Viewing Reading as Gaining Understanding...(Blog 4 - November)

Routman - Chapter 8 - Teach Comprehension

This is probably the most beneficial chapter of the entire book for teaching reading at the 4th grade level (and all levels really). I think that it is so important to teach students how to understand what they are reading and this chapter is full of awesome ways and ideas of how to do just that. I believe that along with the strategies in this chapter, that great text be it fiction or non fiction is also essential to students' interest and understanding in what they read. 

The first thing I really liked is how the chapter described strategic reading, rather than just reading for fluency or mere understanding. When we read strategically we are using all the comprehension skills and strategies to understand text. I use multiple strategies as I read and it made much better sense to me after reading this chapter, that my students do too! It is up to me to model and show students how to understand what they are reading. I believe that we are role models for our students and a lot of times whether I am teaching math, science, social studies, OR even reading...when I show students exactly how I understand it or how I learn it, they tend to follow suit and use the same strategies that I use. I have used these particular modeling strategies when teaching math and have seen first hand that my students tend to understand more when I teach them my way of thinking and solving the problem, rather than just the steps to getting the answer. I believe the same will be true for reading. 

The chapter outlines many strategies and their importance. In my own reading, I use a lot of underlining and note taking, especially when reading non fiction. This is something that I feel much more confident about teaching now that I can rely on my own skills as a reader. Surveying the text is another strategy that I use often with fiction reads, including novels. I survey to see how long chapters are, how long the book is, what the chapter titles are. I do this to get an understanding of what I am reading and how long it may take me to finish the chapters or book. Self-assessing throughout reading is essential to understanding as well. In self-assessing I find that I always reread. I have a wandering mind and if I do not stop myself while I am reading, I find that I have wandered and do not know what I just read. I have a good feeling my students are the same way. So, as a self assessing reader, I stop and go back to reread where I know that I last was comprehending what I was reading. I know that choice and sharing are essential parts of teaching reading and comprehension. Students that are able to choose their material and then share with others, are more likely to read more and even pick up a book they may not have chosen before because someone shared it with them. 

I really enjoyed this chapter and look forward to implementing some of the strategies in my reading classroom.