http://utk-prod.campuspack.net/Groups/ReadingEducation52925603SP2013/In-depth_study_of_Comprehension/Research_on_Reading

http://utk-prod.campuspack.net/Groups/ReadingEducation52925603SP2013/In-depth_study_of_Comprehension/Research_on_Reading

Comprehension blog

Tina, Heather, andI talked about the articles over this past weekend. We all agreed that schools must put more emphasis on teaching comprehension strategies. We all liked how Pardo talked about text to self, text to text, and text to world. Heather made the point that we are making more of an effort with our balanced literacy program now than we did in years past. I think it was Tina that said she liked the Neufeld article the best. We talked about how getting a student to write about what they have read is a good way to check for comprehension....but we need to get them to writing early on for this to be beneficial. We also discussed how important modeling by the teacher is for students...especially struggling students.

Effective reading instruction

Heather, Tina and I discussed the articles for this week. I really enjoyed reading the articles and then our discussion about the articles. The first thing we all said was important from Dr. Allington's article is that he stated that expertise matters. This important point seems to have been lost in education thought for the past few decades. We all said that the 6 T's were important and liked how he made points about each. We noted that for Time, many teachers have students doing other "stuff" during a 90 minute reading block. Very little time is actually spent reading. Texts must be books the kids can actually read and understand I think Heather made the point that we have come a long way with our selection of texts. Teaching must be more than just assign and assess. Effective teachers gave explicit demonstrations and modeling. I admitted there were times in my teaching career that I was guilty of just assigning and assessing. We all agreed that the end of the article was important where Dr. Allington makes the point that in highly effective classrooms there is little test prep work. He states that it seems that less effective teachers don't know what to do and thus hope the test prep material will make up for less than effective teaching.
The Valencia and Buly article was interesting. We all agreed that too many decisions are based on one test score. Tina said she really enjoyed the analogy of the fever just being a symptom just like failing a TCAP test is a symptom of what is going on in schools. Heather talked about the different tests that were administered to get a better picture of the child and how one is able to better design instruction for those students. I wondered how they had time to administer all these tests to the students. I have administered the Woodcock Reading Mastery test, and it can take about 45 minutes per student in kindergarten and first grade. I liked how the students were put into clusters for instruction.
Both articles were interesting, but I enjoyed Dr. Allington's more...maybe because I am also reading his book in the book club and had many of those thoughts on my mind already.

Theoretical Discussions

 



Tina, Heather, and I discussed the two articles for our theoretical groups. We all seemed to agree that we liked the Duffy/Hoffman article the most. We all agreed with the premise of the article; there is no one silver bullet for teaching all kids to read. Tina spoke to the fact that sometimes when teachers are made to teach a certain way or a strict curriculum, that they will miss some teachable moments. This is especially critical in grades prek-2. I shared that I really liked that the authors used the word “eclectic” to describe teachers that do the right thing in the right way at the right time. I think it was Heather that made the point being willing to try different methods didn’t mean that anything goes. We all liked that part of the article and discussed how it’s more of a toolbox that teachers have. Good teachers have a lot of tools in their toolbox and know when to use the appropriate tool for each child. I am glad the authors brought out the point that sometimes we research the either/or approach too much. Why do we always need to design research that tests method A against method B. Why can we not design more elaborate studies that test both when used together in an eclectic manner? We also discussed how it is important for teacher education to be ongoing to keep the intellectual ferment bubbling up.

Even though I stated I enjoyed the Duffy article more, the Fitzgerald article was an interesting read. There is a lot of confusion about what constitutes “Balanced Literacy”. Our group felt that the author did a good job of explaining some different philosophies of balanced literacy. We discussed how BES is very much on the path of fitting Cunningham’s definition of balanced. We are doing guided reading, we have lots of self select reading time, and this year we will incorporate writer’s workshop and words their way into our curriculum. We discussed that the article began to drag a little on the idea of balanced literacy is a set of beliefs. Almost all things can be boiled down to a set of beliefs. We all liked the part about the local, global, love of reading and how to best incorporate that into lessons.



What makes you a reader?
I read articles, magazines and non-fiction most often. I am a boring reader.....no novels for me. People use to talk about all these novel series they read and I thought I must not be much of a reader....until I realized I read all the time. I don't watch TV (the disney channel doesn't interest me much)...so I read.
I read the same things for fun, I said I was boring :-)
I hate reading useless and irrelevant information.
I usually read in my home office or on the couch when the disney channel isn't on.
I read anytime I get some free time. I am wicked busy lately, so I squeeze it in anytime I can. Usually late at night when everyone is in bed.
I read for knowledge....I want to understand things, education, politics, economics, world events, things such as that.
I remember my brother teaching me the alphabet on a little chalk board in our bedroom. Tim's a genius :-)
Other than my brother showing me the alphabet, all I remember is reading.

Practice

Hello all