Quote:
"Fluent readers' comprehension is stronger, and they think more deeply about their reading than emergent and beginning readers do. It's likely that children's comprehension improves at this stage because they have more cognitive energy available for comprehension and have more cognitive resources available for comprehending what they read." (Tompkins, 125)
Comment:
I really enjoyed this chapter. I especially enjoyed the story at the beginning of Mrs. McCloskey's class. I found it interesting that she used the same book over and over again in multiple ways in order to promote literacy. I guess I just assumed that children would quickly become tired of a story and would become bored by the repitition. However, after reading that portion of the chapter I came to realize that the children really seemed to thrive with those activites. The familiarity with the story seemed to really help them in being able to recognize words, sounds, and letters. I especially appreciated the fact that she used so many different settings with the story to accomodate all types of learners. While some really can perform well in a grand conversation type setting, others are just more comfortable in small group shared reading or even just partner shared reading. I feel as though it is crucial to student learning to support it in whatever setting is their comfort zone because that is where they will be the most willing to learn.
As far as the quote I chose, I simply chose it because I found it so interesting, and something that I had never really thought of before. I always assumed that, though kids had to sound out words as emergent literacy learners, they would automatically pick up what the passage meant. I am getting a reality check that, with literacy development, nothing is automatic. Everything will take some training.
Question:
If you are working with a child who is still stuck in the emergent literacy phase (sounding out words, etc), and that child is below grade level and needs to be comprehending, how can you support comprehension and reading ability itself without overloading the child and turning him/her off to reading?
I agree that this was a very interesting read, and I really like the quote you picked. That idea was something that stood out to me as well.
ReplyDeleteI think we could help the emergent literacy student by working with him/her many different times, but keep each lesson a short one. Similar to the rereading of the same story, through the repetition, the student will begin to grasp different ideas and be able to connect them and grow as a reader. I think another important thing would be to find topics that the student is interested in. The reading would then be much more interesting for them if we can find things they can relate to.