After I completed this weeks assigned reading I found myself
thinking back to the process of how I personally learned to read. Like we discussed in the math section of
class this past week, I feel like both the beginning stages of learning about
mathematics and to read are forgotten over time once you have far surpassed
them. I personally remember that once I
learned how to read I had no trouble with comprehension, however, decoding and
sounding out words was far from easy for me to pick up. In hind sight it would appear to me that as
soon as I learned how to read on my own, I was passed to most basic level of
comprehension, literal comprehension, and on to inferential comprehension. I remember immediately using my own knowledge
when reading along with the information presented in the text. If I were to guess, I would have to
contribute this to my parents constantly reading to me as a child, asking me
questions about the books they read to me and relating different aspects of the
books we read to my life somehow.
Interestingly enough, when in my placement classroom I see
students with the almost the exact opposite problem of mine. Some of the students can read a paragraph out
of the book at a good pace and with no errors, but, when you ask them what they
just read they have no idea. Occasionally
they can recall a main idea or some events that occurred, but I feel like my
mentor teacher is constantly working with all of the students (high and low
achieving) one sequencing details.
One article we read, “Profiles in Comprehension” talks a lot
about the importance of not having your students answer recitation questions,
and instead using higher level thinking questions such as asking them to
predict what they think may happen next in the book and having class
discussions. Although my MT asks my
students to predict what they think may happen next when she is reading out
loud to them, I see them answer recitation questions on work sheets all the
time during individual reading time.
This I think, as the reading also explains, is leading to the students
not enjoying reading nearly as much as they could. Furthermore, I remember filling out many,
many packets that were filled with recall/recitation questions though out grade
school, and back then I hated reading.
As teachers we need to get away from giving students busy work with
questions that are simply testing to see if our students did the assigned
reading and often leads to our students to disliking reading. We must allow our students to explore a book
as they read it.
Like Emma, as a younger student, reading came pretty easily to me. I cannot remember any specific instances of struggle when learning how to read. I remember having to work on some skills like decoding or chunking words, but I can't remember every being discouraged while learning to read.
ReplyDeleteNow, due to the level of reading we as college students have to do on a daily basis, I feel as though I comprehend less than I did as a child. I think this is solely due to the material that I need to read and the amount that there is. It is much easier to comprehend a children's picture book than a textbook or novel about a topic you don't necessarily care about. This isn't to say that I believe all children should be able to easily comprehend children's books right away, I am just saying that comprehension can depend on the material being read. (At least at our age).
I definitely agree with Emma's discussion of Profiles in Comprehension and I do agree that we need to begin to get away from solely asking our students recitation questions. We begin to create "literalists" like the text mentions, in students because they begin to read only looking for certain answers to questions. Allowing students to explore books is so important to begin that love for reading, but I can understand the difficulty in trying to include that because of the age of standardized testing. Those tests are not asking students to explore books on their own, they are asking them specific comprehension questions, which must be taught and reinforced in the classroom. Although seemingly difficult, it is important to allow students to do both, recitation questions as well as rich book discussions. I feel as though a good teacher can find a way to do both.
Much like Emma and Emily, reading was an easy subject for me to master as a young student. Unfortunately, reading was my worst subject motivation wise from first grade until sixth grade. We were forced to base our reading selection and progress around a program called Accelerated Reader. This program forced every student to read within their range, read 10 percent of non-fiction books a period, reach a number goal, and to take a test after each and every book read. In addition, we were never allowed to read any books that were not A.R. as they were considered a 'waste of time' to our education. Due to this, I would come home every night and cry because I disliked being tested time and time again. Since we started A.R. in first grade, I instantly had a terrible attitude toward reading until I reached seventh grade where we finally received freedom enough to choose non-A.R. books.
ReplyDeleteMuch like Emily, my comprehension level is drastically lower as a college student. I have fancied myself with the ability to be an excellent "skimmer" and refrain from reading every single word. I struggle to complete all of the assigned reading and for that, I often error on the side of reason and believe that skimming must be better than not reading at all. I know that if I sat down and intentionally focused on reading a passage and retaining its contents, I am able to do so, primarily because I was given an adequate foundation of comprehension from a young age. Obviously I typically steer away from reading articles entirely when I am not interested in the subject. Even when reading material that relates to education, I find myself reading the same ideas over and over again in a variety of articles. Due to this, I even skim educational readings simply because I have received exposure to these articles many times before.
As we read in Profiles in Comprehension, asking students to only answer questions from the reading fails to address the entire student beyond their ability to read and retell. I too agree that book discussion can help remedy this situation, but I also believe that we are failing to allow our students to experience the full educational spectrum if we have a teacher-led discussion of question and answers and a student-led discussion through a book discussion. I think in order to fix this, we must include small groups with the teacher, students reading together in groups, and asking students to interpret the book on their own without right or wrong answers, and without the opinions of their peers. I think it is important to see what strengths your class has and adapt to those as well. I think the more you interact with a book with young students, the more they are interested and insightful with readings in the future.