Sunday, October 28, 2012

Comprehension and Think-Alouds

I immediately connected the readings for this week to a section that I am studying for Educational Psychology.  We were discussing how when a child is learning something that they use their prior knowledge to form a schema about the new stimulus.  It makes perfect sense for educators to also apply this to reading comprehension.  When we read something for the first time as active readers we, or I at least always try to connect it to something in my knowledge bank.  I do not remember if this was something that I was explicitly taught or something that I just started to do.  I really liked the article about how Kindergarten students were learning how to connect to the literature that they were exposed to.  I do not believe that I would have thought to encourage that a such a young age in their reading development.

I believe that comprehending the material is much more than just a few questions at the end of a reading selection.  I know that recent testing has been changed to reflect a more thoughtful response, although I am not sure that more testing is the answer to increasing our student's comprehension in the material.  If a student in unable to connect the material to something that they already know it will become increasingly more difficult for them to comprehend it.  I really liked the different examples of thought map, such as the KWL chart.  I don't remember doing this activity until my Children's Literature class in college, but I believe it would be extremely beneficial to do at all levels, especially as a group activity before beginning a reading assignment.

  • Do you think that thought maps and organizers are beneficial to all students for comprehension?
  • Can forcing comprehension scare some students away from the joy of reading?
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5 comments:

  1. AneishaOctober 28, 2012 at 4:57 PM

    I think thought maps can be very beneficial to students, especially young children. These thought maps and organizers are especially useful for children to organize their thoughts and ideas while reading stories. I think when children can write down their thoughts, they are better able to comprehend stories, which allows there to clearly express the main ideas of the story. The key here is organization of thoughts, and thought maps provide that.

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  2. UnknownOctober 28, 2012 at 5:52 PM

    Thought maps and organizers are very beneficial to students because it prevents students from getting too overwhelmed with the material they're reading. In the preschool classroom that I work in KWL charts are extremely popular and the kids love to get involved in making the charts. This shows that children as young as 3-years-old can benefit from graphic organizers.

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  3. MONsterOctober 29, 2012 at 11:09 AM

    I love your last question...I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

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  4. WaltOctober 29, 2012 at 2:37 PM

    I think that "forcing comprehension" is encouraging and can make reading more pleasurable. Making connections and understanding makes a reading more interesting and relevant. On the contrary, I think that reading for other skills, such as fluency and rate, take the joy out of reading.

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  5. UnknownOctober 29, 2012 at 7:00 PM

    I think comprehension can scare some children away from reading at first, but I think once they understand the importance of comprehending it all will make sense to them. I think it will frustrate some students to decipher the text when they are not use to it, but once they can read something and comprehend it, I think all the more reading will be to them.

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