Comprehension....

Comprehension

    So far with everything we have talked about in class if a child can understand all of those things then we can piece them together and comprehension can begin to start.  Not only do those things affect a child's ability to be able to comprehend something but their world around them can affect it as well.   It is important to know where a child comes from and their environment at home because that can really affect how much the comprehend and how quick they do.

Another thing that really affects a child's comprehension ability is what the teacher does in order to help a child comprehend.  Like the article states some important steps to building comprehension are: teaching decoding skills, building fluency, teaching vocabulary, actively pursuing prior knowledge, engaging the students to have personal responses with the text and most importantly motivating the students.  

I think one of the most important aspects of comprehension is engaging them with personal responses.  By allowing them to connect to the text they are able to comprehend it and interpret it into their lives.  The more you invite them to compare readings to themselves the more they are going to want to read because it make sit more related to them.   By relating it to them they will also see themselves as readers and become more confident in their ability.   

Questions:

1. How would you engage them in making those personal connections?

2.  Do you think that it is important to have them make those personal connections and responses.

Word Study

       I completely agree with the article that knowledge of words is very much related to comprehension.  If you didn't know the words that you were reading then it would be nearly impossible to comprehend what was on the page.  It is also vital to your overall abilities in school and life.  I also agree that it should not be restricted to one time.  You should be learning it throughout the day and it should be incorporated with every subject that is taught. By allowing them to hear these words they can find out so much more about a word.  They can tell the connotation behind it and how it is used in everyday life.  That is sometimes more influential than just reading it in a book because you may not get those cues. Like the article states a child doesn't need to know every word perfectly but having a basic knowledge of some words and knowing others that are more important very well can really help a child early on in the educational system.  Another thing that can help a study is knowing prefixes and suffixes so they can breakdown and decode a word rather than trying to look at it all at once.

Some ways to help a child remember words can be by acting it out or asking them where they might see this word.  The child will be able to remember it more easily because the action will stick out in their mind.  We did this in a classroom that I was in and the children were really involved and loved being able to be active in class while learning.  

Questions

1. What are some other ways that you have seen Word Study Practiced in the Classroom

2. Do you think the generic word study notebooks are enough to help a student learn or do you think that they are just busy work?

10/6/14 Instructional Activities- Shared Reading 
http://www.readingrockets.org/strategies/shared_reading

Definition:

• Teachers reading: Nursery Rhymes, Giving voices to characters, Thinking aloud while reading, crafts to follow-up reading, Predictable texts and talking about the text after the reading 
• Shared reading is an instructional approach in which the teacher explicitly models the strategies and skills of proficient readers 

Demonstration of Shared Reading:

Fluency: Accuracy and Speed

The first article was about one minute fluency test.  I know that from experience this can be daunting tests.  You are given a passage that you have never seen before and are expected to read it aloud to your teacher and while you do she sits and write on her clipboard.

That was probably the most stressful part about it because you have no clue what she is writing so it only makes you more nervous than you were before.  She is also timing you to see how quickly you read the passage which is also something that can make you nervous.  So you just read the story as fast as you can and don't really comprehend anything that you are reading.  At the end sometimes the teacher asks you questions on the basic theme or summary of the text and students sometimes as a hard time remembering what they were because they were reading so quickly.  I think that instead of timing students you just should allow them to read and see what they know.  I also think that a teacher shouldn't scribble while you are reading and should remember what the student messed up.  By having the teacher engage with you while you are reading the passage may make it less nerve wrecking and anxious.  I think another thing to help students is by making a chart so they are able to see how much they are improving because that could help with the confidence of the reader too.

The second article talked about ways to judge fluency and how to create a more fluent reader.  They also stated just because you are a fast reader does not mean that you are a fluent reader.  It is so much more than how fast you can read.  It is about how you read, the smoothness of your reading and the pace at which you read.  If you can be fluent in your reading you are more likely to comprehend what you are reading rather than just worrying about the words on the page.  If you know the words and signals you are able to think about their meanings.  This is something that is a building block for later learning and it is not learned over night.  

Questions:

1) What are other ways besides one minute fluency tests that can test a child's fluency?

2) Do you think that fluency and comprehension go hand in hand?

Coaching

      If you think about how children learn it is very important to help them along the way and to give them cues about what comes next.  Like we learned last week prompting early reading students is part of the process.  Coaching is just that.  It is instructional cues that allow students to apply their knowledge and skills that they already have in order to complete the task at hand.  Students that are just learning to read and are trying to become more comfortable with it really like having the cues there to help them become more confident.  I think that with these interactions with teachers or "coaches" that it really can change a child's learning process and help them become more fluent in their reading.  

     The article talked about two types of prompting that can be used to help a child.  The first type was the general prompting to help promote thought.  These can be asked using these types of statements and questions: 

The next type of prompting is a focused prompt to help the child with a specific action.  These are asked with these types of statements: 

Both of these types of prompting can be the little push that a child needs in order to understand a topic or be helpful when they are trying to read a sentence and comprehend it.  These simple questions and prompts can also help a child's confidence because they will be able to ask themselves these questions and be able to get it before having to ask a teacher.  

    When I help with my nephew and his reading I am constantly giving cues and prompting and it helps him  understand where the story is going and how the reading is going.  It can also lead to other questions that you ask later on about his comprehension.  He know asks himself those questions to help him prompt the harder words.  He states them out loud and shows you the process that he is using and it shows you just how helpful the coaching process is.  It also helps with his comprehension because if he knows where it is going then he is much more able to follow along better.  

Thing to Ponder:

1. Do you think that you were taught to read and comprehend on a coaching method or a hands off method? 

2. Which do you find to be more beneficial to the child in the long run?

Reading and Writing

I agree with all of these articles about the importance of literacy which includes reading and writing.  So often though it can be bogged down with the necessity to read and write it makes it not fun for children.  I think the article that resonated most with me was the "Letter of the Week" article.  I think that children without even realizing it knows a lot about literacy before they step into school.  They know certain symbols and words that many of them don't even realize because it becomes second nature.  I think that by letting children know that right away really improves their confidence in reading and writing.  I think that confidence in ones self is something that goes a long way when it comes to reading and writing.

Something that can improve their confidence is showing them how much they already know about reading and writing.  An option that they in the reading was an alphabet chart with things that they see in their daily lives.  Such as "m" for McDonalds, "L" for Lucky Charms, "S" for a Stop Sign.  This encourages them that they can recognize letters with out even knowing it.

I think another that seemed helpful in the reading was the Three Strategies for helping them decipher letters and words while reading.  The first one was to Look at the beginning letter or letters.  Another one was Look through the words for familiar chunks.  And finally Read through to the end.  By using these three strategies it allows the student to detect the words using words that they already know.  This can also boost their confidence and help them learn more.  The article also encouraged the children to write in the way they knew how even if it was scribbling.  It encourages children to see more than one view point of learning and to see how others learn.  There isn't just one way to teaching so why should there be one way of learning.  

Things to Ponder 

Do you think that allowing children to write in the way that they can (including just pictures and scribbles) help or hurts a child in the long run?

What are way that you learned how to write? Did you have to be accurate or was spelling it the way you heard it okay?

Literacy

    Literacy is something that affects a person throughout their whole life.  If a child does not have a good literacy learning experience it can really negatively effect them for the rest of their life.  Both the book and the article show; children who are exposed to reading and literacy at a young age tend to do better and are more knowledgeable about their reading and school work than those that are not as exposed to it at a young age.

   I really find that to be true.  In my experiences in the classroom it is obvious which kids are getting that added reinforcement at home and who isn't.  It is also noticeable who has been exposed to reading and writing at home before it was a necessity.  While it is easy to work with those kids who were exposed prior it is very important to help those as well who weren't as lucky to be exposed to reading and writing at a young age because they might need more help since they have to start from the beginning.  I think that more parents should take the initiative to read to their child starting at a young age. Exposing a child to reading can be something that is really easy to do.  Just by reading to them at night or letting them watch you read in every day situations can help then when it comes time to really start reading.  If more parents took that initiative then reading and writing would be easier for children when they start school.  That time can already be so overwhelming and having to do work in front of other peers can be intimidating.  By helping them before hand it can really improve their confidence which is something that the book also states and suggests as well.