Happy Spring to everyone! I hope you all had a restful and/or productive Spring Break, which ever you were hoping for! My trip to Africa was busy and productive as we worked with teachers and students there. I was so busy that I did not take any pictures of what we did...but I did spend one afternoon teaching beginning reading to 8 limited or non-English speaking ladies (1 was a refugee from the Congo, 2 were natives of Northern Uganda, and the remainder were refugees from the South Sudan. It was a humbling experience for me!
This week is focusing again on comprehension, specifically high level discussions and written responses and projects, as well as informational texts and classroom inquiry (in the additional articles). What roles do you think discussion and writing play in supporting comprehension of a variety of texts? Why do you think that?
As you read, think about your own comprehension instruction when you were in school or the comprehension instruction that you provide now if you are teaching. If you are in one of the teacher groups, use Form 6.3 to evaluate your own implementation of high level discussions in your classroom and blog about that. All groups use Form 6.4 to self-assess your group's blogging discussions over the last 3 blog discussions. How are you doing? what do you need to improve? How is the written discussion (which is an overlap of the topics of Chapters 6 and 7 of DS&G) helpful to your comprehension of what you are reading? How are the ideas in the article(s) that your group read related to the DS&G chapters? What teaching strategies that you read about would you like to try out in your classroom, either now if you are teaching or when you have your own classroom? What are some key ideas that you learned about supporting comprehension of limited English speaking students?
We will be meeting face to face on Saturday, April 1 from 9-12 in Rm. 334 of Collings Hall. My blog for Week 12 will go live after that class. If you are in the Certification Group, please bring your data/assessments and notes that you have collected on your case study child for us to review and talk about before you begin writing your case study. If you are in the Teacher Group, I plan to have your Assessment Task 2 graded before you come (and remember that it is/was due on Saturday March 25 before midnight on Canvas. I"ll add to the rubric that I have already begun for you. I"ll have a rubric for your multimodal text that is Task 3, so bring your plans on what you will do for that piece.
We will be constructing some "cheat sheets" for my undergraduate students on comprehension and how to support it in class as well as working on the above projects and preparing to begin our conversation about word recognition.
Looking forward to our face to face time together!
Discussion and writing both play a role in furthering the comprehension of texts beyond a literal level. I think that discussion is a mode in which meaning can be constructed in collaboration. When a teacher and students, or even students themselves, discuss something they have read through the use of open-ended questions and prompting, students not only have to find a way to express their thoughts, but they also have to defend them. Through their expression and explanations, and through listening to those of others, their thinking can be both transformed and strengthened.
ReplyDeleteWriting in response to a text also forces the students to find a way to express themselves. When a student writes they have to organize their thoughts and determine how to get their point across to an audience. This requires a great deal of higher-level thinking. Performing this thinking can also lead to a student transforming or strengthen their thoughts. They often come to new realizations as they are mulling what they have read over in their minds, and may even notice discontinuities in their previous comprehension.
Writing and discussion support comprehension of texts by requiring students to take that "next step" in comprehension. Each of these activities help and stretch students' comprehension by requiring them to synthesize all that they have understood about a piece of literature in order to produce a response. Talking through or writing out certain comprehension strategies such as retelling, restating, summarizing, and paraphrasing may help students who are auditory or kinesthetic learners to further support understanding. Discussion with teachers or peers can also support understanding by introducing new ideas, how others have made connections to the reading, etc.
ReplyDeleteDiscussing and writing help students clarify misconceptions, reinforce what they learned, and synthesize knowledge through the reading process. Integrating this processes into reading comprehension is essential because it engages students in higher level thinking and actively involves them constructing knowledge in a social, personal way.
ReplyDeleteWriting and discussion go hand in hand--writing is a way to present ideas of a discussion/idea in a written format. Both of these concepts support comprehension of text and both of these concepts are hard for my students. All of my students are in speech for language delays and OT so they need lots of scaffolding for understanding. Technology helps some of mine with the written portion (iPad and laptops). However, not only is the physical aspect of writing is problematic but also being able to write for others to understand--so organization of the writing process is difficult. I have found that being able to make self-to-text connections helps in both areas.
ReplyDeleteDiscussing and writing about the text makes the student go back through the text to find supporting evidence for their discussion or a written paper. Most written assignments will specifically say "support your argument with examples from the text." In many discussions people will be asked to tell where they read that from or give specific details from the text. This makes the ideas more permanent in our minds when we have to go back through the book and look for specific examples and write them down. I can't imagine comprehension without at some point having to go back through the text to find examples for some sort of assignment.
ReplyDeleteI think discussion and writing are extensions of comprehension and enrich the experience for teachers and students. I think this is a great way for the student to articulate what they know and ask any questions they have regarding a particular piece. While teachers are able to use the discussions and writings as an assessment of their students comprehension mastery. I think this is a great way for students to also make different connections from texts and develop a deeper understanding of what they are reading. It's important to make reading meaningful and relatable to students and I think discussions and writing prompts make that easier.
ReplyDeleteI believe that discussion and writing assist children tremendously in their ability to comprehend the text they are reading. When a child reads a text both independently and with others, it is difficult for the teacher to know exactly how much the child is comprehending the text. However, when a child participates in various types of discussions, it assists the teacher in their ability to assess the child’s comprehension level. Further, discussions allow a child to express his or her thoughts among their peers and receive reinforcement of their ideas or feedback on how to better understand the text. In discussions, the children are able to work together to build upon their ideas to further understand the text.
ReplyDeleteI think that writing also assists with comprehension of text. When children are given the task of writing about the text they have read, they are required to read the text in a more meaningful way in order to adequately express their thoughts and/or answer the prompts and questions. Additionally, the use of journals for children, especially dialogue journals, allows children to comfortably ask questions or express opinions with support from their teacher.
Discussion can help to foster student’s comprehension of a text. By writing their ideas about a text and then discussing them with others, they are able to share their ideas, clarify any misunderstandings, or learn new information that they didn’t uncover on their own. By assigning a writing prompt about a text students are able to organize their thoughts and be able to have something to contribute to a discussion (when a student is called on they may get nervous and go blank, having the writing helps them to participate in class discussion). I think that discussing your ideas is important because it gives you confidence when you hear others that share your opinions and by sharing ideas, the teacher is able to gauge exactly what the student took away from a text.
ReplyDeleteDiscussion and writing are important to incorporate into comprehension instruction, because students are able to share, reflect, explain, and reevaluate their understanding of specific comprehension skills. Discussions are a great strategy to use in the classroom, as students share their ideas with one another, teachers can explain their ways of thinking, and students can listen to other ideas and create their own schema. Writing to support comprehension allows students to translate their ideas, what they learned from the teacher and others, and what they learned from the readings into sentences. The writing can also explain the students' understanding of vocabulary terms, reflect on key ideas, and allow the teacher to review and evaluate class instruction.
ReplyDeleteIn my own class, in the past couple of years I have seen an immense improvement in my student’s depth of comprehension when incorporating writing and discussions. After seeing how this has helped my students, I wonder how I ever taught without discussion of texts. I usually have my students silently read a chunked part of the text and then write in response to what they’ve read. After I give them an opportunity to write, I have them share with partners or in small groups. I then walk around and listen in, then I let students stand and share with everyone. By allowing the students to write prior to sharing, it allows them with time to think about the text independently before having to share with others which takes off some of the pressure. This time to think independently also allows for the students to develop their own viewpoints about the text. It helps the students to see how others think and that we don’t all think the same. It also helps them to see how others thinking of the texts might also be similar to theirs at times. For example, they might struggle with a text and then their classmates sharing that with them helps them to see that is okay and normal. Talking and writing about the texts also makes for exposures, thus allowing for the concepts to better “stick”.
ReplyDeleteDiscussion and writing are so helpful for comprehension because both practices require students to decide what ideas are the most important to focus on from a text. Writing and discussion also help with comprehension because students have to reorganize information and express it in their own words. Not only this, but discussion allows students to hear others' perspectives about texts.
ReplyDeleteDiscussion and writing are important for comprehension and I can see them being used in multiple ways. I can see discussion being used prior to writing. This would give students the opportunity to explain their ideas and arguments out loud so that they can refine their thinking. It also provides them with an opportunity to find ties between texts that they might not have seen otherwise as they piggyback off each other's comments. If discussion occurs beforehand then when students get to writing they have already developed an outline in their minds. They have a starting place so that they are not staring at a blank page. But I could also see how writing before discussion could be useful as well. If writing occurs first then students have more time to reflect and practice their explanation before they share with the class. Both scenarios are beneficial for comprehension among various texts and can be used interchangeably.
ReplyDeleteI think that discussion and writing play a huge role in overall comprehension of texts. Discussion provides students with the opportunity to put their own understanding into words and to edit their thoughts based on conversations with others about their personal understandings. Writing is just another step in the comprehension process. If a student can put their thoughts about a text into words, it can help them gain an even greater understanding of what they have read and provide them with an opportunity to process their own thoughts and develop them deeper.
ReplyDeleteDiscussion and writing play a significant role in comprehension. Each may help in supporting what the children have learned. Meaning, they will be able to recall what they have learned. This is an important skill to learn. I think discussions, where the teachers lead the discussion can be helpful in mastering compression. Students will be able to hear different perspectives and connect all the pieces. Also, writing is a great way to recall comprehension. Writing and talking through comprehension strategies is another way children can hear and visually see their knowledge, and it provides an opportunity to deepen their thoughts.
ReplyDeleteDiscussion and writing both play a vital role in reading comprehension for a variety of reasons (I know that I do not yet know them all). Both discussion of the readings and writing about what you have read help students with carryover of the information they have just read. I believe it helps them retain what they have learned better and helps them look at what they reading from various perspectives, especially when it comes to discussion with others. Also reading something and then talking and writing about it are all different modalities of learning obviously, and the more ways a student is exposed to something the better they will come to understand and remember it.
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