Comprehension

There seemed to be similar topics regarding reading comprehension throughout the articles and book chapters that were read for the course. Tompkins chapter 2 and the Neufeld article were very interesting to me. Both of these readings outlined a process that students should be guided through in order to build their reading comprehension. The students start with pre-reading, which is reading the title and headings and applying that information to their prior knowledge. The students then use predicting to help their comprehension level. Teachers also are supposed to encourage students to pick the purpose for why they are reading the text. There are several types of readings that can take place, i.e. guided reading, individual and buddy. Students can organize their thoughts with graphic organizers that match the organization of the text and then they can summarize using varrying styles.

As an adult reader I forgot about almost all of these strategies, and looking at the characteristics of an expert comprehender I don't know that I am all the way there. I rarely read the topic headings while I am reading, let alone before and I rarely make predictions. Sometimes I will think about my prior knowledge when I read a title but that is about the extent to my pre-reading activities. I have noticed that when I am reading a text for an academic reason I take notes on what I think is important but if I am not required to write on a text I don't feel the need to write down information. I have never considered myself good at comprehension, in fact that is the category in which I score the lowest on standardized tests. I do re-read passages if they do not make sense the first time but that is pretty much all I do to monitor my comprehension as I read. I think the biggest sign that I am lacking at my comprehension abilities is the fact that when I am asked to summarize a text that I read, I often have to refer back to the text in order to do so. It wasn't until I read the importance of these strategies for students that I realized I have a lot of work to do myself. I know that many of my teachers exposed me to comprehension strategies but like Neufeld says in his article, merely exposing students to these stragegies is not enough. As teachers, it is our responsibility to show students how to use comprehension strategies as well as why they are important.

In the field I am seeing the teacher putting many of these comprehensions strategies into play. The students are in reading groups and on different days they fill out different worksheets which include pre-reading activities, while reading activies and post reading activities. The students are asked to predict outcomes, list information they already know about the topic and also list what they learned after. There are worksheets for summarizing and reporting back to other students in the classroom. The only criticism that I would have is that most of the students reading comprehension strategies are done through writing and I don't really see them done verbally. I think that students need to be exposed to both types, and the readings also encouraged this, because it helps reach students on a different level. Students that have trouble writing may not have as much trouble verbalizing their ideas. I am impressed though that these activities are happening because I do find myself disapointed at times with other aspects of the classroom.