Heather, Tracy and I discussed the articles on comprehension. We talked about the reading strategies that were presented in the articles and how theses strategies are helpful to mold students into expert readers. We talked about how these needs are being better addressed in our school since we began using guided reading. The question was posed on how do we do a quick check for comprehension if the students can not get their summary to paper? We could sit down with each individual child, but that would be very time consuming in a very cramped day already. This just proves how reading and writing go hand in hand. We should not teach these as two different subjects, because really you can't do one without the other. We liked how Stahl presented the research based strategies and how some is used by teachers and some is not. The KWL chart that so many teachers use in their daily classrooms doesn't have any research to prove its effectiveness.
These articles were insightful and helpful. I am particularly fond of Neufeld's article and the last helpful hints that he gives to help carry out comprehension instruction.
- Teaching a few comprehension strategies well is more effective that teaching many strategies poorly. (Brown,2002)
- Teach students to use strategies flexible, adapting them to their needs, their individual preferences, and the text at hand (Pressley, 2002)
- Remember that reading comprehension strategies are a means to an end and not the end. The end is helping students become expert comprehenders of challenging texts.
- Students need many opportunities to practice the strategies they are learning. (Brown, 2002)
After reading these articles, I know that I need to give explicit instruction and model how to use the strategies to become expert readers. This is a very difficult task for some beginning readers especially those who are lacking background knowledge.
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