Comprehension-UNDERSTANDING the story

The Pardo article on comprehension was eye opening because it focused on how vast the concept of comprehension actually is. For me, decoding, connecting to personal experiences, and learning unknown words are important facets of comprehension. Decoding is important because it helps students read the words in the text. Connections happen when the words are put into real life. When a student uses a word they already know in connection to something in their life, a student can read the words and understand them in the text. Learning new vocabulary is tricky, but once done, even more of the story can be comprehended. So in the end a student reads the words and understands them in the text while also gaining new knowledge about their newly found vocabulary.

 This weeks's reading also included Chapter 7 in Classrooms that work. In it were plenty of ideas on implementing comprehension strategies in the classroom. Some of these examples included:

• Plays from dialogue
• Making diagrams out of the information
• having equal student/teacher interactions with the text
• group work so students can interact together with the text
• Think-alouds where the teacher can model proper comprehension strategies

Personally, I'm a huge fan of the think-alouds. Everyone knows that read-alouds are highly effective learning tools in the classrooms, so why not use think-alouds as well? These help students model effective strategies that will help them comprehend the stories/texts more effectively. There are many different strategies a teacher can use, depending on what comprehensive item she's trying to arrive at. The image to the right shows a wonderful chart that demonstrates different stem sentences to implement your own think-aloud in the classroom.

Word Study- let's learn it!

I have always loved studying word patterns and building all sorts of words out of a set group of letters. Who knew this would be a great tool to use in the classroom! The Cunningham & Cunningham article, Making Words: Enhancing the Invented spelling-decoding connection demonstrated some great tools that students can use to interactively create words and learn grammar rules simultaneously. Let's face it: Spelling IS HARD. Incorporating play withing spelling lessons should always be a goal. We all love creating things anyway, so why not create words? Students are able to learn when capital letters are used, and more importantly, letter combinations and how some words are spelled similarly. The other part of the article that made me think was about invented spelling. I never put it together that this was a key-identifier in where a student is at within their walk with spelling.  Phonetics are important, just sometimes not so much with spelling, because sometimes students make mistakes like this:

 We all know that this says: Mouth watering pizza, but why did this student spell it this way? s/he did what they were always taught and sounded it out. It is important to understand why this student is spelling like this and how to help them understand letter patterns in the future. The other article by Yopp & Yopp Ten Words Plus made me really want to incorporate a word of the day. Yes, it is important to hammer in those high-frequency words, but I think it would be really fun to teach interesting words either on curriculum, or following the seasons and challenging students to make the most interesting sentence with the word. The only catch is the sentence must use the word CORRECTLY.  Another additive for my classroom will definitely be one of these bad boys:

I can just see the flickering of eyes during writing, as students use this chart of words we will CREATE together as a quick look for spelling. Not only will it be a handy tool to help students master spelling, but it will also teach them spelling patterns as well. Anyone who doesn't speak language as a first language can tell you how hard it is, so why not offer our students a way to tackle their written language more efficiently?

My questions for you guys are:

• What other tools would help with word studies?
• Do you guys think inventive spellings are important for gauging a student's abilities?
• How important do you guys find this idea of "word study" to be?

Fluency: More than Just Speed Reading

The three articles we read this week on Fluency all had pretty similar views on Fluency. Deeney's article, One-minute fluency measures: mixed messages in assessment and instruction resonated with me the most in its message about reading endurance. I agree that EXPERIENCE gives the reader fluency which in turn gives them endurance. In my opinion endurance is important with reading because it allows for long reading sessions that still are successful, even after time has passed. Another point that I loved in the Deeney article was the tid-bit on giving struggling readers easier factual information books to practice reading with. It eliminates the stigma of baby-books, while also giving the reader practice with something meaningful to their life. 

The other online article on Rasinski's Creating Fluent Readers gave me a great classroom idea that I cannot WAIT to try out. In this article reading practice took place in the creative Friday afternoon activities of mock "poetry cafes" and reader's theater festivals. This allows readers to perform reading pieces from the week with and for their fellow classmates. I love this way of PERFORMING the words. It takes reading them a step further, helping them with fluency. Also repeated readings are just great in general. Who doesn't love rereading something that made them so excited about reading in the first place? Not only does it boost confidence, but with each new reading, the reader gets something new out of the experience.

Our last reading, Chapter 4 of Classrooms that Work made me take a second look into the word wall. Instead of having a word wall, this chapter spoke of the importance of doing a word wall with my students. I love this interactive approach at creating a classroom tool that will help my readers with common words and to create an automaticity with the words as well.
By creating this tool together, the students internalize the information better, and allows everyone the ability to truly take advantage of the word wall. The image to the right shows how readers can make their reading style more interesting and offers many different ways on how to make it happen!

Another idea, from all three readings actually, I really enjoyed was allowing students to reread or just plain read "easy" books. Reading is hard enough for new readers, so allowing easy passages for your readers gives them confidence boosts, and allows them to focus on fluency more so than just trying to get the words out. To the left is an awesome fluency idea I found on helping your reader use different voices to make their reading more fluid. All those voices would be a blast for any classroom to try out!

 All of these articles gave me great ideas from my classrooms, but I want to know now:

• Which ideas stuck with you all?
• Does anyone have other ideas that they could share with me about fluency?
• Did anyone disagree with these ideas?