Anita Branum-Blog 3: Chapter 8: Teaching Comprehension

    Teaching Comprehension is an excellent chapter on the importance of reading for meaning and not just word calling. Routman begins by saying this cannot start in 3^rd grade but needs to start the day a student begins school.  However, Routman warns teachers this is often done in isolation and the result is students not actually applying the skill to real reading.   Routman says that the act of reading has to be predominate when learning comprehension strategies and not the act of memorizing a list of skills.  I agree it would be more beneficial but there are times when grades are needed and it’s tempting to cover these strategies, give an assessment and give a grade. We sometimes need to be reminded to place more emphasis on real learning and not grades.

    One of the suggestions made in the book on checking for meaning was for the teacher to read a challenging, non-fiction text in front of the students.  The teacher should re-tell what was read, rate himself/herself on comprehension.  Then the teacher should re-read the piece, retell it again, and rate comprehension a second time.  Students will be able to see how comprehension improved the second time. I had a conversion with my students about this very subject last week.  A little girl in my class stated, “When I read my book two times before I take an AR, I do better a lot better on the test.” I had her share what she said to the class.  I explained that when you read the book the first time, you are focused on getting the words correct, but when you re-read the story you are able to remember more details and read for meaning.  I had several students later in the week tell me they tried this and it worked.   

    Recently, at the D6 Literacy Focus Meeting for Second Grade Teachers, we attended a session by Shameera Virani and Nicole Brown, reading coaches in the district.    I particularly liked the segment on Real Reading Salad and the Metacognition Thinking Stems.  These were excellent demonstrations on helping students get into the habit of thinking as they read.   I will be trying many of their ideas as well as the ideas in Chapter 8 of Routman’s book with my students, I feel they will benefit greatly from both.