June 21st Reflection

Comprehension is the key to our readings. The Gill article gives organized activities into pre-reading, during, and post reading categories. It was sort of unusual to read that comprehension instruction is rarely found in the classroom. It wasn't surprising that research found assessing students as primary means of understanding. We have truly tested for comprehension instead of actually taught comprehension. My biggest struggle in school when it came to reading was comprehension. I remember having so much trouble comprehending what I was reading because I was so focused on the words that I was reading. I think that I had even more trouble because the accelerated reader program was primarily based off of comprehending the books and I always had a difficult time taking the tests for books. I would get to a question and be like whoa, I don't remember that happening, or I would remember only certain areas of the book. I wasn't taught to comprehend the book, I was taught to read books. I also remember my parents drilling me with questions about books that I was reading, but yet they never read the books themselves, so when they asked what the book was about I just whatever to get them off my back, not such a goo idea when your struggling to comprehend. When you are learning how to read you aren't taking in and actually listening to what you are reading. That is why it is harder for beginning readers to comprehend what they are reading. As teachers, we do need to be prepared by designing lessons that help students comprehend and develop strategies that trigger this throughout our lessons. "Designing effective comprehension instruction requires first and foremost an understanding of how readers comprehend" (Gill). I liked that they asked teachers to identify the factors that affect their own comprehension. They stated that they comprehend better when reading books of their choice or topics that they like which is really true. Like I have said before, I hated reading and didn't comprehend well when I was told or assigned to read certain books. But, now that I am older and can choose books that interest me, I enjoy reading and comprehend what I have read better than I even have. I  was always given a list of books that had to be read for school. Now I hear about students who get a list of books and get to pick books that they'd like to read and do projects on. I think this would have been more fun for me.I didn't even think that the way i veiwed comprehension could ultimately affect the way i teach comprehension to my students. "Understanding these factors can help teachers design effective lessons that support comprehension." I definitely agree with this statement. Teachers need to understand how their students learn and adapt lesson plans around the criteria that the students need in order to have effective teaching. Our students need to be taught to be effective comprehenders and in both the Gill and Pardo articles, they both stress the importance that teachers need to understand what is involved in comprehending. I like how the Pardo article provides examples for teachers to use when in order to help build student competence. The provide ways to teach decoding skills, build fluency, activate background knowledge, teach vocabulary words, and engage students in personal responses. This criteria is crucial to building students comprehension. I will be able to use these examples in the classroom and really help my students foster the skills needed to be competent comprehenders. Throughout all the readings I came to understand the importance of activating back ground knowledge. I am glad to say that through my observations I have seen this being done in classrooms. More or less when beginning a new topic and dicsussion. Teachers really understand that this is an important concept to allow students to become more engaged in the process that is occuring. Here again we see the importance of providing independent reading time. I have even seen this happen in kindergarten, Even though they are learning sight words or high frequency words, they are building knowlegde and learning how to read and understand what they are reading. I observed one kindergarten classroom that had independent reading time where every student recieved and index card booklet and on every index card was a sight word, they went through each card reading the words, using the decoding skills, and the teacher provided this on a daily basis. The students really enjoyed that time just going through the index cards and reading words that they new. This is something that I could see myself doing in my classroom with younger grade levels. I am interning in a kindergarten classroom so I absolutley loved reading the article, Kindergartners Can Do It, Too! At this age group it is such a crucial time to develop these skills and this article provides comprehension strategies for early readers. Here again you activate prior knowledge, which they call schemas. This is an easy concept for younger students to understand because they love talking and telling you about things they already know, places they've been, and things they can do. They master this skill at such a young age and we has teachers need to utilize this in the classroom to build on comprehension. I learned to use explicit instruction to help students construct meanings from the text. I really enjoyed reading these things about comprehension and how to incorporate them in the classroom and also already seeing some of these strategies implemented in the classrooms through my observations. Which have provided me with handson experiences and activities that I will be able to use in my class.