What is the point in reading a book if you cannot comprehend what the text is saying? Comprehension is not only an important aspect of reading but is essential to understanding what is being read. Comprehension is a complex idea and is not always easy even for some of the best readers. I can honestly say that I still struggle comprehending some of the text that I have to read. Sometimes I find myself reading an article or book for a class and once I have finished "reading" the assigned section, I look back and ask myself, " what in the world did I just read" or "I don't understand anything I just read". Personally I find it not only frustrating but disappointing when you spend so much time reading something and then don't understand it once you've finished it. After reading the three articles along with the chapter from the book, I have a better understanding of why individuals may have trouble with reading comprehension.
The articles also give teachers techniques and strategies for teaching students reading comprehension. The article that stood out to me was Cahill and Gregory's article, Kindergartners Can Do It, Too! Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers. They give examples of how Mrs. Hope taught her kindergarten class various comprehension strategies and since I'm going to be in a kindergarten classroom this coming fall, I thought that it would be wonderful to see those kinds of techniques in my mentor teacher's classroom. I love that during their read alouds, her students hold up their hands either showing the letter C (meaning they have made a connection to the story), a V (which shows that they have a visualization or a mind movie), or wiggling their index finger (signaling that they have a question). This proves that they are most likely comprehending the story that Mrs. Hope is reading and they want to contribute their thoughts and ideas. I found it amazing that such young children were able to really comprehend the story because true comprehension is such a complex concept. According to Gill in her article, The Comprehension Matrix: A Tool for Designing Comprehension Instruction, comprehension is affected by a variety of factors which can be identified as the reader, the text (book or article), and the purpose or activity for reading. There are also several aspects within each of these that affect comprehension. Since comprehension seems to be such an important part of reading and understanding but is so complex, it seems that it would be very difficult for teachers for teachers to exclusively teach comprehension.
The articles and book give several examples of how to teach students reading comprehension and allow them to focus on being able to comprehend/understand what they are reading. In Pardo's article, What every teacher needs to know about comprehension, she talks about ways in which teachers can help to support their students which in turn helps them to better comprehend readings. She talks about how teachers should teach decoding skills, build fluency and teach vocabulary word, help them to build and/or activate their prior knowledge, engage the students in personal responses to the text, and mostly to motivate students. Each of these is an important part of not only helping students to perform better in class but they will also help them to learn reading comprehension. The book strongly correlates with the articles on the idea of comprehension. Allington and Cunningham mention specific comprehension strategies that would help with reading comprehension such as: connecting reading to prior knowledge, visualizing the experiences in the text, drawing conclusions, evaluating what one thinks, predicting and questioning what will happen in the text, and many others.
I think that each of the readings on comprehension gives great techniques or strategies that would allow teachers to better teach reading comprehension to students of all ages. Although it is a complex idea, it is essential to reading. Again, what is the point of reading it if you can't understand it? I think that teaching comprehension in the classroom is important and hopefully I will be able to use some of these techniques in my own teachings.
Brooke, I completely understand how comprehending is still a struggle for us. I have had those moments too, where i was reading and then stopped and was like what in the world did i just read or what the heck was it saying. I have had to reread a lot of books and articles just to understand what it is trying to convey. It goes to show that even at our age we still can struggle with comprehending so we need to keep that in mind when working with our students and we can model the things that may help them learn when struggling with comprehending. I think you are doing a wonderful job capturing the essence of our articles.
ReplyDeleteSometimes we don't understand a passage because we don't have the prior knowledge to make sense of the words. We have to remember that with our students and realize each of them come with a different background and they may need help building their prior knowledge before reading. It is so easy to say we have to do this, but it's actually very difficult to do!
ReplyDelete