Reading Comprehension

In this week's readings, Pardo (2004) describes comprehension as a "complex process."  It is a product of the transaction between the text and the reader at a particular moment in time.  A readers' background knowledge, skills, culture, and cognitive development all influence their comprehension of text.  Teachers have a key role in supporting their students and improving their comprehension abilities, and there are several ways in which teachers can do this.  A few really stood out to me, though, because I remember my teachers doing these.

1.  Teach decoding skills.  

Students need to be able to decode words automatically in order to have leftover energy to put towards thinking about what they are reading.  Teachers can do this through teaching phonics, vocabulary, and high-frequency words.  One way to teach high-frequency words is to give each student a word booklet including words they are likely to see often.  Anytime they see a word or use it correctly, they get to put a sticker beside the word in their booklet.

Source

2.  Build and activate prior knowledge.

Help students build background knowledge by showing them how to make connections to the text.  They can make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.  This helps students think deeper about what they just read and aids in creating meaning if they can tie it to their own personal understandings.  After reading a story, you could have each student write down some sort of connection they made.  Sort their connections into one of the three categories and show the results like below.  This also makes me wonder if there are other types of connection that students could make? Text-to-media connections? 

Source

3. Provide explicit instruction of useful comprehension strategies.

Teachers should teach students strategies that will help them understand their readings like predicting, questioning, connecting, organizing, and summarizing.  A good way to show these strategies, especially to younger students, is through modeling.  Cunningham and Allington (2011) suggest using think-alouds as a way to do this.  I love this idea and think it's an easy way to add extra instruction into read-alouds which also aid in teaching fluency.  Check out this video showing how to do a think-aloud.

Reading Fluency

Fluency assessments are important because they can help teachers see which students are improving and

Source

which students are struggling with reading.  But what is fluency, and what should you observe while students are reading?  According to Deeny (2010) and The Literacy Dictionary (Harris & Hodges, 1995) there are four components of fluency to look at. They are accuracy, rate/speed, prosody, and comprehension.  Deeny suggests using one minute fluency tests, which measure the number of words read correctly in one minute, as a quick way to test for accuracy and speed.  Rasinski (2004) suggests using a rubric that offers a way to test expression/volume, phrasing, smoothness, and pace.  However, both Deeny and Rasinski stress the importance of improving and measuring all four components of fluency through direct and interactive instruction.

I loved Rasinski's idea of having a readers' theater!  I remember doing readers' theater about the story of Thanksgiving when I was in elementary school.  We practiced our lines for a week and even made costumes.  At the time, I didn't realize I was learning while also having fun.  Not only did we practice fluency, but we learned a social studies lesson at the same time.  Readers' theater could be a great way to bridge the gap between reading education and other subjects.  I also love that it can be used across grade levels.  Text level simply needs to be increased or decreased depending on the students' abilities.  For very young emergent readers, having a read aloud could serve the same purpose.  Reading to students is a way for teachers to model fluency even before they can read independently.  Do you think read alouds should even be used with older students and more difficult books?  What other ways can teachers promote fluency in the classroom?

Check out the video below that shows how even a simple book can be used to teach reading fluency.  

Making Words

Cunningham and Cunningham (1992) stressed how important inventive spelling is to the reading and writing

Source

of young students.  Through the exploration of words and sound patterns, they not only learn proper spelling but how to read those words if they come across them.  They suggest using Making Words lessons to accompany other inventive spelling strategies.  I loved that the lessons can be modified for a wide range of learners.  Each student learns at a different pace, so you could simply divide the class into small groups and provide different sets of letters based on their current understanding.  It's also a fun way to transition into another subject by having the "big" word be from that day's lesson.

I don't remember my teachers doing Making Words lessons, but one of my teachers had us play Scrabble often.  I think it's a fairly similar concept to Making Words, except it allows the students to create words on their own and practice inventive spelling more.  I'm sure I played a lot of made-up words, but as long as they sounded close to the word I was trying to create it was fine with my teacher.  After playing, she would select some of our misspelled words and help us figure out their proper spellings.  This really helped me understand the connection between what I was hearing and the correct combination of letters.  I think using both Scrabble and Making Words lessons with my future students could create some great readers and writers!  Did your teachers use Making Words lessons or anything similar? Do you think it helped you learn to spell and read?  What are some other ways to encourage inventive spelling and word making?

Here's a link to a great blog that easily explains how to create a Making Words lesson. It also includes a free printable worksheet, so students can keep a list of all the new words they learn!

http://www.theschoolsupplyaddict.com/1/post/2012/02/making-words.html