Of the chapters I have read thus far, Teach Comprehension has been my favorite and most meaningful. Routman breaks down teaching comprehension to our students in a way that makes sense. She shows us how we typically teach comprehension in reading by using basic strategies, we assume our students know how to do these. They can put into play what we spend weeks practicing but never really understand why they are supposed to do that practice; make connections, ask questions, mark up the text, and make inferences, to name a few. As teachers we assume our students are understanding a text if they are fluent as they read, Routman mentions as we get into intermediate grades, this is not true. Just because my 5th grader can read 95% on a 9th grade level does not mean she is able to have a meaningful conversation with me about what she just read.
Routman talks about in this chapter we should model the practices we want students to use daily. We should get up in front of the class with a challenging article, read it aloud, and try to talk about it. Discuss how we, as the teacher, struggle to understand what we read. We then should reread the text and show our students that once we have reread a text we can make more meaningful connections and begin having a conversation about what we read.
I like a lot of the practices Routman discusses in this chapter. It opens my eyes how to better teach comprehension to my struggling readers. I need to take more time to model reading text in front of my class. Model how I break down something I may not find super interesting, how I struggle to stay focused and keyed in as i read through the article the first time. As I reread the article to my students I stop and show them where I make key notes, what I underline to be important, and where I make connections. I believe doing these few things would benefit my students who struggle and maybe even make my life a little less stressful. I think sometimes as teachers, we forget to just sit down and be honest with our students and show them how we read for pleasure.
Kyra, I love your statement that sometimes as teachers we forget to just sit down and be honest with students. I've found in my own experience that being honest with them has led to a more open classroom and more permanent learning. This was one of my favorite chapters as well. It's scary how many students reach the upper grades and can call words but can't show comprehension. Your plan to read aloud and model what you do as a reader is on the right track. I wish I had done more of this myself when I was in the classroom. Seeing how you pull from your strategies when reading in a real life situation will help them see that these are not to be used in isolation but combined to help when they don't understand.
ReplyDeleteHi Kyra,
ReplyDeleteI am glad that this chapter was helpful to you as a teacher of reading. What resonated with me the most was Routman's explanation of the importance of modeling the process of reading a text in front of students so they see not just the fluent reading but they see our strategies for re-reading and figuring out what we are reading.