In my classroom, my CT using the prediction strategy all the time in her reading groups. The students begin first by taking a "picture walk" silently by themselves. When the students are done, my CT will ask the students what they think will happen in the story by what they saw in the pictures. This seems to engage the students and they are excited to explain their idea. I like this strategy because it does keep the students attention, and they are focused on the story more. At the end, the students get to see who's prediction was the closest, then my CT begins with comprehension questions. She still relates the students prior predictions by stating, "Well do you think the story would have ended the same way if your prediction was right?". This really gets the students thinking, and they are getting more out of the reading groups then just summarizing a story. Different levels of thinking are being shown by asking questions such as these by the students.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Tompins, Chapter 7, Comprehension
In chapter seven of Tompkins, there was a strong overall focus on Comprehension. I found this chapter to be especially interesting to me because this is a topic that I often struggle with. Tompkins gave many suggestions on ways to help develop better comprehension for your students in the classroom such as sequencing, prediction, worksheet activities, etc. I think that we as teachers struggle with knowing and identifying with what strategies will work best for out classroom. I felt his suggestions were very intelligent and workable strategies to improve comprehension, but as teachers, I feel as thought it is a trial and error process for which ones will work best with your individual group of students. It can be hard to teach students that reading is more then just retelling a story, that it is the cognitive process of making connections with the text and conveying meaning; basically teaching different thinking skills. Although I feel that Tompkins strategies are well developed ideas, I feel the strongest about group discussion. In group discussion the teacher can develop questions that require higher level thinking, and can see how the students respond;whereas with other activities, you may not receive as good feedback. The problem with group discussion is time, and that is why I feel that teachers don't use group discussion as much.
In my classroom, my CT using the prediction strategy all the time in her reading groups. The students begin first by taking a "picture walk" silently by themselves. When the students are done, my CT will ask the students what they think will happen in the story by what they saw in the pictures. This seems to engage the students and they are excited to explain their idea. I like this strategy because it does keep the students attention, and they are focused on the story more. At the end, the students get to see who's prediction was the closest, then my CT begins with comprehension questions. She still relates the students prior predictions by stating, "Well do you think the story would have ended the same way if your prediction was right?". This really gets the students thinking, and they are getting more out of the reading groups then just summarizing a story. Different levels of thinking are being shown by asking questions such as these by the students.
In my classroom, my CT using the prediction strategy all the time in her reading groups. The students begin first by taking a "picture walk" silently by themselves. When the students are done, my CT will ask the students what they think will happen in the story by what they saw in the pictures. This seems to engage the students and they are excited to explain their idea. I like this strategy because it does keep the students attention, and they are focused on the story more. At the end, the students get to see who's prediction was the closest, then my CT begins with comprehension questions. She still relates the students prior predictions by stating, "Well do you think the story would have ended the same way if your prediction was right?". This really gets the students thinking, and they are getting more out of the reading groups then just summarizing a story. Different levels of thinking are being shown by asking questions such as these by the students.
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I completely agree with you Stephanie. I think the only way we as teacher can truly help the students out in ways that help them the most and they get the most out of it is by trial and error. No two students are alike so by having them try one method one time and another the next would be the best way to find out how they do with each kind of worksheet. I have also had a tough time with comprehension when reading and I have learned to use the outlining strategy or the mapping strategy so I can look back on what I read and understand why I wrote some of the details I did.
ReplyDeleteI agree with that stuff about how reading is more about the cognitive process than it is the actual story. The picture walk is a cool way to get students engaged into making predictions and further understanding the story as it goes along. I think my CT could do a little more to engage in predictions when it comes to reading stories. I think another cool idea would be to have the students draw a picture of what they think will happen at the end of the story, and then share those pictures with a partner while discussing what each other thinks. Perhaps that is too much to ask for young students but it would be a neat way to apply comprehension to literacy
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