When I am reading a good book, I rarely ever stop to make predictions. As one of the first comprehension strategies discussed in Ch. 7, I found this thought provoking. Should I take a step back in my readings and make predictions? I have often times loved books so much that I simply could not afford the time it took to lay a book down and think. For example, I loved the Harry Potter series so much that when I read the first two books on vacation, I begged my parents to buy me the third book so I could continue the story. However, I did find it somewhat interesting how before the last of those books came out last summer that I found myself wondering how it all would end. I discussed it with several people and discovered all people had ideas different than my own. With the second comprehension strategy, I found myself nodding and agreeing with what was written. I definitely can connect and respond more to texts that I myself can relate to. For example, it is difficult for me to get into war books and books about the wars of the past because they simply don't relate well to me. I have nothing to compare it to. As for visualizing, I can definitely say that I do create visuals in my mind. Sometimes though I am more concerned with the story and what is happening than the scene around it or what a character looks like. I don't consider myself to have a lot of visualization in books, but it is evident that I do SOME because I can see it when I watch a movie I have previously read the book of. I am almost always disappointed. I also think summarizing is critical to comprehension because in order to comprehend something and regurgitate it I need to internalize it first, before I can do anything else with it.
Concerning the Carlisle article about helping students in the classroom with LDs, I found to be most interesting, because I have not received much direction in teaching and accomodating students with LDs in the classroom while maintaining the regular pace of most of the classroom. I found myself wondering what these students will be like in middle school, high school, and after. I tried to think of people I knew in elementary school or middle and high school with learning disabilities in the classroom. I could not think of any. Obviously, I remembered students with severe disabilities who were in a special classroom, but none that I remembered sharing a classroom with. Perhaps it was because I was always in an honors, accelerated, or AP classroom, but this makes me wonder even more about how these students will grow up to function. It is clear that these students need to be recognized, and one of the most important things Carlisle points out is to catch learning disabilities early. It is no help to the student for them to continue to struggle and fail. Carlisle also talked about how important assessments are in monitoring progress of students. This will help the teacher to identify those students who are still not responding to monitored or modified changes in curriculum. It is these students we need to recommend for special testing. Most LD students spend a majority of their time in a regular classroom so it is important that we as teachers know how to handle these students and keep them on the road to success.
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3 comments:
Alexis!
In making a self connection, the first sentence screamed out at me, because I rarely predict, too! I just want to find out what happens. But you did bring up an interesting point, because I do predict when it comes to staggered series, like Harry Potter! Also, I noticed that my students, and I think from my experiences people in general, like books better that they can connect to. It makes it easier to remember a story and relate to a character! To connect to a text, you should definitely check out chapter 2, because the different reading options it lists could help you group students who use diverse strategies or similar ones, and definitely may aid your reading comprehension instruction! Great post Alexis! I can tell that you are really thinking critically about what is going on both in our class and in your classroom experiences!
Alexis,
One thing I noticed that all three of our posts had in common was that none of us consistently rely on making predictions for comprehension. This makes me wonder if this strategy wasn't emphasized when we were in elementary school and learning about reading strategies, which then makes me wonder if certain strategies are more popular at certain times, kind of like "comphrehension trends"? I definitely understand what you mean about getting so wrapped up in a book that you don't want to do anything else! I got that way with the Harry Potter books as well!
About helping LD students in the classroom, it made me think about what Kate said about kids not being able to do things that they haven't been taught. I think that for all of us, the reading comprehension strategies we use are second nature and we forget how much some kids can struggle to learn these skills, even when they are explicitly taught them. It is definitely something that we'll have to work on, but it's essential for us to make sure that all our students have the tools they need to understand what they read!
I might be wrong, but I suspect that none of you STOP and make predictions. But, I bet you do make some predictions as you read without slowing down to make it a separate activity. When we teach kids to predict, we stop and have them really work at it because it doesn't come naturally to them. After enough modeling by teachers and practice in their own reading, kids internalize the process and begin to do it automatically, like you guys, and it doesn't seem to be a separate act. The point isn't that we expect kids to always stop and go through these staged strategies, its more that we stage them and make them more obvious so that kids can learn them and internalize them later.
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