In Gregory and Cahill's article, I loved how they discussed that even Kindergarten age children can learn comprehension when reading. It must be taught in an active and visual way, but they are definitely capable of comprehending the stories that they read. In Mrs. Hope's class, she made the children raise their hands with either C (connections they could make to things in their own lives), V (visualization of what is happening in the story), and wiggle their fingers if they had a question. I also enjoyed the idea of "mind movies" because that is what I did when I tutored children at Emerald Youth Club. These are all great ways to keep children engaged in the stories that are being read to them, and also allowing them to comprehend and retell the stories afterwards as well!
Now that we know young children can in fact comprehend, what are the best ways to teach this comprehension? Pardo mentions some of the best ways to do so:
- Teach decoding skills
- Help students build fluency
- Build and activate background knowledge
- Teach vocabulary words
- Motivate students
- Engage them in personal responses to text
- Teach text structures
- Model appropriate text selection
- Provide regular independent reading time
Comprehension is one of the most important parts of learning to read, and should start being taught as early as 5 and 6 years old! Do you think children this young should start being tested this early as well to see if they are comprehending? Or only introduced to the concepts for later learning?
Great question Raleigh! Children have favorite stories that they obviously know all about and comprehend, so even Kindergartners are capable of comprehension. However, I do not think that children this young should be formally evaluated for comprehension. Informal evaluations can be done to make sure that all children are learning this important skill that will help them down the road.
ReplyDeleteI also think that informal evaluations should be done on children at a young age, but formal evaluations should be done a little later on. I think it is great to introduce children to the concepts because that will help them down the road. Comprehension is an important factor that is sometimes being left out in the younger grades.
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