As we
have discussed in the past, I am not a confident reader. After reading the two
chapters in the book I am better able to understand why my reading comprehension
is lacking. The major problem I have when it comes to reading is that I do not
comprehend. I can read and read but then I look back and realize I remember nothing
about what I just read. I think there are two specific aspects of reading that I
struggle with that don’t allow me to comprehend as well as others. First, when I
was a beginning reader, I remember that my word identification was very slow
and for longer words I usually guessed the word because I found sounding out
words difficult. Therefore I think my phonemic awareness needed to improve in
order for me to comprehend what I was reading. The other aspect I found
challenging was fluency, as I was unable to recognize words quickly and therefore
could not read fluently. These going into figuring out each individual word in
the text.
I think
the students in my kindergarten placement are still in the stages of identifying
words and building their knowledge of phonics, therefore most of the children
are not to the point that they can comprehend what they read. Most of the
reading that goes on in this class is shared reading, where the children can
see the text as the teacher reads it via the smart board or a big book, guided
reading, where the teacher works with a few children at a time, or interactive
read-alouds, where the children reads the book aloud to the class. These
strategies are the ones that require more teacher support, which I think is appropriate
for a kindergarten classroom. There are also times when the teacher allows for
independent reading, but she then supplies many different books as different
reading levels. To facilitate comprehension, I see my mentor teacher doing a
lot of grand conversations, which usually occur right after they do an
interactive read-aloud or a shared reading. During these conversations I usually
hear connections from the text to the children and occasionally from the text
to the world.
One
problem these reading brought to my attention was the lack of background
knowledge the English Language Learners might have when it comes to many of the
stories I have seen read to them. The children who are just learning English
are the ones that zone out or start doing other things during readings. This
could be caused by their need for more background knowledge. I think if my
teacher talked through some of the cultural knowledge and a few of the less
common words in the book before reading, these children would find it easier to
comprehend what is going on in the story.
Your experience with reading as a child reminds me a lot of the student I worked with in TE 301. Like you, when she came to a word she didn't know, she would guess a random word that started with the first letter rather than sound out the entire word. When I tested her phonemic awareness, her results were not as high as others at her grade level; therefore, I think your prediction is correct. It is very likely that you did not sound out words as a child due to lower phonemic awareness. Also, when I asked my TE 301 student comprehension questions based on text we would read, she would often answer with background knowledge rather than knowledge she had gained from the text. Therefore, I would define her as a "Quiz Contestant" according to Applegate's article. Did you notice yourself answering comprehension questions the same way when you were younger?
ReplyDeleteAs for the English Language Learners in your class, I completely agree with your suggested approach. In my own placement classroom now, I have a very diverse group of students. I've noticed the exact same situation where many of the ELL students become very distracted or disinterested when my mentor teacher reads to them. To give these students more background knowledge, my teacher could use some of the strategies we've gone over in class. For example, as she is reading a book aloud to the students, she can stop and ask the class what they think a certain word means that ELL students are unlikely to know. This way, ELL students when learn the meaning and be able to comprehend what the author is trying to say in that sentence. Moreover, if my mentor teacher wanted to make sure that all students were comprehending throughout the entire book, she could ask engaging questions to the class every couple pages. These questions can be anything from "How do you think this character feels right now? Why?" to "What do you think is going to happen next? Why?"