Reading Comprehension

When talking about comprehension, the very beginning of the chapter talks about children who have a hard time comprehending what the read. They say its not that the struggling ones simply can’t think but more that they don’t think while they are reading.  Cunningham suggests this is because they don’t know they should think. They haven’t been taught that. Like the child that has never been read to or has heard people talk about reading that goes into a school and is taught letters and words. That child does not know to think about what he or she is actually reading.

I,  personally, definitely understand what Cunningham is saying because I as a child really struggled with reading comprehension. I still do now. I was not read to a lot as a child and learned the letters and words and didn’t really pick up on actually thinking about what I read. I was good at reading the words quick and knowing every letter and sound. I use to think I was a really good reader because I could read really fast and usually never got a word worng. I finally realized though I had no idea what I was reading.  In my opinion, your not reading if your not understanding. What you are reading.

Below are some good activities for children to help them stop and think about what they are reading. I really could have used some of these ideas. Especially when I was younger, most of my teachers just focused on teaching how to read the words more than teaching me how to understand and think about what I am reading.

Word Study

I have to agree with most researchers saying that vocabulary is learned indirectly through teacher read-aloud and independent reading. I want to make sure and have a classroom where children can learn how to evaluate their own vocabulary knowledge and develop a sense of word curiosity that will push them to continue to develop rich, lively, and valuable vocabularies.

How can I do that?

I like the scale for the kids to hold up fingers to describe how well they know a word.

1= I have never heard of that word

2= I heard the word but I don’t know what it means

3=I think I know what the word means

4=I’m sure I know what that word means

5= I can make a good sentence with that word

It not only lets the students evaluate themselves but also the teachers have a good understanding of what words the students struggle with.

How can I encourage independent reading?

When I was a kid, I remember not really liking to read. There is one thing though that always encouraged me to read: the reading couches and loft. In Kindergarten, we had a center in the room that was for reading time. It had a big loft with pillows and comfy couches. I remember looking so much forward to reading just because of that center in the room. I will definitely have a reading center when I am a teacher. I feel it encourages every student to enjoy reading and try new things. I know it did to me.

Choral Readings (Class activity)

Choral Readings:

What are they?

• reading aloud in unison with a whole class or group of students. After hearing the teacher read and discuss a selection, students reread the text together. 
• Choral reading helps build students' fluency, self-confidence, vocabulary knowledge, motivation, and enjoyment of literature.

Fluency

      Fluency is the ability to read most words in context quickly and accurately and with appropriate expression. (Cunningham p. 49) The beginning activity with reading the words that were all stuck together really introduced this concept well.  I was reading the words, but I had to pause and really look at them very closely to read them. Therefore, I was having a hard time really understanding what the summary was. I knew most of it, but I didn’t know a lot of detail about it. 

There are several things mentioned in the text that can be done for struggling readers that I found really informative. One being, having a “After lunch bunch” reading club. This is simply just having five or six students come read with you some just plain fun books. You make sure and include all the readers and least once a week but include struggling readers several days.

There are three components to fluency.

• speed
• Prosody
• Accuracy

a

Developing fluency should be a huge goal in our classrooms with the students.

I agree with Allington when he mentions the three reasons why some students struggle with fluency.

• ·      Struggling readers are given material too difficult for them to read

o   When I was in school, our teachers had all of us read the same book no matter what are reading level was. It was more of a class wide reading level so therefore you should be reading where everyone else in 4^th grade was which for me was not the case. I was as struggling reader growing up and this never helped me with anything.

• ·      Struggling readers read  much less than more capable readers

o   I was never a strong reader when I was a kid, so I never enjoyed reading and that lead to me not reading as much to those students who were good at reading and enjoyed it.

• ·      Teachers call on the struggling readers a lot to read aloud and quickly interrupt them to correct their errors.

o   I always got so much anxiety as a kid when I got called on to read. If anything, it worsened my reading along with my confidence to read better.

 Questions to Consider

1. 1.     What contributes to making a fluent reader?
2. 2.     What are some things in your opinion that can encourage fluency with your students?