Through my own experience I have seen a great deal of comprehension
taking place at the primary level. Although the bulk of literacy
learning was decoding skills and practicing sight words, there were
also daily routines and activities that reinforced comprehension
skills such as; read alouds, predicting and then checking the accuracy
of the predictions, picture walks, and several others. The important
thing to remember is that students are naturally curious no matter
their age, so why not capitalize on this and talk about everything
that is going on in a book. Students begin to understand that this
process consists of more than just reading words on a page. I have had
a fourth grade student who was a phenomenal fluent reader, however,
could not summarize, retell, or answer any questions about what she
had just read. I couldn?t believe it and thought exactly the same
thing, that this student has made it this far because of word calling,
it is astonishing how this happens.
My advice would be to just talk about text as much as possible, no
matter what it is (books, newspaper, magazines, nonfiction books,
etc.) in the primary grades, and any grade for that matter. Asking
questions, summarizing, and retelling stories are all powerful tools
for increasing student comprehension, as well as showing students a
wide variety of texts, genres, and new literacies (technology).
Brie
Message: 18
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2008 09:09:52 -0500
From: "Kendra Carroll" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [MOSAIC] Comprehension strategies and Harcourt
To: "Mosaic: A Reading Comprehension Strategies Email Group"
<mosaic@literacyworkshop.org>, <mosaic@literacyworkshop.org>
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In primary grades, it should be about 50-50. I am teaching 2nd grade
for the first time after spending 3 years in first. I am seeing many
students who word call on a 4th grade level but cannot comprehend near
that level. Its almost like these students have spent so much time
focusing on the word level that they have forgotten to take time to
comprehend. I am not sure if this is developmental or that we as
teachers K-1 are not spending enough time on comprehension. I would
love to know the opinions of others:)
Kendra
North Carolina
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