Comprehension
Comprehension is the ability to construct meaning and understand what is being conveyed in a text. This is the overarching concept of the five pillars of reading that Sharon Teberski reconstructs in her book, Comprehension from the Ground Up. Comprehension is absolutely essential to a student's reading skills because it is the end goal when teaching them all of the other skills, including vocabulary, phonemic awareness, fluency, and phonics. All of these things come together so that a student might understand and comprehend what they are reading. As Stephanie Harvey and Anne Goudvis express in Strategies that Work, "We believe that constructing meaning is the goal of comprehension. We want students to monitor understanding, enhance understanding acquire and actively use knowledge, and develop insight." These skills are essential for the success of both the reading and writing of students. The University of Oregon defines comprehension in simple terms as "the essence of reading," and this expresses the importance it has in regards to reading.
http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/comp/comp_what.php
http://reading.uoregon.edu/big_ideas/comp/comp_what.php
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Activity 1In this activity, students learn to listen to their inner voice and respond to the text. The materials needed are a picture book to read aloud (Little Mama Forgets, by Robin Cruise), sticky notes for each student, and an anchor chart labeled "What the Story Makes Me Think About." The following steps should be taken:
Harvey, Stephanie, and Anne Goudvis. Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding Engagement (p. 81-82). 2nd ed., Stenhouse, 2007. |
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Activity 2This activity focuses on teaching students to make text-to-text connections. Materials needed include a picture book to read, a picture book that has been read prior to the activity (a few days before), and a worksheet with a chart containing three columns labeled "Title of Book 1 - Title of Book 2 - Commonalities." The following steps should be taken:
This is a great lesson for comprehension because it shows students how to make connections between texts to further their understanding of the texts being compared. As Harvey and Goudvis say in Strategies that Work, "we build up our store of knowledge...to develop insight." Using their knowledge from the first book and comparing/contrasting it with their knowledge from the second book allows them to build insight into both. Harvey, Stephanie, and Anne Goudvis. Strategies That Work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding Engagement (p. 96). 2nd ed., Stenhouse, 2007. |