My Comprehension Process
It is hard
thinking back on my own comprehension process, but various events stuck out in
my mind while reading Tomkins and the two articles for this week’s reading. I
remember being a literalist like the Applegate article described. I had a
harder time thinking outside the box and “reading in between the lines;” if the
answer was not directly in the text I would get nervous. In the sixth grade I
was a part of the Book Bowl club. This was a very question-answer based club
for my team and I had to remember explicit details about ten books. Since I was
a literalist this really helped.
However, to
help develop my comprehension my teachers taught me very good visualization
techniques even from a young age. As the Gregory article states, even Kindergartners
can begin using strategies such as questioning and visualization or “making
movies.” This “making movies” strategy has helped me because it keeps me
focused on what I am reading. One pitfall I struggle with in comprehension is
drifting off. If I know I am not visualizing then I know I am simply reading
words on a page.
Thinking
back I did not have one specific teacher who stood out in teaching me
strategies and asking me higher ordered questions, but rather is was a
combination of all of them. With that being said I know my elementary education
could have been better at asking more of those higher ordered questions and
using more strategies. The comprehension discussed in these articles goes far
beyond the skills I learned in school, but I want to make sure my future
students are learning these strategies and continuously make connections and
dig deeper.
Classroom
I have noticed a lot of the behaviors in
regards to comprehension in my placement classroom that I read the readings. A
few weeks ago students read to me their “Backpack Reader” stories and I
determined if they were able to read the story well enough to start reading a
book that is a little harder. While there are many benefits to this program I
also see weaknesses. Most importantly is that I did not have to assess whether or
not they were comprehending the text. Therefore, I took it upon myself to ask
my own questions to make sure they were. While these were not higher order
thinking questions it was still a start.
The first
behavior I noticed was that if a student was not fluent at reading a book they
had a harder time answering my questions. Tomkins discusses how fluency is a
huge factor in comprehension. Another behavior I noticed was their motivation.
If students did not want to be reading to me they were simply getting the words
out as fast as they could so they could be done. Lastly, I witnessed what Tompkins
calls repairing. When I read with a particular child she read the sentence, but
knowing that it didn't make sense she went back and corrected the word.
Both
Gregory and Tompkins discuss how comprehension should be active and visible. Children
should connect to their own experiences and make meaning out of their reading. I
see in the classroom how when given the opportunity they love talking about
their text to self connections. They are truly story tellers. I think the
teacher should do more in catering to this excitement. While I do see
predicting and question and answer (literal questions) I do not see very much
questioning, text-to-world, text-to-text.
The readings today really helped explain a little bit more what the process of comprehension is like for my students, and it helped a lot to apply what I read to experiences of myself as a reader, just like it seemed to do for Maria.
ReplyDeleteIn the Applegate article that identified eight different types of students who have specific problems associated with their reading comprehension, I think that I fell into a couple of the categories as a student. First, I think that I was a Literalist, just like Maria, which is someone that merely looks to the reading for all of the answers and get confused when they receive questions that require them to think deeper or make inferences. I think that in a lot of cases, this was trained into me in school, as well as the students that I’ve been observing in my placement, because these are the majority of questions that teachers ask. I was a student that was motivated by grades and getting work completed and turned in as quickly as possible. This is why I formed strategies that would help me look for key words in the text to answer a teacher’s questions and then move on. When a question that required deeper thinking, it definitely tripped me up. The other type I identified with was Politicians. I think as a student, I knew how to “play the game” and make my teachers happy with my responses, and this is the effort that I put into answering comprehension questions, rather than actually digging deep into the material. I can definitely see all types in my placement classroom, however, especially Left Fielders. The intervention suggestions were definitely helpful in creating next steps for these students.
The Gregory & Cahill article was extremely interesting to think about developing early comprehension strategies in kindergarteners. I have no recollection of what my teacher did when I was that age, nor do I have a placement in a kindergarten classroom, but these strategies are extremely insightful in the quality of interaction this teacher had with her students. I wonder the impact they would have had on me or the students in my placements if they had this kind of instruction. It was really cool to hear about Maria's classroom a little bit, and seeing some strategies taking place, since she is working with younger students.
The Tompkins chapters also helped me think about what strategies I used as a reader and what I can see in my students, as well as which strategies to use in my future classroom. I learned more in high school the idea that comprehension isn’t found in the text, but rather how a reader interacts with the text and thinks about it. Mrs. Goodman in the chapter knew this, and she created a whole host of activities to help students think of reading in this manner, as well. I see my students in my placement working on the civil rights movement, reading books about MLK, Rosa Parks, and especially Ruby Bridges. I’m unsure if they’ve been given the depth or time to be able to interact with the texts like Mrs. Goodman’s students were able to, through the different stages of reading. I think if I was given the opportunity to respond, explore and apply after reading a text in my experience, I would have been a lot less of a politician/literalist and much more of a thinker. In terms of comprehension, I love how explicit Mrs. Donnelly is with demonstrating how the strategies work, through posters, sticky notes, repetition, journals, discussions, and charts. I don’t see my placement teacher use any visuals when students are in their literacy time; this is definitely something that I want to incorporate in my classroom. Providing a lot of experiences and different venues to practice these comprehension strategies will help students of all levels interact with the text on a much deeper level than just answering close-ended questions like I was used to.
My comprehension process is definitely most accurately described in the Gregory article. I am a very visual person, and when I read something, I constantly have images flashing through my mind. Even when someone is telling me a story, I can see it play out in my head. This is like the “mind movies” strategy Gregory discussed in the article. When reading, I am also constantly making connections to my own personal life, or relating a text to something that I have read or learned in the past. This helps with my comprehension because I am able to use my background knowledge and build on what I already know in order to comprehend the text at hand. Tompkins discusses the importance of drawing on background knowledge, as well as visualization, in order to better comprehend a text.
ReplyDeleteIn my placement classroom, my teacher focuses a lot on having the students apply their background knowledge to both the reading and writing processes. He tells them that good readers and writers are able to apply what they read and write to their own life and own experiences. He also tells them that everyone will interpret texts differently depending on their own personal experiences, which is a point that Tompkins makes as well.
I think it is also important to realize that in our classrooms, we will have all different kinds of readers, as demonstrated through the “reader profiles” discussed in the Applegate articles. These profiles demonstrated to me just how many different approaches my class as a whole will be approaching texts from, and how it will be my job to help each profile come to draw meaning from texts using various strategies. I also found it interesting however, that I was not able to classify myself under any of these profiles. This fact reinforces to me just how many variations of readers there can be, and that each student in a classroom will approach reading (and writing) in their own unique way.
I love Gregory’s Velcro theory for making connections to the text. Perhaps it is because I am a visual person, and I can actually see this concept in my mind, but I can definitely see myself using this analogy in my classroom someday to help my own students make connections. As a lesson, I would probably write student background knowledge/experiences on a piece of paper (or some other material), as well as information from the text, and then actually use pieces of Velcro to stick various pieces together. I think this could be a fun and interactive way to really help students to visualize and understand how we form connections to a text.
Maria, I too would consider myself to be literalists in elementary and middle school. Finding explicit meaning and making inferences in texts was a very difficult task for me. Overall, I think that this affected my view of reading because I thought of comprehension as something that was either right or wrong. This made me very timid to share my answers in class because I was afraid that I would have the wrong answer. Because of this I never volunteered to participate in classroom discussions unless I was called on. As a teacher, it is essential to ask high level order questions where there is not just one correct answer. This will support children to think “outside the box” and become comfortable sharing their ideas with the class, without fear of it being wrong.
ReplyDeleteI notice with my Kindergarten students that they have difficulty making inferences. When asked questions they refer to answers that are taken explicitly from the text, even if it doesn’t make sense. One strategy that my mentor teacher uses help students with comprehension is to read the book series “Junie B. Jones” with the class and ask higher level thinking questions. I remember learning in TE 301 how reading a book series can help improve comprehension by allowing students to develop a deep understanding of the characters in the book. Over the year the students comprehension of the “Junie B. Jones” book have greatly improved as their answers to the questions become more and more detailed. In addition, another strategy that my teacher uses is having them make “self-to-text” and “text-to-text” connections using their own experiences and knowledge as a tool to understanding the text. The Thompkins chapter explains comprehension as a process in which students put together information from the text and their background knowledge to construct meaning. Comprehension strategies, such as The Velcro Theory, can be taught in classrooms starting when children first enter school. This includes tapping into the students’ schema as they make connections, visualizations, and ask questions. As an early childhood educator I want to help my students learn skills that will support their comprehension of text starting at a young age to produce competent and imaginative readers.