April 4

I chose to read the Kymes article about online comprehension strategies. I thought this would fit in well with an article I looked at for our instructional model, which is reading and writing in content areas. The article I looked at for our instructional model project was specifically about comprehension in content areas and how to use writing to learn (versus learning to write) and gave many strategies to help students with this. The Kymes article deals with comprehension as well but focuses on online environments. In my placement I have noticed the great amount of digital media used in content areas for looking up information, filling in charts, or interactive activities. It is important to know how to deal with online environments because online and Internet sources for literacy are on the rise and will only increase in every classroom. I think it is very important to be able to distinguish comprehension strategies in print resources versus online resources and how to approach online environments as a teacher in comparison to traditional print resources. Although most strategies are the same across both types of resources, there are things that need to be kept in mind for online resources especially. The article talks about the need for awareness of purpose in order for comprehension and for online sources especially because it is so easy to be overwhelmed with the amount of text and it is easy for students to get sidetracked. The article also points out that skimming, scanning, and reading selectively is vital for online sources because there is so much out there and it is much more efficient to be able to read this way. Another thing the article points out is activating prior knowledge and maintaining the dialectic. Because “online text, images, and information is less explicit the reader must have a framework to organize and categorize new ideas and new knowledge” (Kymes). In addition, to maintain dialectic students must be able to assess the accuracy of the information. This goes along with the need to be able to evaluate text structure and quality. “The online reader must look for clues that indicate a less than reputable source and look for bias to determine if a source can be trusted” (Kymes). Because I grew up with a good amount of technology in school I distinctly remember teachers constantly telling us (even into college) that the most important thing about online research is determining whether the source can be trusted or whether a source is reputable or not. This is such an important aspect of online resources and should be taught starting at a young age. Technology and online material is continuing to increase and therefore teaching trustworthiness is crucial. It is also important to remember that these strategies must be modeled for students so that students can begin to master these skills and use them far beyond your classroom. I think the article points out a lot of great things in regards to online sources and they must be taken into consideration when dealing with any reading or writing (whether in the content areas or not).

3/21

The article that stood out the most to me this week was the Gregory article on comprehension. As others have mentioned, I too underestimated the ability of younger children to comprehend. I like how this article mentioned that younger students do have the ability to have intelligent conversations over text and to use strong terminology. The article just mentions that these conversations will be more visual and age appropriate. The importnat thing to remember is that the younger students have less life experiences and thus need the conversation to be simpler but not so simple that it doesn't push or challenge them. In the classroom I have noticed that my CT loves to have conversations with the students. She is always asking them if they understand or have a similar experience that they can share with the class. I think this helps students with their comprehension, they not only have the text but they also have their peers experiences to help them in their understanding. 

Readings 3/21

As I have made it clear before I have the least amount of knowledge in the teaching of lower elementary especially kindergarten. I was then instantly drawn to the Cahill article on Kindergarten Comprehension. Learning things such as the fact that “young students have the inability to construct personal narratives” and that full-length stories demand too much cognitive attention” helped me to learn about the concerns of younger elementary as well as start to make connections with what I know and see in my upper elementary classroom. When Mrs. Hope makes the connection that her students need to categorize the connections they make I found this I something that is true in upper elementary as well. In literacy I find that categorizing thoughts is something that students have a hard time with starting in kindergarten and continuing into 5^th grade. Even though the level of comprehension is different throughout the grades it still is a common problem. When I did test comprehension on first grade students in 301 when they would read a book they would read the words and lack the punctuation and fluency they needed to be able to understand the story. When analyzing this I realized I saw the teacher test their comprehension and make conclusions about them but I never really saw any teaching of comprehension given I was only there four hours a week. When comparing it to my fifth grade classroom the students understand what they are reading but lack understanding detail either writing detail or picking the details out a story. The biggest difference I saw was that comprehension is taught in fifth grade. I begin to wonder if they start at lower levels of comprehension because it was not taught early on. The article talks about great things kindergarten students can do to help with comprehension such as putting C’s up when they make a connection in a story. In my classroom they take pictures of them reading and post them so what I thought of is as a project students can take pictures of them doing something in their everyday lives that connects to a scene/plot/setting/character that they have read in the story thus far, helping them to make connections and look at the details. I really enjoyed this article because it helped me to learn about ways to teach comprehension in early grades and how these actually can be used and adapted to other grade levels in helping them understand comprehension.

Readings for 3/21

The Cahil article gave me some great ideas on how to make comprehension easier when dealing with my own classroom in the future. I thought the idea of starting off with "basic" components that the students could use, such as the hand signals when reading, was a great start at introducing them in to ways of expressing comprehension without it being to overwhelming for students. This article also made me think of my CT's classroom and how the students have a hard time relating stories back to themselves or making connections with what the story reminded them of. I have seen multiple students in my CT's class that will sit down and read or listen to a story and then are asked to fill out a follow-up sheet about the story and when it comes to the section where it says "what did this story remind you of?" the students resort back to parts of the story and are missing the point that they are supposed to be thinking about their own thinking from the story. I think that if my CT introduced a method similar to the one mentioned in the article, the students would make better connections and comprehend more of what they were reading.

On the other hand, the Applegate article mentions teachers using questioning as a way to guide readers/students through what they might want to be comprehending and this is actually something that I see my CT doing a lot. I think that by her doing this it is setting the students up for skills and ways to make sure they are comprehending and for them to eventually be able to do it on their own. Example: by the CT asking students certain questions, it gets them in the habit of asking themselves those questions when they have to do readings on their own. I think that my CT's classroom has a lot of "literalists" in it based off of what I have read in this article because they tend to focus on what the text says and sometimes have trouble with thinking outside of the story. I think this goes to show that they may be on the lower end of being able to comprehend things well because they are looking to the text for specific answers and not actually thinking about what the text is saying.

The guided reading section in Tompkins made me think of the guided reading I see my CT doing with students in the classroom. I was a little unsure of what guided reading was exactly because I have not had the opportunity to sit in with my CT as she does it and I know that each teacher varies with how they set up their guided reading, but this section helped me get a better understanding for what it is and what to expect when doing this task.

Comprehension articles...

While we read parts of the Tompkins chapter this week for our readings I would like to specifically engage with the two articles we had to read on comprehension: "Kindergarteners Can Do It Too" by Cahill and Gregory and "Profiles in Comprehension" by Applegate et. al

I loved the article by Cahill and Gregory! Not only did it stress something that I think is really important to stress (how younger ed. students view the world) it also specifically talks about the age group in which I am very curious to work with. Ever since I started substitute teaching back in 2008 I have enjoyed working with younger students over older students. There is something about their positive energy, the way they can encourage each other and the way they have not yet been tainted by the desire/ability to treat each other cruelly as I have seen happen in the older grades that I genuinely gravitate towards/respond to.

That aside, I know there are many different "pratfalls" or challenges that come in teacher lower grades, especially in implementation of literacy or basic skills across the disciplines. I question my patience many times with younger students and knowing myself well enough, I wonder whether or not really young children would be the most ideal match. If I were to venture a guess I would say that kindergarten-2nd grade teachers have the hardest job in education. So much of their time is spent implementing and checking for understanding that one of the downfalls is never really expanding.

All this aside, what I loved about the Cahill article is that Mrs. Hope's class gave a lot of different really cool ideas for implementing comprehension in the stories that were being read. Being the literally movie-minded guy that I am, my favorite, of course, was mind movies. Once the students had a visualized representation of what they were hearing in the story they would raise their hands in a 'V' and Mrs. Hope would call them out and they got to share their mental videos. The article says:

“As part of the introduction to this strategy (mind movies), Mrs. Hope asked the students to close their eyes and listen to the story Fireflies by Julie Brinckloe (1985). After reading two pages, Mrs. Hope asked the students to describe their mind movies. Later, they were asked to draw their mind movies and then to compare their drawings to the illustrations in the book...This provided Mrs. Hope and the students with the opportunity to discuss why some things were included in their pictures but not in the text.” (pg. 2)

What I like about this article - and how it segues nicely into the next article - is that it asks the students to use their imagination rather than simply answering call and response questions ad tedium. This kind of memorization does very little to nothing for their actual comprehension other than recitation of meaning. What the visualizations or mind movies do is to make the students engage with the text and its comprehension on a level that is much higher than what questions ask them to do.

While I didn't like the next article as much (it was ok, still, though) I thought that it also presented some interesting ideas on comprehension. I liked when the article said:

“There is, however, a widely used alternative to factual recall and recitation questions and that is the type of questioning that encourages students to engage in discussion. These questions have been variously designated as higher order, inference, scriptal, implicit, or aesthetic. No matter what their label, these kinds of questions have several common characteristics: They do not lend themselves to a single correct response, answers to them must be justified logically by readers, and they encourage discussion and the acknowledgment of multiple viewpoints.” (pg. 1)

The article then goes on to talk about the different types of comprehenders and I couldn't help but see many of the students from my field placement as what are described as "Fuzzy Thinkers." Fuzzy Thinkers: "...are characterized by their vague and imprecise concepts that are frequently reflected in vague and imprecise language. Fuzzy Thinkers can give you an answer to any type of question you ask, but the thinking behind their responses will be elusive and ambiguous. When we follow up on their initial responses with questions designed to clarify their thinking, we find that they are often unable to explain what they meant. In general, they cannot explain because they never had a clear idea of the significance of their original answer.” (pg. 51-52)

My CT spends a very large amount of her time reading to her students from books of all different genres and grade levels. I LOVE this about her. Reading is essential and I like that while certain books that she chooses might be deemed "too young" or not age appropriate, she still incorporates them into her daily life as a teacher because they not only give her a chance to read to her students but they also are covering material that is appropriate to her other disciplines. But, I see Fuzzy Thinkers ALL THE TIME in her class. What I find interesting is that it is generally the female students that she has. They will timidly raise their hands, and then, when they can't rearticulate their answers for them to make more sense they shake their heads and get nervous smiles and blush and hid in their hands and say "nevermind" or something of the like and act giggly and silly as if by laughing at themselves first they've beaten everybody else to the punch.

Readings: Comprehension

I think comprehension is one of the most difficult aspects of literature. Some students struggle with comprehension because they cannot read the words to put the information together. While some students struggle with comprehension because they just do not understand what is going on in the text. I had a student in my sixth grade class last year that was reading at grade level, but was at a first grade level when it came to comprehension. According to the Applegate article this student would have been considered a left fielder because she gave answers that are unpredictable and had no connections to the text. I was surprised at how many different types of profiles there were for comprehension. I think it is so important to start comprehension young, which relates to the Gregory and Cahill article. I like the way this article described schema as the stuff you already have in your head, like your personal experiences. My kindergarten class uses their personal experiences to relate to the different books that they read. When my teacher reads a book she asks questions that relates to their lives. I have seen my teacher ask if the students have ever had an experience like the one talked about in the book and then she chooses five or six students to share their experiences. Another strategy that my teacher uses that I find beneficial is asking “I Wonder” questions to get students thinking about the book. My teacher sometimes says I wonder what is going to happen next? She then asks several students what they think is going to happen. I think this is beneficial because the students have to think about what is going to happen so they have to understand what has already happened in the book to have an opinion on what is going to happen next. I think comprehension is very important for students to understand and it is pivotal to start this process young so they can grow in their comprehension as they get older.

Readings for March 21

The article that stood out most to me and that I found the most interesting was the Gregory and Cahill article. I think it is very common to underestimate the ability of such young children and it is important to understand that children as young as Kindergarten are able to learn and practice comprehension strategies they will use for the rest of their lives. As this article explained, this classroom of Kindergarteners was able to distinguish whether their comments in discussions were connections to the story, descriptions of their visualizations (mind movies), or questions. In particular I loved the “Velcro Theory”. This is a great way to approach the idea of schemas. I also found it exciting to see children as young as Kindergarten knowing and using the term schemas. The Velcro Theory says that a “new piece of information is easier to remember if we can stick it onto something that’s already in our heads”. This is a great way to think about schemas and it makes sense (and will also make sense to young students). I also really liked the idea of having students close their eyes and then draw what they imagine and then compare it to the illustrations in the story. This is a great way to get students engaged in the text without requiring them to do a lot of writing (which is good because they are so young), but is just as beneficial in my opinion. This article also did a good job of breaking down the idea of inferring. By simply saying, “was the question answered in the text or did you have to use your brain?” it makes this concept seem less complicated. I think by simplifying even the most complex concepts, you can address these types of things with very young children.
In addition, I also like reading about the different Comprehension Profiles in the Applegate & Quinn article. This article talked about the need for higher-level questions that get students to really think rather than recall text details. This is pretty much exactly what we have been hearing in this class in every article we have read so far. Nonetheless, I found the profiles interesting and I enjoyed being able to place some of my students that I have been working with during my small group literacy lesson into some of these categories. There is one student in particular that falls into the Fuzzy Thinkers and/or Minimalists profile(s). She always seems to have something to say however she always makes vague statements and provides no elaboration on her answers no matter how much I try to probe her with further questions. I find it interesting that type of student can be found anywhere. I agree completely with the need to identify the profile of each of your students so that you are able to “provide instruction they need for effective, rewarding, and engaged reading” (Applegate & Quinn). You are not able to effectively approach the instruction of a student until you understand their habits of reading and thinking.