Ever since I was little reading has always been very easy for me and it is something that I have always enjoyed. Because of this reading comprehension is also something that I never had to put much thought into. I have never had trouble comprehending so I have never worried about what is actually going on during comprehension or what strategies might have led me to having these good comprehension skills. After reading chapter 8 of Tompkins and learning about the different strategies that teachers use to help build comprehension I can definitely remember these strategies being used during my own schooling. When I was the student participating in these different strategies I never really understood why we had to do them and I find it interesting to look back and to finally know exactly why the teacher was having us do all of these different things while reading. I was especially surprised to see that even the types of reading ( i.e. independent, buddy, guided etc.) have strategic meaning while designing a lesson. Having all of these steps broken down in the two Tompkins chapters made it much easier for me to understand what goes into the process of comprehending and how all of the steps work together.
While reading I couldn't help think of this one student at my placement. This student is very far behind the rest of the class in all academics and to be honest, I do not understand how he is even allowed to be in the fourth grade. My CT doesn't expect much out of him and he pretty much goes through the day doing a very low amount of work and he never gets extra help from my CT. Whenever I am in the class I get stuck working one on one with him and I find it very frustrating at times. The class will be given a worksheet where they have to read and pick out information but since this student is so far behind he had never learned the skills of how to comprehend while reading. He still struggles with reading in general so to ask him to comprehend while trying to read is almost impossible. Tompkins stated in chapter 8 that there are three prerequisites needed to be able to comprehend. These include having adequate background knowledge, being familiar with most words in the text, and being able to read fluently. The student I work with has none of these but is still expected to be finishing the worksheet and I find this to be a big problem. On top of this I never really see my CT demonstrating any of the actual strategies that were discussed in the readings. After learning about these strategies and how these are the things you have to do to help your students develop good reading comprehension strategies I am a little bit bothered that even though my CT demands that the students be comprehending, she is not doing anything to help them gain these skills.
I find it very odd that this particular student that you're talking about is not getting extra help outside of the classroom. By the time students are in 4th grade, they should without a doubt already be reading and comprehending texts and worksheets given to them. I cannot believe that the teacher simply dismisses this child and lets him continue to fall farther and farther behind his classmates. From the Applegate reading, it seems that he would be classified as a "Left Fielder" since he probably produces unpredictable ideas that seem to have no real connection to the text, which is caused by a lack of comprehension. If you read to him does he seem to understand? I would be interested in knowing that because reading something and comprehending is different than being read to and comprehending.
ReplyDeleteAs far as my childhood, I don't really remember learning how to read or comprehend texts, my younger years in elementary are very vague. I do remember however that the teacher was always looking for the "right" answer from the book, and I always seemed to get that question wrong. Applegate suggests that to teach literature as a series of questions with right and wrong answers is to treat it as content rather than literary work. Still to this day I don't like talking about texts or answering questions because I'm scared I'm going to be wrong. Teachers need to realize that comprehension goes beyond being able to understand the text. Teachers can make or break a student when it comes to literacy depending on how they go about incorporating it into the classroom; in my case, my teachers hindered me not only in language arts, but in all subjects.
It’s hard to believe that your teacher expects her student to fill out a reading worksheet when she obviously knows his lack of ability in this area. Maybe you should recommend she read the two articles (haha) because they both give us great strategies that we can use in our own classrooms. One specific strategy I really liked in the Gregory and Cahill article was when she had her students raise their hand in a 'C' to let her know they had a text-to self or text-to-text connection. Like the article said, it's easier for students to make a connection when they stick it into something that’s already in their head. I feel like this would be a good activity for the specific child you mentioned. After reading (or during) you can also have that student, and also the class, categorize those connections into text-to-self, text-to-text, or text-to-world. Also, a good strategy for this child might be to use Mrs. Donnelly's idea from chapter 8 of Tompkins. Mrs. Donnelly read a book to her class, and instead of having the students make one connection, she had each student to make all three connections, wrote them on sticky notes, and had the students sort them. I feel as if both of these strategies might also serve as some sort of evaluation. If your CT tried different strategies they're guaranteed to give her a better understanding of that child’s ability and what she can do to help.
ReplyDeleteI remember having a 'Book Buddy' in elementary school but I also didn’t realize that it had strategic meaning. I simply thought my teacher wanted us to read to an older student, and the older student read to us. As a child growing up my parents really motivated me to read all the time. I was fortunate enough to have great parents who bought me a book whenever I wanted one. I remember being obsessed with The Babysitters Club series. My mom always complained that I read them too fast so she had to buy a new one every other day. These might be the books that really got me hooked on reading. Ever since then I’ve really enjoyed it. I was also at a higher level of reading than most students in my class, which might have also motivated me to keep reading. When we read aloud in class I was always frustrated because I wondered how my peers could read so slowly. Mostly all the time I would read silently to myself as the class read aloud because I couldn’t read at such a slow pace. Now, after being exposed to students at all reading levels I understand more of the ‘why and how’. As a future educator these articles are going to help me not only increase a students reading ability but to also realize when I have these children in my class.