Comprehending Comprehension

"Kindergarteners can do it too! Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers" was an extremely interesting article and gave future teachers an insight on how to incorporate subject material that is generally for older students into a classroom of younger students.  I thought that the methods of this article were extremely interesting.  I have read to children before and was unsure what to do about their inquisitive nature while I was trying to read.  This article suggests using a method that will get the students involved and get their cognitive gears going.   Students were instructed to make a "C" shape with their fingers if they had a connection to share, a "V" shape if they had a visualization and to wave their index finger if they had a question.  Not only does this method allow for open discussion, it gets students thinking about things in a rather sophisticated manner.  How do you think this would work in a classroom?  I believe it would be very beneficial in a classroom setting because it would keep the students from blurting out things and would also be somewhat challenging for a younger group.  

The Gill article, "The Comprehension Matrix" was also a very interesting article.  It detailed on how many resources are available for teachers to use, however, what we often see is the resources collecting dust.  It is very important to remember that new and improved ways of teaching are always out there for teachers to use and we must continually update our information.  Comprehension is one topic that Gill says is extremely difficult.  Comprehension, according to Gill's definition includes schema theory, transactional theory, and constructivist theory.  Gill gives the comprehension matrix as a way to help students with their reading, they include: prereading, during reading activities, and post reading activities.  This is a "Reading Comprehension Song" that could be used with younger students (and this website has a lot of other fun songs to make teaching more interactive).  Although teaching comprehension can be a difficult task to take on, we can certainly master the task with methods and ultimately have students who comprehend comprehension.

Discovering Words

Making words has been proven to be a powerful activity because there are endless opportunities for students to experiment and play with the newly emerging language they are learning. This method allows for slow or fast learners to be activity involved in a challenging activity.  I really liked the ideas for creating a classroom environment where all students could actively participate, and the possibilities for word making are endless.  Using this method in the classroom allows for a very interactive classroom: students interact with one another and the teacher interacts as well.  The article also gave insight on how to create a lesson using "making words."  Some of the suggestions include what letters to use when starting the activity, telling students which letter to change, adding letters to make another word, and even choosing words that rhyme or have similar meanings.  

The "Ten Important Words Plus" program is also very interesting.  This method prompts students to actively engage with the ideas and language of a text as they read.  By using context the students have multiple exposures to words such as reading them, writing them, talking about them, and even thinking about them in alternative ways. 

I thought that these articles were very interesting and they gave a lot of good suggestions that I think I would like to use in my classroom one day.  The activities seem fun and high pace in some cases, which would be good for many of the students.  Do you think the ideas given in the articles are good, do you think they could be enhanced in any way?  What other methods can you think of to make reading and writing fun for students of all learning abilities? 

Teacher as Coach

I thought that the articles for this week were very interesting.  It seems like an age old thing to tell students to "sound it out," however the articles and the book gave me a considerable amount of insight into how much work actually goes into the instruction of teaching phonics and spelling patterns.  It takes a lot of practice for teachers to be able to coach students to sound out words effectively.  The Clark article "What Can I Say Besides 'Sound it Out?'" gave some really good suggestions as to how to help students who are struggling with certain words.  One good example of this would be the word "wind."  When a student comes to this word and struggles, instead of saying "sound it out" a teacher could ask what they already know about the word, "in" says in, so from there the student could independently figure the rest of the word out and use the same clues next time they stumbled upon a word they are unfamiliar with.
Teaching phonics could be made into something very fun in the classroom.  When I was in school we learned phonics on the computer, and that was not fun and required little effort on the students part, however teaching a class phonemic awareness could be a group effort and should be something the students look forward to.  The Yopp and Yopp article gave some ideas for the classroom that made phonics into fun games.  One thing I thought a classroom of young readers might enjoy was the section about the book "Tikki Tikki Tembo" where the students clap to the syllables of the characters names.  This is a very fun book and really calls for students to sound out the words because they are words we don't see much.
I have always known that phonics are important for young readers to understand, yet I have often pondered how to help a student read other than saying "sound it out."  These articles gave a lot of insight on alternative ways to help students.  Can you think of any other ways or techniques that might work in a classroom of new readers?
As future teachers we need to always cater to our students needs, this doesn't mean we give them all the answers when they are unsure, but rather lead and coach them into the right direction.    

Creating Fluent Readers through Endurance

Fluency is defined by four major components: accuracy, rate or speed, prosody, and comprehension--but one very important concept is left out in much research about fluency: endurance.  What I gathered from the One-Minute-Measures was that they seem to be very similar to standardized testing, which is a controversial topic in the education arena today, but if it is used correctly it can create huge results and can be very beneficial to a teacher.  The article emphasized, it is extremely important for us as teachers to understand WHY students are not fluent readers.  What I found most interesting about the "One Minute Measure" article was the assessment of endurance.  After all, endurance is something that we are all familiar with and I think it is also something that many elementary students could relate to, especially considering that reading is something very new to many of them, and getting the hang of it will take much patience and endurance.  Some suggestions for incorporating fluency and endurance were increasing atomicity, decreasing readability levels, reading interesting texts, increasing reading volume, increasing expectations, rereading books, and increasing involvement of parents and caregivers.

 Fluency has been proven to be a major factor in student reading success.  The second article emphasized the importance of students hearing what fluent reading sounds like.  I think that one of the most difficult things about becoming a teacher is remembering that reading fluency is something that is learned, and as teachers it is our responsibility to equip students with the proper skills to learn to read fluently and be comfortable in a reading environment.  Both articles suggest that teachers use assisted reading and repeated reading.  How do you think a class would respond to reading the same book over and over? A few weeks ago I observed a classroom where repeated reading was implemented and the students became bored of the book and they were very reluctant to pay attention and follow along.  Can you think of any way that you could make repeated reading fun while also improving students reading fluency?          

Out with the Old and in with the New

Doing away with the traditional style of learning to read by having a "letter of the week" may seem like a difficult task for many longtime teachers, however the benefits that come from this technique can create lasting advantages for students learning to read.  I have often pondered on how to approach teaching students how to read.  In the article on the first day of school the teacher asked the students if they knew how to read, no one raised their hand.  After holding up some things they have been exposed to in every day life such as restaurant logos and movies and asking the question again, the whole class raised their hands saying that they could read!  I think the idea of creating an alphabet board with the students pictures under the letters to allow for the students to relate the letters something is an awesome idea and it is definitely something that I would like to incorporate in my class room one day. Can you think of any other methods that might useful in a classroom of students who are just learning to read?

The second article details on a myriad of topics, one I found interesting is the great changes that the education system is facing today, where there is such a difference between levels of knowledge.  For example, students who have been in preschool are much more likely to be more advanced than the students who have not been exposed to other children in a classroom setting. I currently teach a class at my church and I am faced with students who are high achieving as well as low achieving, and it is a huge challenge to assure that both types of children get equal opportunities to learn and grow.How do you think a teacher could face such diversities and still give all of the students an equal opportunity to learn?

As future teachers, we must remember that we should always have a good knowledge base of reading theory and practice because it is ever changing and most of all, we must be patient with our students, after all, "reading is not dancing on top of words.  It is grasping the soul of them," and as teachers this can be a very difficult and time consuming task, however at educators of the future it is our duty to inspire our future students and this can begin with a good foundation in reading.