March/April

Comprehension
This chapter focuses on teaching comprehension. I like many other teachers have always taught reading strategies but Routeman introduce the idea of strategic reading. Strategic reading is done by thinking aloud in front of your students and thinking about tour own thiniking.  Routeman also says that we shouldn't focus on teaching one strategy and reminds us to keep our focus on strategic reading. He even advices us to use the 20%-80% rule: 20% on the explicit strategy and 80% on practicing using it through independent  reading.
One of the major take away a from this chapter is the fact that children have to have a connection with the text in order take make sense of new information. This is so true especially in younger grades. Sometimes I find myself talking about something and my students have no clue what I'm talking about because it's something they don't know anything about. Another thing was the importance of making sure I model my thinking process aloud.  I like modeling thinking aloud however it tends to get really loud because as I'm thinking aloud my students start to think aloud too which is good but I struggle trying to manage everyone's thinking. As I'm wilting this, I just came to the conclusion that I dont need to monitor their thinking process and to just acknowledge their thinking and keep on going.  That is what I plan on doing from here on out.