Developing Thoughtful Comprehenders

Chapter 7 in Classrooms That Work, speaks about how important it is to not just teach students how to read but also to teach them to understand what they are reading.  I completely agree that without background knowledge, the text is really hard to understand.  I know when I took my philosophy class at The University of TN, I was often confused with the reading because I did not understand what it was speaking or relating to so comprehension was really difficult to where I would have to read it more than once, look on the internet for information that would be helpful, and ask a lot of questions during discussion.  I am sure that this has happened while I was in elementary school as well, when I came across vocabulary words that I did not understand.  Also I have noticed that when I read it seems that I am just reading through the words but not taking in the information, as this was talked about in the reading, Developing Thoughtful Comprehenders. 
I think it is important to predict what is going to happen in the text before reading, and imagining what the experience will be like.  I feel that using open-ended questions is also a great way to assess students as to whether they understand the reading or not.  I know that personally it helps when I can relate the text to the world, as talked about in chapter seven. 
I feel that students need to know how important it is to have comprehension skills, as it helps with talking in social settings, greater choices of books to read, and also collaboration skills.  One way to do this is by finding important ideas,  reading the text in segments, and by questioning.  I really liked the idea of using the "beach ball" method to help students comprehend reading. With this a permanent marker is wrote on each segment of the ball with phrases that tie into the reading.



Have you ever felt like when you read something for a college class that you were wasting your time because you were not comprehending the information?  Did it make you feel like you were not going to do well in the class?

Source:  Cunningham, P. M., & Allington, R. L.  (2010).  Developing thoughtful comprehenders.  (Chapter 7, Classrooms That Work.)

Creating Fluent Readers

Rasinski talks about the importance of creating fluent readers, and not just students who can accurately sound out words in this article.  Reading fluency is the ability to develop control over surface-level processing so that one can focus on understanding the deeper levels of meaning embedded in the text.  I agree that although a student may be able to correctly sound out words, it does mean that they will have an even flow when reading or comprehending the vocabulary that is presented within the words that they are reading.  They must also be able to take the step from decoding to comprehension.  I know this is a weakness that I had as I went through elementary-middle grades.  To this day I still struggle sometimes with vocabulary, so I do not feel that my education was focused enough on the comprehension part of reading and was focused more of getting the decoding process through.  I feel that students also struggle with automatic processing, where they make a lot of mental errors while trying to decode the reading.  It is important to calculate somehow the fluency of the reader either through some type of percentage, reading rate, or rubric.  Without connecting the weaknesses and strengths of the readers, I do not think improvement can be made.  Assisted readings with the teacher, a group, or a partner can be a natural way to access the student reading fluency.  This may have to be repeated to figure out improvement that need to be made or has been made since the last listen.  A chart of a Multidimensional Fluency Scale presented in this article gave some great areas of expression with volume, phrases, smoothness, and pace to help teachers realize what need to be worked on and what has been mastered.  Some examples to look at are making the language sound natural, enthusiasm, monotone, choppy reading, rhythm, and multiple attempts.  Do you remember ever using repeated reading to accomplish reading fluency?  Do you feel like learning to read was more about the speed that you could read?

Here is an example of building reading fluency with repeated reading.

Here is an interview with Dr. Timothy Rasinski about his thoughts about reading fluency.

Source: Rasinski, T. (2004). Creating fluent readers. Educational Leadership, 46-51.

Real-Life Reading Inquiry

On October 5, 2012 I observed at an elementary school in Knoxville, TN in a resource classroom.  Although some of the students participate with physical education, music, art, etc. with their peers from the general education classroom, most of the students are self-contained the entire days.  The grades present in the classroom this year are kindergarten- 5th grade.  Usually once the students reach 6th grade, they will be provided with inclusion in a general education classroom. 
I noticed on the wall everything was labeled from math words, furniture, the alphabet that was presented in cursive and sign language, colors, shapes, temperature, numbers, and word of the day sentences.  I think that it is essential for these students to have this connection with the words and the pictures or objects that they represent to help build their vocabulary since they can not hear these words spoken. The mode of communication that was used in the classroom was Signed English.  With this type of communication, the goal is to help students learn the structure of the English language while still being able to use a form of sign language.
I observed from 8:30-10:15 and noticed how much reading, spelling, and vocabulary are used in every subject.  When I arrived the children were doing calendar time for the day which included learning about the month, year, the day before, present day, tomorrow, the season, time, how many days of school had been completed, and who had birthdays in October.  The students must be able to read these words to understand the sign that corresponds and what meaning the word carries so that they can use it when completing morning work.
From 8:40- 9:10 different students worked on various tasks. One student in the third grade, John worked on his morning work using frequently used works, while two other boys used Microsoft Word.  Markus who is in fourth grade with multiple disabilities worked to identify words and learn how to recognize letters on the keyword that the interpreter Kara signed.  Branden, who is in fifth grade worked on typing sentences that describe a picture that he found on the internet.  An interpreter intern student from UT helped him complete this task.  Jasmine, who is in the fourth grade, worked with the teacher, Ms. Sally, on math problems.  She used a small white board to work on these problems.
Starting at 9:15, the students learned about China on the globe, how to fingerspell/sign the word, and how to use chopsticks.  I believe this lesson helped the students connect with the rest of the world while helping with fine motor skills.
At 9:30, the teacher, Ms. Sally read a book to the students that Branden had picked out.  The book was called "Horrorble Book", which she pointed to as saying.  The teacher did a wonderful job of presenting the concepts of print.  She stated things such as:  "I see an eyeball, spider web, and skeleton.  What do you all see?"  She then said "Let's open the book."  She did an awesome job of acting out the book as she signed to the students.  She asked questions before going to the next page.  The students were also allowed to touch the pages and express the pictures that they saw on each page.  I thought that this activity should a great way to get students to interact with one another, the teacher, and the book.
When it was 9:50, Jasmine and Branden had their spelling tests.  Since the students are at different grade levels they each had ten different words.  After the test, Ms. Sally explained to the students ways to improve their spelling.  She expressed the need that they need to write them down to help study and could also have their parents help them study throughout the week.  I believe that it is essential to get to parents involved in the student's learning.  A parent who helps the student learn, creates a connection that will help the child feel confident about learning in all aspects of education.  John worked on making origami during this time, which I also believe helped the students with fine motor skills, and connecting with the world.  Markus used flexible rubber cords to spell out recognition words.  This ended at around 10:15 when I had to leave.
Overall I learned that reading must be incorporated into all subjects of learning.  This can be done through hands-on interactive lessons, which I feel is essential for students who are deaf and hard of hearing.  I also feel that it is important for the teacher, interpreters, and parents to support the student when learning how to spell and read, to create a comfortable safe learning environment.  I also think that parents should understand that learning should carry over to time spend out of the school day as well.  Teachers must also realize that every minute counts while the student learns at school because the majority of their day is spent in the school environment.  Learning should be fun but meaningful at the same time.  This observation helped me realize just how much reading and spelling is used throughout the learning process for students.

Note:  All names are pseudonyms.

Making Words with Invented Spelling-Decoding

This week's reading was about allowing children to invent their spelling.  It is a powerful indicator of their phonemic awareness.   I think that it is a good starting point for knowing what children's knowledge is about spelling and making words.  However, if their mistakes are not corrected then I feel that the children will not be good spellers as their education progresses.  The article also states that children who can spell words are more likely to be able to read those words.  I do not feel that this is always the case, especially in the English language where sometimes the word does not sound like it is spelled.  I do however feel that having a decoding ability in reading is improved with being able to spell.  A 15 minute activity that is used to accomplish these skills is Making Words.  This allows children to take letters and use them to make words.  The children start with two-letter words and continue to make eight-word letters.  This active, hands-on manipulative activity where children discover sound-letter relationships and how patterns work in words.  They understand that changing one letter or sequence of letters changes the entire word.  This activity also teaches children the five vowels, and that the letter y can be a vowel and consonant.  Overall this activity is supposed to help those who lack phonemic awareness develop this skill.  I think that it is important to use an interactive lesson to teach children how to create words with invented spelling.

 Making Words
Invented Spelling 

Source:
 Cunningham, P. M., & Cunningham, J. W.  (1992).  Making Words:  Enhancing the spelling-decoding connection.  The Reading Teacher, 46, 106-115.