Comprehension

In my classroom comprehension is taught in many different ways. I am placed in a 3rd grade class and my teacher still uses lots of scaffolding to help her students really understand the texts they read. My teacher explained to me that she likes to use lots of variation. She does not want to bore her students with the same worksheet after they read everyday, and she also does not want to make them fill out a KWL every time they read. I really like this about my teacher because her students really never seem bored during literacy. A couple weeks ago my teacher was working on a poetry unit with her students and instead of just reading the poetry aloud as a group she created poetry groups. She split the students up into groups of 3 or four and provided them with many different techniques on how they can read poetry together as a group. She showed them how to use sticky notes to write down questions they have while they read or words that were challenging to them. She also encouraged them to create mental pictures in their minds when they read the poetry and share what the poems reminded them of in their own lives. The students loved reading Shell Silverstein because the poetry can really relate to the students’. My CT chose many authors whose poetry could relate with her third graders.

My teacher has also talked to me about how she scaffolds her students through their comprehension skills. Everyday the students have silent reading time after lunch where they pick any book in the classroom to read. I always wondered if the students were actually using their time productively because I noticed many of them reading “Where’s Waldo” books. However, today my teacher began tracking their comprehension in what they are reading everyday. My CT has her students pick from a list of different ways where they can make a T-chart or a thinking web, make text to text, text to self, text to world connections, create questions, and make mental pictures. All these techniques allow the students to follow a guide to help them monitor their own comprehension. My CT then sits with different students’ everyday to make sure they understand what there are reading and that they are using their time productively. I think that the comprehension menu that my teacher provided is a great idea for students to be able to choose what they want to focus on without forcing them to relate with something that they do not understand. I think it is also good that this menu showed the students that while you read, you can think about your own life and create pictures in your mind to test your comprehension, rather than just answering questions after reading a text.

My students are becoming better at comprehending what they are reading at this point in the year. My CT has really challenged them to stretch beyond just answering questions after they read and allowing them to be creative with their comprehending techniques. They are a lot better at comprehending when they are reading with a partner because they keep each other on task and ask each other questions. My CT is really focusing now on the independent work time where they can ask themselves their own comprehension questions. In Applegate’s text she talked about different types of learners. Many of my students are Fuzzy Thinkers and Quiz Contestants. Some of them do not report very clear observations to allow the teacher to question if they actually comprehend what they are learning. Other students are Quiz Contestants in the way that they come up with logically correct answers but they really do not make sense to what they were reading so it is hard to tell them that they are wrong. I really enjoyed Applegate’s text because I could probably relate every student in my classroom to a category she listed in her article.