I really enjoyed the readings for this week, especially the online articles. The articles talked a lot about different ways students think about texts they are presented with, and how we, as teachers, can aid in their learning and comprehension processes through instruction and discussion strategies. Applegate, Quin, and Applegate's article "Profiles in Comprehension," addresses the styles of comprehension students in our classrooms partake in. The article divided students up into eight comprehension categories; literalists, fuzzy thinkers, left fielders, quiz contestants, politicians, dodgers, authors, and minimalists. Although I have not yet had the opportunity to analyze student comprehension for every student in my classroom, categorizing the way students think, and understanding the faults in that thinking is EXTREMELY helpful for teachers. The article pointed out the characteristics of these thinkers and interventions that can help them.
I have a few students who I think probably could be identified as "Fuzzy Thinkers", and understanding what kinds of interventions could be useful was extremely helpful.
I also found the "Kindergarteners can do it too! Comprehension strategies for Early Readers," extremely helpful. Noelle, Allison, and I all work in Kindergarten classrooms, and often because students lack word processing skills and writing skills, it is difficult to assess comprehension for these students. I loved the way this teacher used hand signals to indicate different types of responses to the text, as well as how she used charts / board write-ups to organize student thinking. Originally, I had really wanted to do a poem for my language arts lesson, but I was unsure how to go about directing a discussion on the poem I wished to share. This article gave a really great example of how to use poetry effectively in the classroom, and made me eager to use these strategies in the future for poetry/comprehension instruction.
Comprehension
ReplyDeleteI really like the idea about putting students into groups based on the way they think. In every placement I have observed reading groups only categorized by a student’s ability. Most of the time formal assessments aren’t done before students switch from a higher reading group to a lower reading group. The mentor teacher I have in my placement now rearranges the groups based on what she observes. My mentor teacher has what is considered the highest reading level group. There are many times she is not monitoring the students and they get off task. I think that those who are at a higher reading level can push those who are not. I think I like the groups based on the way they think because it doesn’t make anyone feel as if they are not as smart as one of their classmates. I think if the students know they are in the lowest reading group they may feel like that is because they aren’t smart. My mentor teacher is open about the reading groups. She mentions comments about the level of the groups in front of the students. I mostly observe reading activities as one way for all students. I really like the idea of having students demonstrate their reading comprehension in a variety of ways.
I have seen some unique comprehension strategies in my mentor teacher's classroom. Like many, she believes that before comprehension can take place, students must be able to be confident with sounding out words and using pictures as a reference. Before she even begins reading, she goes through the pictures and asks students to predict what they think will happen in the story. After words, she sounds out unfamiliar words by spelling them on the white board. She will ask the students to say the sound of each letter until they blend it to recognize the word. They then read as a class, then in partners, and come back to review the story and highlight the main points. Although this activity may seem redundant on a daily basis, I feel it is teaching the children strategies for reading comprehension.
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