reading instruction

[razorbackmama]

I'm probably mulling this over because I'm currently taking a college class on how to teach reading. And I should probably take everything the textbook says with a grain of salt because it doesn't even give the proper definition of a phonogram.:001_huh: But here I am anyway.

 

One thing the text talks about is the importance of scaffolding and modeling for the child how to actually THINK about what they are reading. It really stresses metacognition and that the teacher should be directly teaching these things to the students as they are reading so they can learn how to comprehend well.

 

Have y'all done this? How? Does it come naturally to you to do this, or have you used a curriculum of some sort? I think BJU reading does this somewhat, from what I remember.

 

Or is this even necessary? I have to admit that my kids do NOT comprehend well, and part of me wonders if it's because I DIDN'T do this sort of thing with them.:confused: I guess I just assumed that they would naturally comprehend what they were reading, and it didn't occur to me that I might have to actually teach them strategies on how to think about what they were reading. I'd like to remedy that, since it's still a struggle for them, but I'm not sure how.

[cholderby]

:bigear:

[Mandy in TN]

CLE teaches this way. I only used CLE LTR with CLE LA1 (first semeter 1st grade schedule) and CLE LA1 with I Wonder (first grade second semester schedule). I assume the rest of the reading series also does this, but I haven't used it.

 

Jane Erwin's Early Reading in Varied Subject Matter and then Reading in Varied Subject Matter develops these skills as does Crabb-Mcall and the SRA specific skills series.

 

Also, any grade-leveled literature book probably includes this to some degree.

 

HTH-

Mandy

[Mandy in TN]

One thing the text talks about is the importance of scaffolding and modeling for the child how to actually THINK about what they are reading. It really stresses metacognition and that the teacher should be directly teaching these things to the students as they are reading so they can learn how to comprehend well.

 

Have y'all done this? How? Does it come naturally to you to do this, or have you used a curriculum of some sort? I think BJU reading does this somewhat, from what I remember.

<palming my own forehead for forgetting> Oh, for pete's sake. isn't this what B4FIAR and FIAR does? Or for a more secular approach Picture Book Activities by Trish Kuffner?

Mandy

Edited April 6, 2011 by Mandy in TN

[Momling]

I've found that there is a lot of really well-intended, but often meaningless pedagogical jargon in education classes. The idea of scaffolding and modeling are just obvious things that good teachers (at home or in a classroom) might occasionally do.

 

For instance... before you hand your child a book that might be on the challenging side, you might glance at the pictures and the title and say things like "I wonder what this is going to be about...", or point out that "Hey, we read something about this topic last week" or "This is about dinosaurs, isn't it? Remember that museum we went to/TV show we saw/book we read?" The idea is just that it's easier to read and understand something that you already know a little bit about. I don't think you really need a curriculum to teach that.

[razorbackmama]

I've found that there is a lot of really well-intended, but often meaningless pedagogical jargon in education classes. The idea of scaffolding and modeling are just obvious things that good teachers (at home or in a classroom) might occasionally do.

 

For instance... before you hand your child a book that might be on the challenging side, you might glance at the pictures and the title and say things like "I wonder what this is going to be about...", or point out that "Hey, we read something about this topic last week" or "This is about dinosaurs, isn't it? Remember that museum we went to/TV show we saw/book we read?" The idea is just that it's easier to read and understand something that you already know a little bit about. I don't think you really need a curriculum to teach that.

Ah, you would be one of the ones that that sort of thing comes naturally to.;) Let me guess, as you read aloud you probably stop and talk about stuff along the way too?

 

Believe me when I say that this sort of thing does NOT come naturally to some teachers (this one!). I can comprehend on my OWN, but it doesn't come naturally to INSTRUCT my children in it.

[razorbackmama]

Wondering about this again today after a frustrating experience with my 8th grader and his inability to comprehend a VERY simple story that was about 5-6 sentences long. Sigh.

 

Does reading comprehension actually NEED to be explicitly TAUGHT? Sigh.

[blondeviolin]

I am one that instinctually asks questions and directs thoughts and questions and ideas on to even my young listeners during storytime. I can't help with older kids, but if you have younger kids, Jim Trelease's Read-Aloud Handbook will be invaluable. While a lot of it was review and/or duh-moments for myself, I did learn a few new tricks. And for my husband, who does not have awesome retention and/or comprehension, it is hard for him to enjoy reading aloud to the kids. This book's instruction had immeasurable value for him.

[kathkath]

It is best taught modeled when you read aloud to them. Demonstrate by thinking out loud when you don't understand something, when you make a prediction, when you check your prediction, make a comparison or connection, synthesize what you are reading with prior learning. I think a lot of times comprehension is viewed simply as remembering details about what you learned or being able to summarize a passage but it is far more than that. Have you read Stephanie Harvey's "Strategies that work." Also learning story grammar (setting character problem solution etc) and nonfiction text structure (outlining etc) helps a child understand the map of text and better comprehend. It is also a good way to help them learn to summarize and look for theme.

 

Once you have modeled this a lot then you can take it up a notch by pausing in certain places while you read aloud, and asking probing questions to help draw the connections/comparisons/synthesis.

[Mrs Twain]

I went to a workshop at a homeschool convention on the subject of improving reading and listening comprehension. One of the strategies that is used especially to help older students is to teach them to make a movie in their heads and they listen or read. Most people do this without thinking about it, but evidently some people who don't benefit from exercises that help them to learn how.

 

Start by having the student(s) look straight ahead and toward the top of a blank wall. As you read a passage, explain to them that they should imagine each part. After each sentence or two, instruct the student on what to imagine. As if you read about a rabbit looking out of his hole, tell the student to imagine a rabbit, maybe it is white, it peeps its head out to look around. Then the rabbit slowly comes out of his hole. Of whatever the details are, you help the student to start imagining the scene and the events to make a movie in his mind. After you read the passage, ask the student to replay the movie and to summarize the passage. With practice, this is supposed to help!

[RobinF]

Don't children learn comprehension through narration too? I kind of thought that was one reason to have children narrate. So they could learn to listen to detail and recall them.

[texasmama]

We do much of our curriculum in a read aloud form which lends itself to discussion and comprehension. I don't "teach" any formal skills for comprehension other than the ones learned through the use of WWE narration. My kids appear to be doing well with this approach. I'm sure that every child is different, but this is what has worked for us thusfar.

[eternal_hope]

It is best taught modeled when you read aloud to them. Demonstrate by thinking out loud when you don't understand something, when you make a prediction, when you check your prediction, make a comparison or connection, synthesize what you are reading with prior learning. I think a lot of times comprehension is viewed simply as remembering details about what you learned or being able to summarize a passage but it is far more than that. Have you read Stephanie Harvey's "Strategies that work."

 

:iagree: Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey would be an excellent books for learning reading comprehension strategies. It was written for the classroom, but there's a lot of valuable ideas in there. It's very well-written and shows you exactly what they would do to teach the strategy. Until just a few months ago, I was a fifth-grade teacher in our neighborhood public schools, and we explicity taught reading comprehension strategies all the time. Some kids just "get it" on their own, but most don't. I don't think you need a separate curriculum to teach reading comprehension; just use whatever books you're already using and apply the strategies to them. I would definitely check out that book, and there's also a ton of information on the Internet about reading strategies. I hope that helps!

 

~Bethany

[RoundAbout]

I am one that instinctually asks questions and directs thoughts and questions and ideas on to even my young listeners during storytime. I can't help with older kids, but if you have younger kids, Jim Trelease's Read-Aloud Handbook will be invaluable.

 

:iagree:

 

I absolutely love this book and I re-read it periodically to get new insights. One of the things I remember him saying is that for beginning readers comprehension building/quizzing should take place with adult read-alouds and be taught separate from the child's decoding skills.

 

I'm no expert, but it makes sense to me that a new reader might have trouble trying to do both simultaneously and that its better to make progress on two separate fronts until the skills naturally converge.

[razorbackmama]

Thanks for the book recommendations! I will look into those!

 

Don't children learn comprehension through narration too? I kind of thought that was one reason to have children narrate. So they could learn to listen to detail and recall them.

 

In theory, yes. However, I have a student that will narrate something that is completely and totally OFF from something he has read. If I am unfamiliar with the book then I don't catch it. It's not that he's trying to bluff his way through or anything - he just completely misunderstands what he reads.

[Critterfixer]

Metacognition is not in my dictionaries. Can I assume that it is related to metalanguage? (A form of language or set of terms used for the description or analysis of another language.) Argh! This is like categoramatic. As Mark Twain says you can't trip over a word like that and not cripple yourself more or less.

 

I think there are several stages to comprehending what you read. For instance, I can read several lines of Plato's Republic and I comprehend the words he used. Most of 'em. But I'm going to have to read, and re-read and struggle through a great deal more before I can give you an educated guess at what he "meant." And some days I'm going to struggle with the basic comprehension of just the words! And having written essays that demonstrated beyond a doubt that I comprehended something I read I can say without a doubt that there were many cases where I did not truly "comprehend."

 

I think there are probably stages to narration that reflect deeper understanding of material as a child gets older. Questions could be asked that challenge the student to dig deeper and to think about what he is reading. Narration is more the measure of the comprehension, but there is no reason why is could not be used as a tool to increase comprehension.

[Mrs Twain]

Strategies That Work by Stephanie Harvey would be an excellent books for learning reading comprehension strategies. It was written for the classroom, but there's a lot of valuable ideas in there. It's very well-written and shows you exactly what they would do to teach the strategy. Until just a few months ago, I was a fifth-grade teacher in our neighborhood public schools, and we explicity taught reading comprehension strategies all the time. Some kids just "get it" on their own, but most don't. I don't think you need a separate curriculum to teach reading comprehension; just use whatever books you're already using and apply the strategies to them. I would definitely check out that book, and there's also a ton of information on the Internet about reading strategies. I hope that helps!

 

~Bethany

 

Chapter 8 of "Strategies That Work" evidently has a chapter about visualizing and making a movie in your mind (which I was trying to describe in my other post).

[RobinF]

Thanks for the book recommendations! I will look into those!

 

 

 

In theory, yes. However, I have a student that will narrate something that is completely and totally OFF from something he has read. If I am unfamiliar with the book then I don't catch it. It's not that he's trying to bluff his way through or anything - he just completely misunderstands what he reads.

 

Do you think it is a visual thing? Like he isn't actually "reading" the words on the page. Not sure if that makes sense but I wonder if actually doing some read aloud work with him would help.

[razorbackmama]

Do you think it is a visual thing? Like he isn't actually "reading" the words on the page. Not sure if that makes sense but I wonder if actually doing some read aloud work with him would help.

For THIS son, no. He has Central Auditory Processing Disorder and consequently Mixed Receptive-Expressive Language Disorder, so he misunderstand spoken language somewhat too.

 

I do have another son in vision therapy, so I know what you're talking about there.

 

But it seems that all my kids, except for my highly precocious 6yo, struggle with comprehension to some extent, and I'm wondering if it's because I expected them to just "get it," (you know, like homeschoolers are "supposed to":lol: ) and didn't do enough explicit teaching in HOW to comprehend....

[Critterfixer]

I don't know if this would be of use to you, but I have recently started "modeling" narration for both of my boys, ds7, one with autism. Both of them are more visually engaged than auditory engaged (don't even know if that is a real term, but y'all know what I mean:001_smile:). When we read a Fable or a short story or something from science or SOTW I sit down with them, sometimes together, sometimes one on one and we work through the narrative process.

I start by drawing something from the story--pretty rough, just a symbol to represent the story. Then I will ask questions: Who was the story about? We write that on a part of the figure I drew. Then: What happened first? We write that on another part of the figure. We carry on with the events in the story this way until we come to the end of the story or passage. Then I review the questions and we set those into sentence format. I will usually then have them draw something from the story once we have gone over the narration.

Obviously, and older child would need this modified, maybe into an outline form. But it might help him if you show him what he should be looking for.

[razorbackmama]

Yeah, those are the things he doesn't quite get. For example, when I asked who the main character was in Gentle Ben (not sure if I used those exact words or not, but he knew what I meant...who was the book "about"), he said the bear. Sigh.

 

He actually can narrate pretty well...it's whether he can figure out those main things...yikes.

 

And it's SO variable too. I never know what he'll understand and what he won't. For example, he watched Back to the Future about 15 times and then asked some question that let me know he had no idea what it was about. I had to explain the whole plot of the movie, that since MARTY was the one hit by the car, it changed history, that's why he was disappearing, because his mom fell in love with HIM not his dad, etc. He had NO idea until then, even though he'd seen it so many times.:001_huh:

 

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

[2_girls_mommy]

Yes, it comes naturally to me. I don't even think about the kinds of things people are saying on here. I just do it. But I know what you mean about teachers that don't. I have seen it.

[Critterfixer]

Yeah, those are the things he doesn't quite get. For example, when I asked who the main character was in Gentle Ben (not sure if I used those exact words or not, but he knew what I meant...who was the book "about"), he said the bear. Sigh.

 

How long was the book? Even if something is relatively simple in plot if it is long enough to allow his mind to keep going without organizing what he has read in his mind then his narration would be disjointed.

 

Maybe Gentle Ben doesn't seem complex, and neither does Back to The Future, but for someone who struggles with hearing and understanding language, it might be like trying to read Don Quixote in Spanish having only a high-school level Spanish understanding.

You could probably translate the words, but you would be too tired at the end of a paragraph to even think about the meaning! Probably, if you were dedicated to the project you would first translate the paragraph, then read it again, and then you might summarize it, then tackle the next one. At the end of all the paragraphs in the first chapter you would read all your notes and come up with a sort of summary for the chapter. Then tackle the next chapter.

For a movie you might go scene by scene.

Granted, this isn't much fun. There should be books he reads that he doesn't have to dissect. But for school perhaps you could have him work through a book in a similar manner.

1) Read through the chapter.

2)Read it again and take notes. For notes, I would ask him to identify the character leading most of the action, the action or event, what happens first, second and third (and so forth), and the outcome. Write those things down or have him tell you what he has identified (with the book in hand).

3)Read it again and at the end of it, summarize in two to three sentences, using the notes as a template, what happened in that chapter.

 

You can do the same thing with movies--scene by scene.:001_smile:

[razorbackmama]

How long was the book? Even if something is relatively simple in plot if it is long enough to allow his mind to keep going without organizing what he has read in his mind then his narration would be disjointed.

 

Maybe Gentle Ben doesn't seem complex, and neither does Back to The Future, but for someone who struggles with hearing and understanding language, it might be like trying to read Don Quixote in Spanish having only a high-school level Spanish understanding.

You could probably translate the words, but you would be too tired at the end of a paragraph to even think about the meaning! Probably, if you were dedicated to the project you would first translate the paragraph, then read it again, and then you might summarize it, then tackle the next one. At the end of all the paragraphs in the first chapter you would read all your notes and come up with a sort of summary for the chapter. Then tackle the next chapter.

For a movie you might go scene by scene.

Granted, this isn't much fun. There should be books he reads that he doesn't have to dissect. But for school perhaps you could have him work through a book in a similar manner.

1) Read through the chapter.

2)Read it again and take notes. For notes, I would ask him to identify the character leading most of the action, the action or event, what happens first, second and third (and so forth), and the outcome. Write those things down or have him tell you what he has identified (with the book in hand).

3)Read it again and at the end of it, summarize in two to three sentences, using the notes as a template, what happened in that chapter.

 

You can do the same thing with movies--scene by scene.:001_smile:

This is actually what he's going to be doing next year as an intro to literary analysis. I'm using Movies as Literature with him. It will be pure torture for him, but too bad.:lol::lol::lol:

[ChandlerMom]

I have to roll my eyes at the terminology -- usually a sign they are trying to make more of themselves than they are. Approach to hs and classroom teaching are different. In hs you may or may not automatically do these things, but you will have a better sense of what your kid gets and doesn't get. If they don't get it, time to consider formally teaching them strategies. But to decide you are going to instruct ALL kids "how to think" ...smacks of lacking the fundamental understanding that all kids are unique. My kids are naturally good at abstraction, so I haven't needed to "teach" them how THEY think. THey teach ME. :D

 

For a ps teacher, they need more blanket approaches to help the kid they may not even know has a problem and doesn't have the time to figure it out. But if everyone suffers thru learning these strategies, then the % that need them will get them (at the cost of boredom for those who didn't).

 

On the other hand, if a kid is struggling, giving them strategies that are more native to their thinking is great. Sounds like OPs child has a general difficulty with comprehension of input (audio or visual). That will require different strategies than a child who just has trouble converting the printed word into a story (making a movie is great for the visual learner, but may be a waste for the auditory learner who would rather imagine hearing the story).

 

So....formal curriculum? No. But if my dc were to start struggling on that or any other area, I'd start looking into ways to facilitate their native thinking.

[Critterfixer]

But to decide you are going to instruct ALL kids "how to think" ...smacks of lacking the fundamental understanding that all kids are unique. My kids are naturally good at abstraction, so I haven't needed to "teach" them how THEY think.

 

Well, yes and no.

A classical education is designed to teach a child how to learn, and "how to think" is part of that process, at least in the logic stage.

A quote from TWTM reads "She spent the early part of our years of school giving us facts, systematically laying the foundation for advanced study. She taught us to think through arguments, and then she taught us how to express ourselves."

[RootAnn]

.... I thought about this thread as dd#3 was reading from 100EL tonight and after each sentence, I would ask a question. (It is scripted this way.) So, DD might read, "The ant sat in the sand." I would ask, "What sat in the sand?" or "Where was the ant sitting?" This is the very first step in "reading comprehension" when they are reading on their own.

 

... And yes, when we read aloud, we talk about things as we go. I sometimes make comments myself about what I think a character is thinking or ask what the kids think a character is going to do next.

 

I don't even think about it, but you posting this has made me realize this is one area I don't struggle with. :hurray: (Sometimes, it seems I have struggles with every.different.area.) :auto:

[Critterfixer]

I thought about this thread as dd#3 was reading from 100EL tonight and after each sentence, I would ask a question. (It is scripted this way.) So, DD might read, "The ant sat in the sand." I would ask, "What sat in the sand?" or "Where was the ant sitting?" This is the very first step in "reading comprehension" when they are reading on their own.

 

... And yes, when we read aloud, we talk about things as we go. I sometimes make comments myself about what I think a character is thinking or ask what the kids think a character is going to do next.

 

This is a good idea. I do this with my boys, although they do still struggle with comprehension when they read on their own. I think it does help.

Sometimes if I plan copywork to go with something that we have read, I make a sentence for them that pertains to what a character is thinking or an aspect of how the plot worked out.