Sunday, March 4, 2012

They all can Comprehend!

The readings I chose to do on comprehension were the Cunningham and Allington chapter and the Gregory and Cahill article "Kindergartners Can Do It, Too! Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers." These two reading helped me to better understand how to help the young readers I will be teaching to better comprehend the things that they read. They have also shown me how many comprehension strategies for older children are very similar, if not identical, to strategies that work for very young readers. These strategies include making connections, visualizing, questioning and predicting, summarizing and making inferences. While the way these strategies play out in the classroom may look a little different in younger versus older classrooms, the main ideas are still the same and very helpful for children. Questions I encourage you to consider are how do you think you will incorporate these strategies into your classroom? and Do you know of any other specific activities that encourage reading comprehension? Here is a video that I found that supports the importance of teaching reading comprehension to young children.

     

2 comments:

  1. I really liked your video. In particular, I agreed with her when she said reading has to be about more than, "Did I get the words right". i just don't think reading is reading without understanding.

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  2. I very much enjoyed the video. I think one crucial component is questioning the students. You can ask them to predict what is going to happen next. This gets their brain working and focused on the reading at hand. Reading aloud and guided reading is definitely a way that students can comprehend because you are helping them and modeling what they are reading.

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