Chapter 8  Teach Comprehension

I absolutely love reading to my students.  I always try to read at least 3 books each day to them. I talk to them about how the words in the story are telling them something. We talk about the pictures, tricky words, and talk about what the words are telling them. It is so surprising that some children and even their parents think that reading is just word calling. " When we spend most of our energy focusing on words,students get the message that reading is about words rather than meaning".(R117)      I always let my students know that the words on the pages of stories are there for a reason and that reason is not just for them to "word call". The  words are giving meaning to the story just as their words tell a story when they create a story. In my class, we try to dig deep ( as deep as a 6 year old can) within the text, make connections ( these can be pretty interesting LOL), monitor for meaning (i love to ask them if what they just read to me makes sense), make inferences, and ask questions about the story. We also read like "news reporters and not robots!! We use voices like we think the characters would sound. This seems to  helps them to understand the story better in first grade. We read poems, fiction and non fiction books, magazines, children's articles and anything else we can get our hands on. As a class as well as an individual we make meaning out of what we have read and respond to it by writing or by telling a partner what we have learned about the reading.
      We practice fluency by reading easier text and by reading with a friend. Routman says, "The best way to improve fluency is through repeated reading of familiar text". R128) Fluency helps children understand the meaning of the words and is not that word calling that will put you to sleep. :-/
     When I am doing a read aloud, I always stop and ask if someone can tell me what the author is telling us. It is wonderful when the children catch on and start really understanding.  This is helpful to little children when teaching comprehension and is exciting when they can tell you things such as why the character may be "feeling" or a"acting" the way he/she is. I start teaching comprehension on day one of first grade!!! :) Children can understand more than we give them credit for.