Thinking About Reading Comprehension

I think that it is really difficult to think about how I comprehend things when I read because I feel like I do it automatically. Without realizing it, I think I go through all of the steps talked about in the article by Gregory. I think that when I first see a story, I mentally question what it will be about and make inferences based on the picture on the cover and the title. As I am reading the story, I really do visualize it playing out like a movie in my head, so I like the term “mind-movie” that the article uses. I also make connections to things I have learned in the past. One strategy that I do not think I use as often is to make connections to other texts. I do not remember doing this unless the texts are in the same series or are specifically mentioned in a book.

My new classroom that I started at on Friday is a Montessori classroom and when I came in for literature, they were doing discussion circles. It was really interesting to read the article by Gregory and Cahill after seeing that, because almost all of the comprehension elements mentioned in the reading were used in the discussion circle. Each student in the circle had a job. One was the discussion leader, and he asked three open ended questions about the reading. That matches up with the questioning part of Mrs. Hope’s discussion strategy. The second person was the literary luminary and they were choosing a couple paragraphs or sentences to respond to with their group. Depending on what sentences they picked, the resulting conversation may include inferring, as mentioned in the Gregory article (and on page 262 of Tompkins). The third person is the connector, finding connections between the book and life, community, or similar events. This was like the text-to-self and text-to-world connections mentioned in the article. The fourth was the visualizer and they provide a visual (sketch, cartoon, diagram, collage, etc) related to the reading. This would involve visualization, and would be a visual representation of the mind movies mentioned in the Gregory article. I think it is amazing that the discussion circles I see in class include all of the elements of comprehension in the same discussion. I think that the teacher I am observing must have done a lot of scaffolding before this so that the students would stay on task and the discussion would run smoothly.

Problem posting as a comment...

Hey guys, this is supposed to be my comment, but it is telling me it is too long? So i hope its ok i just am adding it as a seperate post...

Kayla, I definitely agree about having someone to go to. As a side note, the teacher I work with at work in a preschool class does nothing like this. It has always bothered me that she wants to do everything on her own and doesn’t go to anyone for ideas - especially the teachers that had her students last year. It has really made me think about the importance of relationships in a school.
Before going into details about specific students, I’d like to point out that Mrs. Potter doesn’t mention much about the students except for what they are doing in school (except for the explanation about Lupita’s life in Mexico). I think she should talk to the parents to find out more about what their home life is like. There could be other things that are influencing the way they are in school.
I would also like to know more about Lupita’s language skills. It mentioned other experiences she lacked, including socialization, but the teacher didn’t mention how she was doing with her English language learning. I agree that it would account for many of her struggles. I think that the puzzle skills can tell a lot. Mrs. Potter could find other games or problem solving activities that don’t require much language to assess Lupita in different ways. If Lupita is not already, it could really be beneficial for her to be involved in an English Language Learning program. I feel like she needs to feel more comfortable and included in the classroom for her to open up as well. If Mrs. Potter would include things about Mexico or introduce the class to things Lupita is familiar with, she could feel more important in her classroom community and be able to relate to lessons in a more meaningful way.

Jonathan is interesting to me because he is who I feel I have the least amount of information from. I think I would want to know more about Jonathan’s interests. If Mrs. Potter could expose him to books that relate to him and/or his interests I think that he would have more of an interest in reading. For example, since he plays baseball, that could be a good place to start: books involving baseball. Even though Mrs. Potter has talked to Jonathan about asking for help, this could be something very embarrassing for a student, especially if he is further behind classmates. Maybe they could come up with a different signal until he feels more comfortable and confident. Another possibility, while I know it is hard to keep on top of every student, is to just make sure she checks in with him herself. I liked your suggestion, Kayla, about giving his parents suggestions. If confidence is something that is holding him back, maybe Mrs. Potter could arrange for him to work with a student in a lower grade or lower level, where Jonathan is reading to that child or helping them learn something. I also agreed with having to explain in different ways. This is something we keep coming back to: the simple fact that different students learn differently. Maybe even having another student explain things to him would be in more of a way that he understands.

Kayla, I also have a family member with Attention Deficit Disorder, so I, too, thought of this right away for Eddie. I wouldn’t want to label it right away of course, but I think the worst thing to do would be to put any constraints on him. If he is having trouble sitting still, then making him remain still will only have a negative impact on his learning. The engagement with the tadpoles also interested me. If things like this interest Eddie, then maybe Mrs. Potter could try incorporating them in more lessons. It would keep Eddie from wanting to move around, but she also doesn’t want him to just be intrigued with the tadpoles. So, maybe if she pulled Eddie aside and gave him a preview of some of the things she will be looking for during her lesson (I.e. number of eggs) it could maybe push Eddie to pay more attention. Something I have seen used is a “fidget tool,” or something to let a student move around, while still being involved in a lesson. I would also suggest getting someone, like the IEP specialist you mentioned, to come in and observe Eddie in her classroom.

Hey group,



I didn't know if I was supposed to go first this week because technically last week was my week to go by Sunday but we all posted at the same time by Tuesday. I'll just go first this week. Sorry if you two were waiting for me.



First of all, the reading that hit me was the Maple reading. Understanding that it may be hard for me to get complete parental support helps me know how much it can affect my students learning. Parents are with the students for the rest of the day that the teacher isn't with them. They know their children. Maple said, "parents are the ultimate experts when it comes to knowing their children." He said that through connection with the parents, they are able to help provide the students with a quality education. By knowing more about students and their families, we can tap into the special things they have to bring to the classroom to share with the other students.

As for the "What Do You Think" reading about three students that seem to be stressing the teacher out, I have a few thoughts on that. First of all, I think it's really great that these teachers have someone to go to, to hold each other accountable for their students' learning, and to bounce questions and ideas off of. I think it shows how much Mrs. Potter cares about her students because she wants to do what's best for them and seeks help to do so.

I think that Lupita might have some language barriers. All she might have knows was Spanish, having lived in Mexico with her grandparents her whole life so far. This might account for her appearance of a lack of academic skills. She shows her intelligence by doing a difficult puzzle, and she shows her patient and efficient people skills by helping out her peers in the class when they can't figure out how to do the puzzle. It seems to me that language probably plays the biggest role here. I'm sure the fact that she wasn't used to having toys, puzzles, paper, crayons, or scissors around influenced how much she knew how to use or interact with them right away. She had to watch how they other kids used them to understand, and her ability to catch on so quickly with the puzzles and interaction shows her intellectual ability as being fairly high. Lupita might need to go into a classroom with a Spanish speaking teacher, or she might just need another student to help her understand the ways of the classroom and answer any questions or misunderstanding she might have.

Reading definitely appears to be the issue for Jonathan. Confidence also appears to play a role. He may be afraid to admit that he can't do something becasue he does so well at other things outside of the classroom. He might need a specialty reading teacher to come in and work with him, or Mrs. Potter might need to send a letter home to his parents with tips on how they might help him improve his reading at home. Hemight also not understand the work so much that he doesn't even understand what to ask for help on so he just doesn't. Mrs. Potter might have to explain the directions to him a different way, or slower than the rest of the class.

Having experience with this with my own family, the first thing I thought of for Eddie was Attention Deficit Disorder because of his trouble at sitting still and his constant desire to keep moving. Another hint was his engagement in the tadpole jar as his mind could have been on a thousand other things, yet he didn't hear what his teacher had to say. Mrs. Potter might have to talk to his parents about how he acts at home or if other ADD symptoms have been noticed. She might have to talk to an IEP specialist to figure out the best way to engage Eddie and keep him engaged.

Just these three students may be difficult to teach at once. Imagining a 24 student classroom with these three students and 21 other students all with their own strategies and styles of learning shows how challenging it can be at times to keep a classroom running smoothly, and ensuring that all the students are learning.

Writing Sample

My writing sample is a captain’s log based off a book that my 5th grade class is reading. The students were required to write 14 entries over the span of a month. I believe that the student whose sample I have is at stage 4 of spelling development based on the words that I saw her misspelling. In this stage of development, students learn how to add suffixes, which was something this student seemed to have a little bit of a problem with. She spells most words correctly, but often forgets the –e in the suffix –ed. For example, she spelled the word “happened” as “happend” and “hammered” as “hammerd”. She also spelled “gathered” as “gatherd” and remembered as “rememberd”. It seems like all the words that she does this to are ones that end in a consonant and then the –ed is added. At the same time, she sometimes spells words correctly that end in a consonant and add an –ed. She spelled “called” and “returned” correctly.

The student knows to change the endings of some words in order to add –ed. For example, she spelled “tried” correctly. She spelled most other words in the piece correctly, with minor mistakes such as switching letters around (“moeny” instead of “money” and “cheif” instead of “chief”) or adding the same consonant (“begginning” instead of “beginning” and “harrassed” instead of “harassed”). She definitely understood skills developed in stage 3 of spelling development, such as long vowel spelling patterns. She spelled words such as “more”, “strange”, “have”, and “breeze” correctly every time. I think the most helpful thing to focus on in teaching her a lesson would be the addition of the suffix –ed to words, especially ones with a root word ending in “r” or “n”.

Writing Samples

The last time I went to my placement was Wednesday and I was very sick. Since I didn’t have a contagious type of illness I decided to go to my placement and make the best of it, however, during my dizzy, out-of-it spell, I completely forgot to grab or copy some of my students’ writings. Having spent so much time in the classroom so far this year, I can definitely recall some commonalities and specifics of some of the writings.

I would say that most of the students in my second and third grade classroom are at the third stage of spelling development: the within-word pattern spelling stage. It is common for the students to confuse spelling patterns and reverse the letters in their words. I noticed that specifically on a student’s spelling worksheet when they put “gril” instead of “girl.” Was it because they were filling out the worksheet too fast so that they could read their book or color? Or was it because they were stuck in stage three and just confused the letters?

I notice a reoccurring mistake in one of my student’s writing with the word “and,” as well. He insists on writing “and” as “in” because those are the sounds that he hears. Last Wednesday when I was there I corrected him on it again while he was writing a paper about things he likes to do with his family members. A few minutes later I went back and checked on him again and he had written “and” as “in” again, not connecting his last correction to every instance in the future, too.

I notice in my classroom that there isn’t a word wall for the students and that really bothers me because I think there should be at least common words up for the students so they can have somewhere to look to when they aren’t sure. Instead, they have gotten into the habit of asking how to spell something. I am also a firm believer in spelling like it sounds or how you think it is spelled at first and then learning how to spell it the correct way. Often times the students will ask me how to spell something and I will challenge them to write down how they think it’s spelled and then I will check it and many times they have spelled it right anyway.

Writing Samples

Well, last the last time I went to my placement was on January 26th (because of the snow days). At that time there were still second graders in the class. Those are who I collected my writing samples from. They looked through a book, the story of the ants and the grasshopper. They were supposed to write their predictions of what the story was going to be about.

One student has just entered the Spanish Immersion program this year. While they are supposed to do everything in Spanish, she resorted to writing in English because she feels more comfortable with it and therefore can get more across that way. She wrote "the ants are culeting food. The gase haper is going to want some of his food. the ants mit get a plan for the grass  haper to not get ther food." I would classify this student as Stage 3: Within-Word Pattern Spelling (based on chapter 5 in Literacy for the 21st Century). In this stage, students can spell most one syllable short-vowel words. This is shown in her correct spelling of the following words: is, to, want, of, his, get, plan, for, not. She is still learning some of the more complex consonant patterns such as "ght" and adding a consonant when adding a suffix (hopper). However, she has an understanding of some inflectional endings (-s, -ing), which is part of stage 4. For some words that are probably less used in her vocabulary, she is spelling them phonetically (like "culeting", for collecting).

Another student, who has been in the program since preschool, wrote "La zatamonte vasa vivir con los ormicas. Las ormicas vasa durmer con la zatamonte. Las ormicas y la zatamontes van a conptner." I had a hard time classifying this but I would say he is also in Stage 3. "Ormicas" should be "hormigas" but when listening to the word, one does not hear the 'h' as it is silent. Also, his 'zatamontes' is meant to be 'saltamontes' but the spanish s and z sounds are very similar and difficult to differentiate and learn the rules to. So, I feel that he is recognizing spelling patterns. He is not yet to stage 4 in that he doesn't fully understand endings. (I feel that the Spanish number and gender concordance would fall into this category as well - he was not consistant with number in that 'la ormicas' should be 'las hormigas' and 'la zatamontes' should be 'la saltamonte.') 

Since I feel that it is difficult to explain these Spanish examples to people who may not have any basis of understanding of Spanish, I collected additional samples of the first graders yesterday to try a little more. The students compared and contrasted two books about Martin Luther King Jr. using a venn diagram. One student wrote "aldulto. su esposa. Rosa Parks." for one book, and "BeBe. Piano. hermanos.yhermanas. su tia. su abuela." for the other. Then for both she wrote, "las personas no estan Iguales. african americano. Padres. la suena." I thought it was very interesting that she placed a period after each thought although only one was actually a sentence. She correctly placed an accent over the second 'e' in bebe, so it makes me wonder where this would fall in the stages. I would say that she is beginning to move from Stage 2 to Stage 3 becuase her spellings are not abbreviated and she seems to understand how to use consonant blends. However, the one word sentences aren't able to show much. Within the words, she is showing vowel patterns (for the Spanish language).

Technology and Literacy

After reading the information about "Digital Denizens" on the website, I decided that I think the "digital native" category best suits me.  I feel like while we have gone throug most of (or at least part of) school, using technology, we are nothing like the students who we will be teaching who have been exposed to it from the beginning. I was partially considering "digital addict" after reading the quiz questions - so it really makes me wish the calculator part worked. I realized that I would have to answer 'agree' to the statements about using email and word processor, and that (especially today with this storm) I would go crazy if the internet went out and I couldnt check things like my email. Thinking about that, made me realize though, that I was not like that at all until college. However, even though I rely so much on technology, I do not do well with change. I rarely try to explore new technologies. I think that taking CEP 416 over the summer was one of the best choices for me because it exposed me to many different technologies that I didn't feel comfortable with before.

All of this made me realize, though, that there are a lot of things that have influenced my use of technology. I'm not sure what other schools were like, but my elementar school did not have any computers. We first had one at home when I was in the first grade, but I just had a few games that I would play on it. I didn't use computers in school until learning how to type in middle school. High school was an interesting experience when it comes to technology. I went to two different schools: the high school in the morning (for English, Spanish, and History) and the Academy around the corner in the afternoon (for honors classes in math, science, research, and technology). Being at the Academy, I had expereinces making movied on iMovie, we had a robotics class, and a computer programming class.

I thought chapter 4 in the New Literacies book refreshed the ideas of concepts of print, phonological awareness, and sound-letter relationships really well for me. Tompkins talks aobut emergent literacy for children with the perspective that young children (preschool) "have demondstrated that they could recognize signs and other environmental print, retell stories, scribble letters, invent printlike writing, and listen to stories read aloud" (pg 111). Tompkins explains different signs that students show and the process in which they usually grow. I thought the suggestions on page 131 were really interesting of ways to incorporate 'New Literacies' for students. Looking at the different suggestions, I realized some connections between emergent digital literacy and the way Tompkins talks about emergent literacy. Interactive books provide children with opportunities with practice with pronunciation and gives additional effects such as animations and expressions.

I feel that with the way technology is advancing, everyone could be considered "emergent" since there is always so much to learn. So, for my own digital literacy, the term "emergent" does apply. While I feel comfortable with technology, I am only comfortable with what I know. There is so much out there for me to learn still in order to enhance my student's learning. It is as if for some things I am still learning "which way to hold the book." Just as I still need some push and assistance with my own digital learning, ELLs have the same type of literacy learning needs. For ELL students, there are many things that they still have not been exposed to and so we have to take that into consideration when teaching - that they are coming with different background knowledge than other students. I really liked (on page 14) in the Gibbons book, she wrote that ELLs "learn language and learn through language." Thinking about my digital literacy, the same applies. Also, sometimes it is important for "clear and explicit instructions" to be provided. Finally, stage 1 in chapter 3 i think is also important to mention - letting students experiment. Just as it is important for us to experiment with technology in order to become more comfortable, ELLs need to experiment and learn their way around the English language.