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.