Comprehension

When teaching children to read, we often focus on getting children to learn the letters, recognize words, sound out words they don't know. This, of course, is the basis for reading (recognizing the words and being able to speak them). However, we are missing a big chunk of this puzzle, comprehension. As we have discussed in our Reading Education class and read in our textbooks, there is no reading without comprehension. The end goal of reading is to comprehend, understand, and gain some sort of knowledge (whether new or old).

Chapter 7 of Classrooms that Work: They Can All Read and Write emphasizes the critical importance of comprehension and provides educators with ways that they can best accommodate students with this knowledge. In order to comprehend something, the authors explain that a student must first understand the basic structure of what they are reading. For stories, this can be fairly simple because students are very familiar with this structure. However, for non-fiction, informational pieces, this can often times be a more difficult process.

To best educate their students, there is a model for teachers which walks them through the steps that should be taken that first gives responsibility to teachers and then later to students.
The sequence appears as this:
    -I do, you watch
    -I do, you help
    -You do, I help
    -You do, I watch
(I: the teacher, You: the student)
This sequence can be very helpful for any concept or lesson that is new for a student.

Chapter 7 provides readers with 4 different categories of activities that can be used to focus on comprehension:
1. Literate Conversations- Open-ended questions to students about what they read, adult-like questions that allow students to make a connection to what they have read
2. Think-Alouds- Thinking aloud about what questions you have while reading, bring up the topics that you thought in your head while reading the passage to yourself
3. Informational Text Lessons- using graphic organizers to best understand these difficult concepts
4. Story Text Lessons- story maps (and other graphic organizers) to understand the plot, events, and characters in a story

Questions to Ponder:
1. How can we incorporate comprehension easily when students are at a young age?
2. What are some activities that you have had experience using that emphasize comprehension?

Below, I have included two different ways that teachers can focus and actively improve comprehension in their classrooms. The first activity (Pinterest), is a reading log that focuses on different aspects of comprehension depending on which day it is. The second activity (Pinterest) is a Reading Strategy Fan. The students could spend time making these themselves and then practicing the concepts that it addresses (predict, visualize, clarify, evaluate, etc.)

 

Word Study

When a parent sees a child inventing words, using their own brain to come up with a word that does not make sense, parents tend to worry. They sometimes think that their child is not on the right track, surely they are doing something wrong. However, after reading Making Words: Enhancing the Invented Spelling-Decoding Connection by James and Patricia Cunningham, it is clear that if a child is inventing their own spelling they are, in fact, doing exactly what they should be! In general, children who use invented spelling tend to eventually be better at decoding words. They also tend to have better reading skills later on down the road. So, parents should be rejoicing when they see their child is inventing their own words and spelling!

Teachers have even began incorporating invented spelling into daily writing instruction! Some teachers have began using a program known as Making Words. This allows the children to get practice in word decoding and invented spelling while doing their regular writing activities. In simple terms, Making Words allows the children to be given a number of letters and then gives them the opportunity to practice making their own words.

In the article, Supporting Phonemic Awareness Development in the Classroom by Hallie and Ruth Yopp, the authors define and clarify the meaning of "phonemic awareness". For many, this concept can be confusing, but Hallie and Ruth Yopp lay out this definition in a simple and accurate way:
"Phonemic awareness is the awareness that the speech stream consists of a sequence of sounds-- specifically phonemes, the smallest unit of sound that makes a difference in communication." An example that the authors give is the difference between the words "dog" and "hog". The smallest unit of sound that is different between the two words not only changes the sound, but changes the meaning. This idea of phonemic awareness of the larger umbrella, phonological awareness which is the recognition and the manipulate any size unit of sound.

I found a fun activity on Pinterest that allows students to practice their phonemic awareness while playing a game. This game changes the first letter of a simple word, when a student rotates the wheel. They then practice the word with each new beginning letter.

Questions to Ponder:
1. What are some other fun games you could create to practice phonemic awareness?
2. What were your original thoughts regarding invented spelling? Did your ideas regarding this change after reading more about it?

Choral Reading: In Class October 6th

Choral Reading:
When a class or group of students reads a specific passage together, at the same time. A teacher usually chooses a passage that is easy, simple and fairly predictable. This allows the students to easily read aloud with the other students and not have to worry about making mistakes. Before or as the group reads, the teacher models the correct expression that should be incorporated when reading the passage. This activity improves the fluency of the students and gives them an opportunity to practice.

Fluency

Before reading Chapter 4 of Classrooms that Work: They Can All Read and Write this week, I was unaware that the idea of fluency had a specific term to describe it. I had heard the word "fluency" before, but not in the context of reading and education. Now I know that fluency is:
"the ability to read most words in context quickly and accurately and with appropriate expression. 

In simpler terms fluency could be described as:
quickly reading words+understanding those words in context+use of appropriate expression=fluency

This picture was taken from Pinterest.
I believe that it might be helpful for students to be more informed on what fluency is, so that they can specifically work on this aspect of their reading skill. Students could use this check list to evaluate themselves on their reading and fluency.

A student must have fluency in order to actually enjoy the story or book that they are reading. Without fluency, a student is unable to comprehend or understand the important concepts and the meaning of what they are reading. Why would one choose to read if they do not know what they are reading?

Poor fluency is the reason that many students have trouble with reading and end up disliking reading. Reading cannot be a fun activity for someone who has to sound out every word and not even understand those big words that they are having so much trouble with. In order to improve fluency, one of the primary things students can do is read books that are easy for them. If a student practices reading the books that they have no trouble with, this practice will work on their fluency and eventually improve this. Because one of the key elements to fluency is expression, another way you can improve fluency is through echo reading. Basically, a teacher reads a story with an expressive voice and the students mock the tone and sound that the teacher is using to read. This allows the students to hear how a book should be read and gives them the opportunity to give this a try.

This picture was taken from Pinterest.
Teachers could incorporate this fun reading activity/game in their classroom in order to practice expression, an important element of fluency.

Discussion Questions
1. Were you aware of fluency before this class? What are your experiences with fluency in school?
2. Do you remember using activities in school that focused on fluency?