QUOTE: "Teacher's can't assume that students will learn to accomplish simply my doing lots of reading; instead, students develop an understanding of comprehension and what readers do to be successful through a combination of instruction and authentic reading activities."
COMMENT: This quote really changed my thoughts on teaching reading in the classroom. It has always been emphasized how beneficial and important it is to have children read, but this quote also says that reading isn't everything. As teachers we need to take the responsibilty upon ourselves to have teaching activites along with the assigned reading for the students to become proficient readers. Reading lessons cannot be checked off the list of activities for the day with a session of SSR. There need to be activities and discussions and summaries and analysis made.
QUESTION: Teaching reading comprehension is a pretty big deal and seems like it could take up all day, every day. Is there any way to balance out the reading comprehension strategies to use with cross-curricular? Or is it more effective to just have a specific "reading comprehension" lesson so the students realize what they are trying to master?
I think it's necessary to have a combination of the two. I think students must have some formal lesson so they recognize what reading comprehension is. They can learn what steps are involved, what types of questions to ask, etc. Then, go ahead and put it into practice! Use it in English, science, social studies (especially social studies because you can do a ton of text-to-self/text-to-world stuff with history). I think once you give kids the basic tools, let them apply it everywhere they can. It might be helpful to remind them to use their comprehension tools as they're reading other subjects. I think they'll find themselves much better off academically that way :)
ReplyDelete^ That's from Esther...my screen name's Bird. :)
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