Comprehension

 Right of the bat this weeks readings struck me with Pardo's opening sentence talking about how teachers need to understand comprehension and all that is involved in comprehending before students can be effective comprehender's. As educators it's easy to think that our job is only to teach but really are job is to learn. To learn the subjects we are teaching and the most effective and up to date methods of teaching them, to learn from our students and base our lessons on their needs, and to learn are own strengths and weaknesses and constantly work for improvement. This is reinforced by Gill's discussion of the comprehension matrix. Utilizing resources can make teaching easier, more effective and more fun.
Comprehension like all aspects of reading is complex Comprehension itself is all about interaction with texts and bringing your own knowledge, experiences, and ideas into the text you're making sense of. This correlates with a responsibily for the teacher to introduce the students to a lot of text so they can broaden their vocabulary and knowledge and thus comprehension. It also is a responsibility to introduce text that bring unfamiliar and new ideas that can fall anywhere from scientific language to cultural ideas outside what students are normally exposed to. Reading is all about putting pieces together. It is a very involved experience.

 Teaching students to make connections helps them learn to do it automatically.

 You can also help readers show their thinking to increase comprehension. I really like this activity below.

The final article showed that it's never too early to teach reading comprehension. As with all aspects of reading it develops as the student develops as a learner. 

Question of the day: What part of comprehension do you is the most difficult for teachers to teach?
What methods would you use to promote comprehension that are more fun than just a worksheet?

Word Study: reading requires words

It's becoming more and more clear that reading is all about exposure, which make sense sinse reading is a part of everyone's daily. Students word knowledge is highly related to comprehension, if they don't know important words it is very hard to understand what they are reading. Developing vocabulary is a continuous process throughout life. Giving the students different skills decipher meaning of words themselves can make reading more fun, less difficult, and more practiced. I really liked some of the idea's of the Ten important words plus. I really want to teach the younger grades so I tried to tink of some ways it could be tweaked to make it more level appropriate for beginning readers:

1. In readings for younger children there are less difficult words because their vocabularies are smaller. A teacher in the younger grades may want to have the students pick out four words. Since the children are still developing reading skills the teacher may want to read the text to the class first and let them listen for comprehension and then they can go back and find four words they may not know on their own.
2. After the children get their 4 words do a similar chart and see which words the students chose. Have a discussion about the words. 
3. Let the children practice using the words in a sentence. Choose one word for each day and have them write a sentence that includes that word used correctly.
4.  Next, put them into groups and have them talk about what clues helped them decide what a word meant and what other words could be used in its place.(The beginning of understanding synoyms and comprehension) Have them read their sentences to eachother and talk about them.
5. On Friday, or however you want to do it, have the students get in their groups again and make a story using their words and sentences from the week. This will be fun for them and then they can present to the class. This gives you the chance to discuss any misinterpretations but also to praise the creative ways the children used the words to express an idea.

I think the writing exercises can help students with the concepts discussed about invented spelling. The more students are requried to read and write the more they will be exposed to words and learn to use them correctly, spell them correctly and understand their meaning. Maybe teachers could even pick out the words that children may struggle with and do a making words activity with the students before they do the the Important vocabulary words. Plan the lesson using the words of the week so if one of of your words of the week is gigantic us that for a making words activity before you define it and use it in a sentence.

I think a word wall like the one above could be a really cool way to keep tracks of the word the students have learned. Tis not only shows them their progress but gives them constant exposure to the words so they may continue to use them in discussion and writing. It might be really great to comment on the children using these words and encourage them to do so.
The blog I got this from has some really  good ideas about activities for writing : http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top_teaching/2011/02/my-january-top-ten-list-writing-lessons-and-resources#.UKr-gAb6MlE.pinterest

Questions of the Day:
 Do you think it would be effective to blend the two activities I talked about?
What other ideas do you have about incorporating these lessons into daily class, maybe use a book about butterflies when discussing metamorphosis in science?

Fluency: It's more than just words on a page

Throughout the reading a metaphor kept popping in my head about fluency. Fluency is a lot like watching a movie you don't completely understand when you are a kid and then rewatching it as an adult. How many jokes or important plot twist go unnoticed because all your trying to do is unerstand the movie well enough to get through it? One of the most important points in the reading was that it's not just a teachers job to decide whether students had problems with frequency but why and what parts. It talked about how fluency has different parts and one minute assessments and other traditional methods aren't cutting it. It's difficult sometimes to make so many factors fit into one assignment and limited time in the classroom. As the readings discussed using interesting, easier to read texts to practice fluency with I thought it might be really fun to do with music and found a really excellent example of a teacher blog on Pinterest that does just that:
http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2012/12/using-music-improve-reading-fluency

I'm all about alternative methods to teaching ideas and I feel like this is a really good way to practice fluency. Students can hear what it's supposed to sound like and the inflection(prosody), practice speed(rate of speed), and try to understand what the text is saying without too much effort(accuracy and comprehension). I also really like that she points out how songs build vocabulary. Wanting my ELL credit makes me wander what awesome cultural exposure children could get by bringing in their own music. I can also see this having a high level interest and it it building student's confidence. How much easier is it to read a song or poem in front of the class if you've been exposed to it. Student's will grow more confident and teachers will raise expectations which will lead to more success. 

Questions of the day: Do you think that music would be a good way to implement fluency practice in the classroom?
What other aspects of reading could be improved this way?