Theoretical Discussion #3

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Comprehension Blog

            This week’s topic of discussion was comprehension.  Comprehension is something that many children struggle with.  As teachers, comprehension is always something we focus on with our students.  It is a very difficult skill to teach, as well as for children to learn.  We were excited to learn about new ways to help us teach this tricky skill, and even more ways to help our students understand it. 

            The first article we discussed was by Laura S. Pardo.  It was called “What every teacher needs to know about comprehension”.  We were pleasantly surprised to find out she was right on the mark.  We discussed some important areas to work with and focus on to help our kids stay on track with their comprehension skills from this article.  Here is a list of some of the important areas discussed:

·      She gave a common definition for teachers, “comprehension is a process in which readers construct meaning by interacting with text through the combination of prior knowledge and previous experience, information in the text, and the stance the reader takes in relationship to the text.” (Pardo, page 272)

·      She called the time when the comprehension should be happening “the literary event”.  (I liked that!)

·      The most important of the characteristics of good readers is the reader’s world knowledge.  Background knowledge helps them make sense of what they are reading.

·      Things that we, as teachers, can do to help are:  teach decoding skills, build fluency, help build and then activate background knowledge, teach vocabulary words, motivate them, and engage them in personal response to texts.   

·      Structures of text are important. Be sure to teach text structures, model appropriate text selections for them, and give them time to read independently to practice what you have taught them. 

·      Support the ‘transaction’ by providing explicit instruction of useful comprehension strategies (multiple strategy approaches), teach them to monitor their reading and ‘repair’ by applying appropriate strategies they have learned, use a scaffolding approach to gradually release responsibility to them, and help them see the connection between reading and writing. Good writers can become good readers.

          The next article we discussed was the one by Paul Neufeld.  The similarities between this article and Pardo’s article were amazing.  One point that really stood out to us was his comment about how limited background knowledge is a major problem in comprehension.  This was a major point in the Pardo article as well. 

          Neufeld’s article focused on comprehension strategies.  He shared some research based strategies that he says are worth teaching to students.  He broke these strategies up into 2 groups:  the getting ready to read strategies and during and after reading strategies.  We enjoyed the prompts he provided in this article.  A few we found most helpful were:

·      Why am I reading this text?

·      How is this text organized?

·      Do I sere any keywords associated with specific text structures?

·      Is what I just read clear to me?

·      What strategies could I use to help me better understand what I am reading?

We discussed how theses prompts and others would help guide our instruction with our students. 

          The purpose of last article was to review and discuss research on comprehension strategies for children in grades K-2.  She also made some recommendations for teachers on which ones can be trusted and which ones teachers need to be cautious about because they have not been researched enough.  Stahl states that, “ children who actively engage in particular cognitive strategies are likely to understand and recall more of what they read.”  (Stahl, page 598)  The key to children acquiring these strategies is the instructional techniques that the teacher uses.  We discussed several of these strategies within our group and how they would be useful in our classrooms.  I will list a few of them here: 

·      One effective strategy was gradually releasing responsibility to the students over time.

·      Use of story grammars/story maps/literature webbing (useful with folk tales or other narrative text structures)

·      5 finger retell

·      Question answering and question-answering instruction is important to prompt thinking at all levels.

·      Reciprocal teaching helps gain more meaning from text and helps with student self-monitoring

·      Literature webbing is proven effective with first graders using predictable, narrative texts

·      Text talk

·      Use of video to help with limited background knowledge (Which was a major point in both of the other articles!)

A couple strategies that are widely used, but not proven by research are the use of picture walks and the K-W-L strategy.  Stahl says more research needs to be done on the use of these common procedures. 

          There were a lot of new and interesting strategies presented in these articles.  Some of which we already use in our classrooms, and others we will try in the future.