Comprehension: October 29th

Comprehension: Gill and Pardo Articles

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVKkyc_ne4M

 

I learned so much reading Gill and Pardo's Articles on reading comprehension. Gill stated that many teachers find comprehension a mystery and often focus more on understanding rather than comprehending. Students reported that they comprehended poorly when the text was assigned by teachers, knew little about the topic, the page was dense with few paragraph breaks or illustrations. Readers reported to comprehend well when they had interest in the topic, there was a purpose to read, and they were undistracted by worries, chores, and noise. All of these answers are things that teachers should keep in mind when planning to teach reading comprehension.

 

 

The three major factors said to affect comprehension are text, reader, and the situation. Gill's articles described pre-reading, during reading, and post-reading activities. Now looking back on my grade school years I can remember my teacher doing these activities and it really did help me to comprehend the text and connect it to old information. A pre-reading activity might be to ask questions regarding the topic or have the students create a graphic organizer. A during reading activity could be to have the students make predictions as they read. A post-reading activity might be to a create a timeline, map, or newscast concerning the story or topic. Pardo stated that every teacher should know that comprehension is a transaction between the reader and the text and from this transaction meaning emerges. Thinking back to your grade school years, what are some ways that your teacher taught reading comprehension?



Blog for October 15th: Creating Fluent Readers

http://youtu.be/PN9sE_b7j7o

Creating Fluent Readers: Rasinski, T. 

Reading fluency is something that many people tend to have their own definition for. There are three important dimensions of reading fluency which are: accuracy in reading, automatic processing, and prosodic reading. These three dimensions require students to be able to sound it out, use little mental effort, and put text into syntactically and semantically appropriate units. Teachers can assess a students reading fluency through many different ways such as calculating the percentage of words a reader can accurately decode on grade level material. A way that teachers can calculate a students reading rate is by having them read on their grade level for 60 seconds. 

Two ways which help improve reading fluency is repeated reading and assisted reading. If you add in couching with these two ways then it can really become a classroom routine and will greatly help your students. Some teachers make the mistake of confusing being fluent with being fast. A student might be able to read quickly but might have no comprehension of what he or she just read. What are some ways in which you will be sure to promote reading fluency in your classroom? I really loved the "Readers Theater," in the attached Youtube video. I know that at a young age I enjoyed reading with much expression and having those who read to me changing voices or doing different actions. 

October 8th Blog: Making Words

http://youtu.be/7nxljktf-Hw

Making Words 

Making words is a fun way to help young students with decoding, spelling phonetically, and phonemic awareness. It has been found that there is a relationship between spelling ability and ability to identify words in a reading, which is why "Making Words" is such a helpful method of teaching. Not only is this a simple activity but it is also short and is recommended to be only fifteen minutes. Children will make between 12 and 15 words and will begin with two letter words until they gradually increase to larger words. An example is the word spider. By using a pocket chart the letters e, p, i, s, d, r are presented to each child. The teacher may start out with the word "Ed" then go to "Red." Many students would then change the uppercase E to lowercase and the teacher can ask them why they did that certain action. 

Making Words is something which I wish that I participated in when I was a young student. In elementary school I did not have much emphasis in spelling and it is apparent to this very day. My spelling is actually a big joke with my family that I get teased about often. I think that Making Words is a wonderful activity and I hope to use that in my classroom. What are some good words that you would like to do in a Making Words activity?