to help me with my tutoring sessions. This chapter was about comprehension which is what my content focus is. I found the reading comprehension strategies very helpful. After reading this chapter, I realized what I needed to add to my lesson plans. I need to have the students infer and visualize more about the reading. I also need to include more strategies for after reading the text either through retelling or elaborating on the author's intent. Figure 8.4 and 8.5 will be very useful when my students are reading to me. The end of the chapter reviews different types of informal assessments which I also found beneficial. There were a few that I had not thought about using, so now I have more to choose from. Of course, my favorite part of the chapter was the activities listed at the end. I can always use new ideas to help my students learn.
ReplyDeleteThank you for all your posts!
ReplyDeleteJust a reminder to follow the specific guidelines that are listed in your syllabus in order to continue receiving full credit for posts. For blogs after spring break, simply writing 6-10 sentences will not suffice. Be sure to answer all the questions are you asked.
Ms. Bergmann