Reading Comprehension and Fluency

I have to say, before reading these articles, I thought that comprehension and fluency were two completely unrelated aspects of literacy. I thought that fluency just meant reading quickly, accurately, and with expression. Conversely, I thought that comprehension referred only to the ability to understand what you are reading. However, after reading about both comprehension and fluency, I realize how intertwined the two really are. This concept really made sense to me when I read a passage from the Rasinski article, “The primary aim of many instruction programs is to increase reading rate through the repeated reading of nonfiction material…The result of such a focus is faster reading with little improvement on comprehension, which is the ultimate goal of reading instruction” (Rasinski,705). The author also suggested using performable texts to teach fluency and comprehension (like poetry, songs, rhymes, Readers Theatre, dialogues, and letters. Students exposed to these interactive texts made greater progress in fluency as well as comprehension because of the emphasis was on reading with expression, enthusiasm, and meaning (not speed).

After reading about this, I began analyzing literacy instruction in my own classroom and feel that we teach fluency and comprehension concurrently. Every Monday we read a poem together several times and then students add this poem to their poetry folders where they can reread again. Additionally, I thought of our shared reading. We read one book for the entire week and focus on a different aspect of the book each day of the week. By the end of the week, students are usually able to read fluently along with me and can comprehend meaningful aspects of the story.

To fully understand my student’s reading development I’d like to know exactly how it is assessed in my classroom, building, and district. I know that students are given DRAs multiple times throughout the year, but I’m interested to know how they score them. How important is fluency? Is comprehension the main focus? Are other aspects of literacy, like concepts of print and phonemic awareness assessed? I could fairly easily find out these answers by speaking with my mentor teacher and, if necessary, the principal of our building.

Reading Comprehension & Reading Fluency

When thinking about the relationship between reading comprehension and reading fluency, I first had to think about what each term really means. Fluency is the product of accurately reading connected text at a conversational rate with appropriate prosody. Reading comprehension is the ability to understand reading selections through the active construction of meaning from the text. When I was in school, I had a hard time with comprehension and no problem at all with reading with fluency. This subject really hit home for me because of this. Having had a hard time with comprehending what I was reading, it is important for me to learn how to teach comprehension strategies and how they relate to reading fluency. Fluency is the bridge between word recognition and comprehension, fluent reading focus their attention on making connections among the ideas in a text and between these ideas and their background knowledge. The chapters in Mosaic of Thought that explain comprehension and fluency, state how “many students read words well, but had little sense of the meaning of what they read, especially meaning that went beyond the literal” (Keene and Zimmerman page 27). It is important for students to not only read fluently, but also that they read fluently so that they can focus more on comprehending what they are reading rather than if they are reading the words correctly. Teachers teach the comprehension strategies to ensure children do not simply become expert decoders but also so they learn to create meaning naturally and subconsciously as they read (page 32). The relationship between reading comprehension and reading fluency, I feel all begins with the students monitoring their comprehension during reading. They will learn when the text they are reading or listening to makes sense, when it does not, what does not make sense, and whether the unclear portions are critical to overall understanding of the reading piece (page 63). If the students are not fluent readers then they will be more focused on the words rather than the meaning.

Approaches that are used to assess and teach fluency in my classroom are through our shared reading, reader’s workshop, guided reading, and C.A.F.E. literacy activities. We teach the students fluency strategies in all of these aspects of literacy. We focus on teaching the students how to look at the pictures before reading the words, looking at the first letter and cross-checking to make sure it makes sense. This is offering the students stepping stones to begin to read fluency. Meanwhile, we are also teaching comprehension skills simultaneously. We have the students participate in making meaning read-alouds where the students are formally practicing reading comprehension strategies as well as rereading a book a few times a week for fluency. At the start of each day, we read the ABC chart (A-a-apple, B-b-bear, etc) so the students see directly how their reading fluency effects speed and automaticity of reading. We then read a familiar poem (one poem per week) and the students are encouraged to read-along becoming more fluent in reading the poems as the days go on. After reading a familiar poem, we do our shared reading big book where the students are participating in reading along, and learning comprehension strategies each day. As Tim Rasinski states in his article about fluency, rhythmical, rhetorical, or interactive texts such as poetry, song lyrics, chants, rhymes, letters, work well for oral reading with expression and meaning, not just speed. He also explains that repeated reading is a key instructional method for developing reading fluency. Repeated reading, such as the ABC chart, poems, and big books that we make use of every day, should be meaningful and should expose the students to expressive oral interpretation or performance of text, not faster reading.

To fully understand my students’ reading development, I need to know how we balance our literacy. How is shared reading, writers workshop, readers workshop, daily 5, guided reading, and C.A.F.E. all used to make the students better readers and writers. Is there one main goal that is set when incorporating all these literary aspects, or are their multiple goals being accessed. As teachers, how do you know which strategies to focus more heavily on? What should we start with? Fluency? Comprehension? To find out I would consider talking with any and all teachers, across all grade-levels and learn how they incorporate all literacy, as well as research authors who are known for helping teachers teach these strategies and aspects of literacy that the students need to know.

Salch & Marino - Conferring in the Writing Workshop

I decided to read this article because of the title and wanted to know more about conferring in the writer’s workshop. As I was reading I became rather engaged because the authors began talking about how they never felt totally confident in conferring in the writer’s workshop and I am feeling the same exact way. The article explained how there is no one way to conference with students during writer’s workshop no matter how many experts offer tips on how to. It explained how no matter how much you read about conferring and talk about it; you never get the feeling of confidence in conferring. There is no template for a good conference but after reading about the three writing teacher’s suggestions, I am a bit more aware of how to confer with my students. The authors talk about how to learn from the children. It is important to learn from and about our students by listening to them. “Finding out what children know is important, for this informs our teaching” (page 4). Overall, there are three underlying principles to consider. These consist of how talk is important in rehearsal, be the learner as the teacher, and put yourself in situations where you are writing and getting response (page 6).

We already make use of conferring in our classroom during reader’s and writer’s workshop. I would most definitely use the principles to this approach. Since it is already in our language arts curriculum in our classroom I could just make use of the principles to help me better to understand and feel more confident with conferencing with students about their writing. These three principles of conferring with students during writer’s workshop would enrich my writing instruction by giving me more instruction to work with. This way I would not be unsure of what to conference with the students and they would get more out of the conference altogether. What I need to learn to do as a profession in order to use this approach well with my students is to look at all the suggestions and ideas that other teachers have used with conferring in writer’s workshop and make it my own. Now that I know these three guiding principles I feel that I will already be much more able to use this approach well with my students.

The ideas from this module have helped me think about the types of assessment necessary for informing my unit development by getting me more instructional tips that do not only work in writer’s workshop, but can help in reader’s workshop as well. We do a lot more conferring with the students during reader’s workshop – which is my guided lead teaching focal area – and so this module has not only informed me more about assessments and analyzing student work in these areas, but also provided me with instructional tips to do so. Since my unit is not focused on writing, what I might need to consider about my students as writers goes hand in hand with considering my students as readers. Reading and writing compliment each other in a way that if the students can sound out words to write them, then they can sound out words to read them and vise versa. When looking at my students writing I can gain a good sense of how they are forming the words and what sounds they hear when say those words. If my students are having a difficult time with sounding out particular sounds, then when it comes to reading, they may have the same difficulty. Knowing this, I can plan according prior to reader’s workshop and make it so that during conferring with them, these issues or problem areas can be addressed.

Task 4 Blog - Oct 12

Salch & Marino (Eds.) (2001). Conferring in the Writing Workshop

This articles discussed conferences that teachers have with their students during writers workshop. I found this article very interesting because sometimes it is very hard to conference with a student because you do not know what to say to them or how to get them working and doing their best kindergarten job. The book discussed three things that were very important to remember when conferring with students. One being that “talk is important in rehearsal, be the learner, and to put yourself in situations where you are writing and getting response”(4). This article discussed the importance of listening to students and learning about them as much as they are learning from you. This article also described how there are some teachers who have felt like students have to be writing and no longer thinking about an idea. This hit close to home because we do have some students in my classroom who say “I’m still thinking” rather than writing. We have always seen this as something where we have to tell him to get started. This gives me new perspectives on how I can talk to that student and have him talk to me first and talk things out before he gets started.

               I would use this type of discussion in my class because as a student myself, it is easier for me to write things out when I talk about them first. This I sometimes forget and we want students to think silently and begin writing and not talk to teachers all the time. My question would be though, if students are writing and as a teacher, you cannot always get around to all students so how would you be able to talk to all the students who may need that assistance every day. In my classroom, it is important that students have a story. Right now, it is not necessarily about actually writing out the words or the sounds that they hear. We want students to come up with a story that has actually happened to students and being able to get students to find a story is very important. Salch and Marino discuss “Make sure you look into the child’s eyes and let her know that you are really listening, and always respond as a fellow reader and writer, not as the expert” (5). I think this is very important because as teachers we want to help students learn more, but when writing it is important that students feel like they are being listened to and that you really care about what they are writing about. For students to feel comfortable, it is important that you make an environment that students know you are there and you are listening and want to help students become better writers.

               As a professional, I would need to be thinking about how I talk to students and then decide which elements work and which elements I should be altering to really emphasize the students writing and what they are doing rather than what you are expecting them to do at first. For example, with students who do not know what to write about, it is important for me to learn to take a step back and talk to the student first rather than say something about sitting down to think or your thinking is done, you need to write now. This would be one thing that I would focus on to work on and then continue to work with students like I do now. We confer a lot with students and we try to get around to one table each and then switch every day so that we see all students every week. I want to be more conscience about who I am working with and what type of advice I am giving students.

               For my unit that I am teaching as well as being able to take over the classroom completely, these things have helped me to become more aware of good ways to assess my students. For example, I need to be listening to students and what they have to say. Authentic assessments are very important because you learn so much more about students and what they are capable of. If students do not feel pressured to get a certain answer, assessments will be a lot easier for students. I think it is also important to be observant of children in the natural environment and to take anecdotal records while they are working. I want students to feel comfortable and as a teacher, it is important to be observant and to learn from students as they are working and to be looking at things without making students feel like they are being judged.

Online Module Task 4

The Poetry Café is Open, by Kovalcik & Certo

The teachers wanted to implement a poetry café, where students would read aloud poems they had written to their peers, parents, and teachers. In order to do this, the teacher incorporated poetry minilessons into Writer’s Workshop. Each minilesson began with a poetry read-aloud to show students the power of language. Then, each minilesson focused on a different aspect of poetry: descriptive clolor, rhyming, repetition, alliteration, onomatopoeia (exploring sound words), and collaboration. At the end of their poetry unit, the class transformed their classroom into a hip coffee house and parents were invited to the classroom to listen to poetry and read through their child’s poetry journal. The big idea I took from this article is that poetry café is meant to move children away from focusing on mechanics (spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and handwriting) and get students more concerned with the overall message of their writing.

I know that my mentor teacher has implemented a poetry café into her classroom in previous years and I would love to see it used again this year. I think that, like the teacher in the article, the poetry café could fit into our Writer’s Workshop (as there is actually a poetry unit included). It enriches writing instruction by helping students to use more descriptive language and focus on sensory imagery (things which my mentor teacher tells students “fancy up” their writing). Additionally, I think that giving students the opportunity to present their poetry shows them how important writing is (plus, it’s fun)!

To use poetry café with my students, I feel that I would need to learn more about creating a comfortable and safe classroom environment where students feel completely comfortable sharing their writing and are respectful and supportive of one another. This aspect is vital for the success of the poetry café.

Finally, after reading through this module I feel that I got a lot out of the assessment portion. I generally think of assessments as formal tests given to students, but this is merely one small aspect of what assessments are. They are simply meant to “gather information about what students know and are able to do,” as it stated in the assessment powerpoint. As I move forward with my unit development, I see myself using mostly informal assessments, as my target instruction areas involve mainly whole-group discussion-type lessons. Specifically, I hope to assess work samples, take observation notes, and conference with individual or small groups of students.

Management: Book Club Plus! and My Classroom

In chapter 6, the authors talked about how to launch the book club in your own classroom. You must “think about your level of implementation, your curriculum, standards, themes, literature selection, the grouping of students, daily instruction, reading aloud, developing a classroom library, and how to work with children who are learning to speak, read, and write in English” (103). In describing each of these areas, several of the suggested ideas correspond to things I’m seeing in the classroom as well. First, it is suggested that teachers may use book club alone or immediately being teaching it to students. Incorporating read-aloud with book club helps students “learn how to engage with texts in meaningful ways” (104). My students already have the opportunity to make connections to the stories we read, notice structural patterns, and analyze characters, settings, problems, and solutions in the books we read. Second, the chapter describes how to choose literature to read to students (i.e. books that promote discussion, are developmentally appropriate, rich content, and tie in with curriculum goals). I feel that my mentor teacher is fabulous at choosing interesting, deep books with relatable content and meaningful storylines. She is always able to relate her read-alouds to the students and foster discussion. Third, grouping students is crucial to the success of book clubs. Students are grouped at tables in my classroom and will do various activities requiring group work throughout the day. My mentor teacher has given much thought to the size, diversity, and attitudes of students when putting groups together. Specifically, she told me earlier today that she likes grouping students of different reading levels together because this gives lower students the opportunity to grow more quickly. Fourth, my classroom already utilizes reading aloud, shared reading, and guided reading groups similarly to Book Club Plus!

If I were to try some of the aspects of book club, I would need to support my students in a few ways. First, I would need to show them how to discuss a book without constant prompting from me. I need to support and teach my first graders how to communicate respectfully with one another (taking turns, looking at the person speaking, be a good listener, ask questions, etc.). Second, I would need to especially support my struggling readers. The Book Club Plus! text suggests giving such readers their books to take home and pre-read before coming back to school and reading/discussing with peers. This way, they have heard it once or twice before (121). Third, I could support my ELL students by providing books on tape (if possible, in English and their native language). This will allow students to hear fluent reading in English and better comprehend and create meaning from the reading in their native language.

Book Club Management and Own Literacy Management

While I was looking at the chapters for this week, I learned a lot of different things regarding book talks and how you organize different types of literacy areas within a classroom. I was thinking about my classroom and I did not really think that book club discussions could take place because my children are only 5 and they cannot read on their own. I was not sure that my children would be able to read a book and then actually go and discuss the book. I really liked this quote “They may use commercial versions of books on tape or, if these aren’t available, create their own through family and community volunteers and volunteers from older grades” (Bookclub Plus, 108).  This would make it easier for students to hear a story and then be able to go and discuss it in books. It would also be beneficial in my mind to have the volunteer stay and guide the discussion in case things happen to go off track in a wrong direction or pose questions for students to think about. I also thought it was very important to choose books that have enough content in them for students to be able to discuss. Many books are often not filled with content for young readers so it is important to choose books that there may be a dilemma happening or some information that is easily able to discuss.  In choosing this, I agree that it needs to be developmentally appropriate to your students.

               In my classroom, because we are not doing book clubs, but rather we are doing partner shares, we have two students to a group. We let these students discuss the question asked and then we share what our partner says. The reasoning behind the partner groups we chose was originally based on behavior, personality or the beginning stages of literacy development that we saw in different children. Now that we have gotten to know our children more, these partner groups will be changing again. It would be interesting to see how children would do in groups of 4 or 5 children when discussing a book. We also have been doing assessments on our children regarding literacy (reading, writing, concepts about print). These things along with behavior are also helping us determine who should work with whom and who should be sitting at tables together. I like the fishbowl model. This would be something interesting to try with my students. We have to model a lot of what we are teaching so this would be interesting to see how my students would react to it if we were to try book clubs.

               In our classroom, we manage our literacy program by being enthusiastic about writing and reading. We want students to see that both my teacher and I value these things and then they might too. We want students to be excited about learning and this is something that we model in class. We also use different types of instruction and we try and choose the most developmentally appropriate books for our students and differentiate our teaching styles to the needs of our students. Our class ranges from very low students to high students. We try to make sure that we try to make all students excited to learn even if they are already understanding more than what we are teaching at the moment. If we were going to try out the book club model in my classroom, I would really have to work on partner sharing first and then go into groups of students. I would then also like more people to model how book club groups work. At first, it may seem hectic, but once norms were in place, I feel like this might work in my classroom.