Comprehension Strategies

Making Connections: Our Own Daily Lives and Experiences

"Smith (1975) defined comprehension as 'relating new experiences to the already known... Anything [readers] cannot relate to what they know already will not make sense; it will be nonsense"(Gill 108).

"Using the think-aloud strategy, Mrs. Hope guided the students to categorize their connections by modeling text-to-self, text-to-text, or text-to-world connections. Through this categorization, students better understood ways in which to connect and make meaning with texts" (Gregory 516).

Comprehension is inclusive of the reader, the text, and the purpose. Why are you reading a certain piece of literature? More importantly, why are you trying to make your classroom read it? What sets this work apart, i.e. what makes it worthy of instruction?

There has been a large push recently toward integrating text into every aspect of a student's day, beyond just Language Arts class and into Science, Math, and every mundane activity from lining up to looking around a classroom. Children are exposed to text rich environments, and need to learn quickly the importance of text in order to learn most effectively. This can be modeled by parents and teachers, from writing a letter to writing memos to sending emails. 

However, when it comes to making children most invested in improving their reading, students have to be presented with passages that are INTERESTING TO THEM. They have to be able to connect it to something they've done, read, heard, or seen in order to assimilate it with their current knowledge or schema of the world. This idea of text connections can be introduced as early into schooling as kindergarten, perhaps through a catchy, easily memorizable song like the one shown above. 

How should a teacher introduce texts into a class with a broad interest range? In your opinion, how effective is a biannual interest survey for a teacher to keep on file?


Gill, Sharon. The Comprehension Matrix: A Tool for Designing Comprehension Instruction.
Gregory, Anne and Mary Cahill. Kindergarteners Can Do It, Too! Comprehension Strategies for Early Readers.

Fostering Fluency

What Exactly is Fluency?

For those of us who are unaware of the variable 

components of fluency, myself included, they are as follows:

1) Accuracy 

2) Rate or Speed

3) Prosody

all of which combine to influence:

4) Comprehension (Deeney)

Although the menagerie of assessments available for determining "fluency" often focus simply on accuracy and rate only, we as teachers need to remember that:

"Although such quick assessments may not be definitive, they do provide teachers and school administrators with a method for screening new students tracking sstudents' ongoing progress in the various dimensions of reading fluency, and identifying the students who may require additional assessment and instruction." (Rasinski 47)

The tests themselves may not determine fluency, but they surely aid in developing a knowledge base of what type of reader a student is, which is valuable as an aid for drafting future lesson plans.

 Prior to being able to TEACH anything, a teacher must first LEARN about their students and their various learning styles. 

The following website offers a lot of helpful activities for fostering fluency, 

ranging from individualized to whole-classroom instruction:

http://www.readingresource.net/readingfluency.html

How apparent do you think this shifting viewpoint (or shifting common knowledge) of fluency is going to affect one-minute assessments and other similar activities and their use in the classroom?

How important is using a word wall for fostering fluency in your future classroom? 

Allington, Richard and Patricia Cunningham. Fostering Fluency: Classrooms that Work: They Can All Read and Write. 
Deeney, Theresa. One Minute Fluency Measures: Mixed Messages in Assessment and Instruction.
Rasinski, Timothy. Creating Fluent Readers. 

Making Words: Enhancing the Invented Spelling-Decodinh Connection

"

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/363384263654693404/

"Clarke (1998) compared the effectiveness of invented spelling versus an emphasis on correct spelling in first-grade classrooms. The children who had invented spellings were superior to the others on measures of word decoding at the end of the year, In general, as children improve in the phonetic sophistication of their invented spellings, their later success in learning to read words becomes much more likely"

(Cunningham & Cunningham 107)

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/363384263654693398/

The shift from proposing a classroom wherein students are expected to learn to spell correctly immediately to one wherein incorrect spelling is, not only accepted, but also rewarded, is an interesting topic of research in early childhood education. My mother still has some of my "early writing" impregnated with incorrect spelling like the example on the left; in fact, I even have some pieces of writing from when I worked at a daycare, as well as some from my niece when she was younger. 

It is incredibly crucial to not just view this as a cute habit of young writers, but also as a stepping stone into more effective writing. In fact, as the quote above suggests, fostering this type of behavior, as well as successfully bridging the gap into correct spelling with phonics instruction in the classroom, can be a key indicator of future spelling success.

But then the problem arises:

How does a teacher transition from rewarding invented spelling to fostering correct spelling without the children responding negatively to the shift in values?

What are some ways that a teacher can promote invented spelling while also teaching phonics instruction? Would this best be handled in a personal or group setting?

Cunningham, James and Patricia Cunningham. Making Words: Enhancing the invented spelling-decoding connection.