Monitoring comprehension is one hard task for my students. They have difficulty determining whether they truly understand the text or not. Chapter six in Strategies that Work et al. explicitly explains how to teach comprehension strategies that deals with monitoring comprehension. One of the strategies I really liked and I started using with my students in the past week is “Knowing When You Know and Knowing When You Don’t Know. While reading aloud, I model when I am genuinely confused and then I show how I find the answer in the text. For instance, my students and I were reading an article from a magazine about young kids in Dominican Republic whose dreams are to play in Baseball Major Leagues and the challenges they face to even get chosen. There was one part in the article that explained the process of getting picked in the baseball camps and how these baseball camps are the key in changing kids’ lives and the life of their families. At first I didn’t understand how the families would also be benefited from these camps so I articulated my confusion to my students. I said I was going to keep reading to find the answer in the text. Luckily in the next paragraph it clearly explained that these families were given medical services, food, and housing. I then showed my students how this information enabled me to understand the text.

         Although it is a new approach I am taking while thinking aloud, I already can tell my students are relating to it as they become confuse themselves while reading. Instead of avoiding that uncertainty about the text, I am modeling to my students what to do when I am unsure about the text. Harvey and Goudvis suggested that “this coding technique supports students’ effort to monitor their comprehension and stay on track with their thinking” (2007 p. 81).

Another comprehension strategy that allows students to monitor their thinking while reading is “Read, Write, and Talk,” Students jot down comments, questions, and connections about what they read. Some of my students successfully use this technique in their independent practice as well as my co-teacher, especially when reading social studies magazines. Though I had never used this strategy I can see how it can help my students track their thinking as they are responding directly to that text while reading. This note jotting allows students to connect to text and self, to predict, to question the text or the definition of unfamiliar words, to summarize and synthesize important information.  Harvey and Goudvis explained that “when kids notice their thinking while they read and engaged in purposeful talk [and note jotting], they comprehend more completely and think beyond the text” (2007, p. 83).

                           Classroom teachers and Exceptional Education Inclusion teachers are too busy teaching or in some cases, drilling, math and reading lesson in order to meet the academic standards assessed in FCAT. Consequently, we are only able to devote 30 minutes to Social Studies or Science per day. This is not enough! One approach we have taken in my inclusive classroom is that one of utilizing reading materials from social studies to practice comprehension strategies. One strategy that we have been using most of the times in social studies is defining unfamiliar words through context clues. My co teacher and I model how to use context clues to figure out the meaning of these words. For instance, when reading about Ancient Civilizations we came across the word “migrate.” In the text, this word was followed by a coma, the conjunction “or” and the word “travel:” migrate, or travel. We explained to the students that one way to find out what this word meant was to keep on reading paying attention to that coma and the conjunction because the text was giving us the definition. Even though travel is not the most adequate definition for migrate, it still helped students understand that ancient civilizations used to travel and move to different places in search of fertile lands and homes.

Harvey and Goudvis suggested that despite our lack of time to teach social studies or science, we should create learning environments that focus on comprehension as opposed to memorization. We should foster an environment that connects students with real world and real life issues. Finally, this environment should provide students with time to think (2007 p. 207). When teaching social studies my co-teacher and I try to connect the content with issues that are meaningful to students. Recently, we were learning about economics and we decided to extend the unit to talk about banks, interest rate, credit cards, and loans. Surprisingly, students were really engaged and they asked valuable questions such as: how do I know a bank won’t steal my money” “If I am out of Naples can I still access my money in my bank account?” This turned out into a huge opportunity for debating and thinking, I had never seen my students so eager to learn about a subject. All I had to do was to relate the content to their experiences as most of their parents had bank accounts.

          As an Inclusion teacher I wish I could have a classroom of my own to be able to implement all the techniques mentioned in our textbook such as: Book Club Discussions, Creation of Concept Maps, Creation of Maps of Stories, Construction of Time Lines, among others.  The one reading technique I utilize the most in the class is Interactive Read-Alouds with picture books and regular books. While not having a classroom of my own is frustrating, co teaching is an excellent method to share my thinking with my students and my co teacher.  Mr. Schultz, my co teacher, and are able to engage in effective dialogues that make our thinking visible to our students. It has only been six weeks of school and I have noticed how my students use great vocabulary words when expressing their thinking or confusion about a text. This is all part of content literacy as students are learning information, ideas, and new ways of thinking. When they ask important questions and share their thinking with classmates, they also explore their world (Harvey and Goudvis, 2007, p 218).

 

Harvey, S. & Goudvis A. (2007) Strategies that work: Teaching Comprehension for Understanding and Engagement (2^nd Ed). Porstmouth: NH. Stenhouse Publishers.