Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Chapter 4: Explicit Instruction in Comprehension

Chapter 4 continues the theme of making independent readers out of dependent readers, although this chapter focuses on improving comprehension levels in order to do that. Instead of just telling our students what they should be doing, we need to model what they should be doing. While we're reading aloud, we should predict what is going to happen, summarizing, comparing and contrasting, and etc. We should be doing all the things we want our students to do, but we can't just tell them this. We have to show them how to do this by doing it ourselves and explaining what we are doing.

I think teaching comprehension skills is important and should be something we do. In the long run, if our students have a strong comprehension skills, teaching them the content will be that much easier. While it would be harder for us to do both, in order to best serve our students, we have to be able to teach both.

1 comment:

  1. I also agree with you on modeling for students so that they have a better understanding and can also have examples for what they need to be looking for. I know as a student myself when a teacher models a project or a certain activity before they ask me to participate helps me gain a better understanding. My best work is done through examples. I am going to be an intervention specialist and knowing that I have a hard time being productive with out examples, makes me wonder how one of my students would feel if I did not model tasks for them. They would be lost and frustrated. knowing the levels of students comprehension is also a key role in how much modeling we need to do for each student but in the end we always hope for success!

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