Old Blog ?/New Post on Comprehension

Dear all,

I had not written a post on digital natives or on comprehension, so I wanted to contribute; better late than never :).

It's interesting to me how everyone in this group struggled with comprehension, whether it be in terms of vocabulary or just being overwhelmed by the breadth and depth of information. I also struggled with reading comprehension, but this struggle centered around comprehending non-fiction work as opposed to fiction. I was an avid fiction reader as a child; my lack of interest in non-fiction definitely played a role in my comprehension struggle. Obviously my shaky conceptual knowledge and lack of vocabulary in the non-fiction schema catalyzed my lack of comprehension as well. My mom would often read my non-fiction texts for me and 'translate' the concepts so I could understand them; this was definitely counterproductive, as I didn't gain long-term strategies for how to actively comprehend non-fiction. My parents eventually hired a study skills tutor; I now utilize the tutor's suggestions in my everyday reading.

In terms of my current reading habits, I wouldn't say that I exercise pre-reading strategies like examining titles and subtitles or reading comprehension questions ahead of time (this is not a commendable trait, I know.) But I do a first reading of the assigned text and then go back through to analyze headings and highlight main ideas. This helps me in many ways; for instance, the material is more familiar upon a second glance than when I am first reading, so I am able to focus on sentence level ideas and word choice as opposed to worrying about broad concepts. Secondly, since I have a much clearer idea of what the main ideas are, I have a much clearer idea of what I should be taking notes on than when I am first reading. Thus this reading strategy has greatly enhanced my reading comprehesion for fiction and non-fiction.

I found Gibbons to be particularly interesting in terms of her take on comprehension. For instance, I am intrigued by her statement that "without knowledge of the topic and with limited linguistic resources, a young reader has no choice but to rely on graphophonic knowledge" (83). I find this statement to be very true of my experience with reading Spanish literature. I took Spanish classes up to the four hundred level at MSU; I feel that I was provided with a shaky level of phonics and very little complex reading. Thus I greatly struggled when I did encounter complex readings; as Gibbons eloquently argues, there was no bridge of cultural and contextual knowledge that helped me grasp the concepts behind the task. However, I feel that these struggles helped reinforce Gibbons' argument in my mind on the utility of challenging ELL's comprehension while paving the path for their understanding.

I also found Gibbons' multiple comprehension strategies to be very interesting, as I have experienced many of these strategies in my own elementary and secondary years; I liked the fact that these strategies are not restricted to ELLs but that they can be utilized by all learners. In terms of seeing these strategies in the field, I can't say that I have seen my CT explicitly utilizing these strategies. She does have weekly reading packets that focus on different aspects of reading; comprehension is definitely part of the packet. However, I recently saw her doing a neat lesson where she focused on the 'awesome adjectives' and 'descriptive verbs' in the book Owl Moon. According to Gibbons, this would be a "rereading for detail" strategy. The students had to listen to her read a page aloud and then name off the verbs and adjectives that stood out to them. I feel that this exercise innately touched on many of Gibbons' arguments, such as the necessity of repetition for struggling readers-students who were struggling with the concept of verb vs. adjectives showed greater understanding through their verbal answers by the end of the lesson. Thus I feel that comprehension is taught in all types of ways; it is our job to recognize and model those methods as future teachers :).