After reading the
article of Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers, I think I really didn’t
give enough credit for the kindergarteners that I have been observing. When I
am preparing my lesson, I do feel as the article has mentioned that it is
difficult to know where to begin when teaching for comprehension. When choosing
the materials for teaching, it is really hard to know which might be too hard
for the students to understand, especially for kindergarteners, it is really
hard to plan activities of comprehension for them because they just started to
learn alphabets and spelling. Based on my observation of the class, another
thing that related the most to the article is that they have been working on
several literary tasks that the teacher has created for them to do in their
literature centers. As the article has mentioned, it is surprising that when
young students interact with texts in any literary task, they bring the ability
to construct meaning. My mentor teacher always does read aloud to the kids while
they are sitting on the mat. After read aloud, each of them will be asked to
tell their own stories with a partner, then they will go to the centers with
assigned groups to draw and write down what has happened in their stories as
much as they can. It is a great way to engage students to comprehend on the
content of the stories and get them to practice their writing. However, after
reading the article, I think it would be better to get the kids more involved
like in Mrs. Hope’s class. I think my mentor teacher can also give her student
more credit to let them get more involved while the read aloud section. Actually
all of the strategies that has mentioned in the article, such as using gestures
or poses to making connections to the text, and visualization the illustrations
in the book, and questioning can help the students to get more engaged in
learning. I understand teachers might be worried about they will lose their
students’ attention if they give students the chance to interact with the
teacher and to get active in the read aloud section, but I also can imagine if
my mentor teacher uses these strategies, the students could be more involved in
a good way and I think teachers can figure out a way to let the students be
under controlled. Again, I think teachers should give their students more
credit, and I think I would try some of her strategies to my future students too.
After reading the chapters and articles assigned for this week, I really wish I could remember more about my reading at a younger age! I feel like I would have been a literal reader but my reading abilities have definitely evolved for me to be able to infer and evaluate a variety of texts. I tend to be a literal person in most aspects of my life so I can imagine that I also read literally and when answering questions for reading activities I would have looked straight to the text to find the exact sentence the answer could be pulled from.
ReplyDeleteI found the readings this week extremely interesting when thinking about the students in my placement. While reading about many different kinds of readers, I could imagine which students that would be describing in my classroom. I really enjoyed the articles and thought that the intervention strategies given were extremely useful. Like Jia, I was amazed by the Comprehension Strategies article and what those Kindergarteners were capable of. I'm in a fourth grade classroom so I expect them to be able to make connections like those, but I was surprised to see it with such young children. I think it's great that teachers push their students to achieve beyond what is expected of them so that they can begin to build a strong foundation for the critical thinking that will occur later on. The Applegate article also made me realize what a wide variety of learners there are. I had never thought to categorize them that way and it was interesting for me to notice how many of these types of readers appear in my placement. I think these strategies sound incredibly useful and I would like to try and implement them while talking to my students about readings.
I agree with Jia, in that I too underestimated my kindergartners in my placement. I am sad i read the articles after I taught my lesson. I feel like I could have challenged them more in their comprehension and literacy skills. I too, like Jia, did not know where to go with my lesson. I watch them in LA lessons but you can only learn so much when in the classroom. I see a lot of similarities in my classroom happening from the Tompkins article about reading strategies. For example, the children do buddy reading, shared reading, independent reading, the do pre-reading activities, they respond to readings in different ways, etc. I agree with Jia, in the Gregory article it was interesting to hear the different gestures and motions the children do when they have thoughts or ideas. For example they make a "v" for a visualization and a "c" for connection they made. I thought this was cool. It keeps the children interactive throughout the book but quiet.
ReplyDeleteIn the Applegate article it talked about different learners in the classroom. I think I am a literal learner and I think I have always been one. When I read books I do look for the answers and key points, otherwise I do not understand thee reading. However, it was fun reading all the different types of literacy learners and how others read. It was fun picking out which students go under each category and it was pretty easy to with some students.
I'm glad you all came away with the idea that Kindergartners can do a lot more with comprehension strategies than we give them credit for. I agree with you all that they should be aware of what they're doing when they're reading (or listening to) a story.
ReplyDelete