My own reading comprehension appears to be most frequently used by connecting to the background knowledge I already have. It is always easiest for me to read about the elementary situations when I can connect something that the students are doing to things that I have seen students do. Additionally, I love making the self connections, because as egocentric as this sounds, when the information is directly applicable to me and my life, it is easier to remember. One example is that when reading about students using predicting as a comprehension strategy, it was easy for me to relate to because I had a student who engaged in reading almost exclusively through making predictions. I, on the other hand, do not like making predictions because I like to simply find out what happens, which is indicative of my impatience while reading stories!
I also noticed that while reading I do a good job of visualizing. This became apparent to me when I finally went to see the first Harry Potter movie and was devastated because the film images of things like Hogwarts, Hermione, and Hogsmeade did not at all match the visuals I had created from the text. Additionally, I am always the person who likes the book version more than the movie, and I think much of that has to do with my visualization. My list of bad movies/great books is endless and includes The Nanny Diaries, The Devil Wears Prada, The Chronicles of Narnia, and certainly the Harry Potter series. I was actually enraged when the powers that be made Beowulf into a movie. Overall, visualizing has proven effective for me, and I think that as my imagination is more able to connect to the story, I am drawn in more and more.
My final and most successful reading comprehension strategy, is to identify big ideas/summarize. Because the two sort of go hand-in-hand, I frequently find myself doing both. In summarizing, I should cover the main ideas and often I will take a small note on what they are as I come across them, or check the text before or after I read, as a comprehension technique and reminder. Also, when reading text I use the subheadings and review questions at the end to identify the main ideas and to summarize the text I read. Note taking, review questions, and sub headings direct my reading, and help me to direct my reading. I think that these are techniques that I will want to teach my students, but I found myself wondering if these were taught or if I taught them to myself through reading. How can these strategies be taught? Especially, how should I teach the strategies that I do not find particularly useful? Will these be useful to other students? I am not sure on all of these questions, but I definitely can identify my reading comprehension strategies and know more than I can utilize such as questioning and monitoring.
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4 comments:
JoAnne,
As I read your post, I definitely noticed how many of the same strategies we consider strengths and how similiar our reading styles are! We are definitely in the same corner about our imaginations creating better visuals of books than the movies do. I was also really thrown off by the Harry Potter movies after reading the books, and it took me awhile before I could appreciate them (I think it was inevitable since there have been so many of them now...). And, I hate it when I see a movie first and can't shake those images from my head as I read the book. Also, I don't like making predictions beccause of my impatience to find out what really happens too!
I really liked the point that you brought up that although you don't remember it, you must have learned the comprehension strategies sometime. I never thought about it that way because I can't recall it either, but you're right! I think the best way that we can teach them to students is to model them in the classroom. In response to your question about teaching kids strategies that don't work well for you, I definitely understand where you're coming from in your conflicting thoughts about that. But, looking at the different strategies that we all consider strengths and weaknesses and seeing the differences, it shows that everyone relies on various strategies and at different times. So, even when we don't see the benefit of a certain strategy, we have to do what's best for our students and give them as many tools as possible for their toolbox!
Well, funnily enough, I just wrote this whole blog and then I just deleted it by Xing out of the window. It just goes to show you how technology affects our lives!! Ahhh! Oh well, what I did say that was important was that I totally am just like you in visualization and reading for comprehension styles. I too was a bit bummed out with the Harry Potter series, but oh well. It's to be expected right? However, I do wish I was more of a summarizer like yourself. I think it would definitely benefit me in my studies and other areas of my life. I think it is important that we as teachers, though we may have our preferred learning and reading strategies, that we expose our students to all types of strategies, and have them decide for themselves which works best for them, or to at least have some background knowledge in the strategies. Good job. :-)
When you think about predictions, think about content and structure. Do you still think you don't predict? FOr example, if you were to read a recipe, you would expect (predict) a list of ingredients and their amounts, followed by a numbered set of instructions. YOu know, if you need to make a grocery list, to just look at the top to see what you need. If you didn't know that, you would read the whole thing before making your list. You know that if you need to know how hot to set the oven, you look at the first or last direction.
I actually never thought of predictions as expectations. I guess it just goes to show me how ingrained these processes are! But it is absolutely true that when I pick up a text I have expectations based on what it is. If it is cosmo, I expect trashy articles on sex, clothes, and dieting, and if it's a textbook, I expect subheadings, charts, tables and bolded words.
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