The Comprehension Matrix

http://www.gmatpill.com/practice-questions-explanations-gmat-prep/gmatpill-releases-reading-comprehension-pill-video-guide-rc/

If any of my readers have ever had a hard time comprehending what they are reading, they can sympathize with me!  Often when I read I look like the reader in the above image.  It can be very frustrating to spend time reading something, and then not fully understand what it is saying.  Teachers spend a lot of time trying to get their students to understand what they are reading.  The Comprehension Matrix is a tool that educators can use to help them understand and plan comprehension instruction with their students.  The Comprehension Matrix is a chart that helps to divided up reading activities into prereading, during-reading, and postreading.  By dividing these activities up it better enables the students to comprehend and learn from what they are reading.  The Matrix can be used with different comprehension teaching strategies, and can help to give children multiple ways to comprehend and understand what they read.

The first part of the Comprehension Matrix is the portion that details what to do before the students read the text, also called prereading.  During this the teacher can talk with the students and get the prepared for the reading by introducing them to the text, getting them excited about it, and giving them any background knowledge that they need for the reading.  It is also important the teacher shows the children the structure of the text during this phase and should let them know the purpose of their reading.

The next part of the Matrix is the during-reading step.  The teacher should give the students time to read the text and understand what it is saying.  It is possible that in some classrooms it is more helpful if the teacher gives the students a specific thing to be looking for, or if they are told to underline important actions in the story.  Some teachers also have great success with structuring this reading time so that the students read one paragraph at a time and then ask the students questions.

Postreading, the last step in the Comprehension Matrix, is when the teacher checks for understanding and comprehension.  A discussion on the reading could be really beneficial to bring some of the students ideas to the whole classroom.  Asking the students specific questions is also important to see whether or not they understood the key points in the reading.  This can also be done by having the students write a quick summary or to draw a snapshot from a scene in the story.  The Postreading step does not have to be formal or difficult for the students, it can be fun for them!

Just by looking at the simply steps of the Comprehension Matrix I believe one can understand how helpful it may be for students.  As good as it sounds, the matrix does not work well if the teacher does not prepare well for the activity.  The teacher must first of all know her students, know how well they stay on task, and know what interests them.  Through this she can pick the reading for them and then design the activities around her students.  It is also important the teacher has previewed the text and is really familiar with it.  This way she is able to bring up questions to the students throughout the process that will help them better understand the reading.  The teacher is also able to better design postreading activities if he or she has actually studied the reading.

I really like the idea of the Comprehension Matrix and can already see how it could be beneficial in a classroom.  I am also wondering if using similar techniques would help me to better understand by readings for my history courses that are sometimes very difficult to follow.  It sounds as though the Comprehension Matrix is really universal and could be useful across all grade levels and disciplines.  I hope I am able to implement similar activities into my classroom.

Has anyone ever used anything similar to this when completing a reading?  I remember doing it very little when I was in Elementary School, and it seemed even more rare in higher grades.  Do you think it would be beneficial for students to get in a pattern of doing this with all of their readings while they are young?

Are one-minute fluency assessments really that helpful?

This week our readings focuses on fluency.  I was really interested in the article that focused on one-minute fluency tests because I am somewhat familiar with them.  As part of my job this last summer assisting with a summer school I was involved in giving fluency tests to several children.  I was not that familiar with the process before working with the summer school program, and at the time had my doubts on how accurate the assessments were.  This reading sort of echoed some of my own thoughts, and strengthened some of my thoughts on these fluency tests.

According to "One-Minute Fluency Measures: Mixed Messages in Assessment and Instruction," fluency tests usually only test for accuracy and rate, forgetting the fact that comprehension is also really important.  Fluency tests do not give a reason for why or why not a student is fluent, or a way to correct it.  It also does not give an accurate view of how a child may read a larger portion of material on their own.  A child may be able to focus for one minute with his or her teacher, but reading a book during 30 minutes of free reading time may be different for the child.  The article ends with some suggestions for making these fluency assessments more relevant and some improve ways to use them in the classroom.

From my own experience I could see that some children reacted much differently to one-minute fluency tests.  Some of them did really well and seemed to understand what they were reading during the time.  Others would rush through it just to get their word count high.  Others would do decent that could barely read anything on their own.  We did employ some of the suggestions that the article had for improving fluency.  We did not rely on the tests a lot for comprehension measures.  We also let the children reread the text for a few days and retested them after they were more familiar with it as part of the process.  I expected that most of the children would do better after seeing the readings that much, but some of them barely improved or even went down a little.

In my future classroom I think I can use my experience to my advantage.  I already somewhat understand the process of doing these fluency assessments and understand that they can be abused, and can yield results that really do not tell us much.  By using some of the tips from the reading I think I can make it a useful tool.  I need to remember to combine it with other activities and be more open with what the assessment is about, and then choose more interesting readings, reread them with the students, and to engage parents of the students into the process.

Are any of my blog readers familiar with giving fluency assessments?  Have any of you ever noticed how some children rush through them, or how others put on a really good front while doing them?

Making Words

Making Words describes an activity in which a teacher gives each of her students the same magnetic letters and then shows them all of the words that they can create from six or seven letters, or how ever many he/she gives the students.  This can be especially helpful for children in Kindergarten, First, and Second grade.  Around this age children are still learning how to spell and read words.  They can really benefit from an activity that shows them specific patterns between words that use the same letters.  To start the activity the teacher tells them to make words with two letters, then with three letters, then with four letters, until eventually all of the letters are used to make a big word.  By showing them all of the different words that they can make with four letters for example, they begin to understand that those four letters can make even more words if they move them around, and then add more letters.

I really like the sound of this activity.  I can picture students enjoying the activity, but more importantly it would be really helpful for them.  It is important that children practice invented spelling, but by using this structured spelling activity it helps them understand how words are created from letters by showing them the patterns that letters make.  This in turn makes their invented spelling better and better until eventually their invented spelling is correct spelling.  As basic as this sounds it is really important.

When I was in school I do not remember practicing spelling that much in the classroom.  The teacher would go over the weekly words for us, but the majority of our spelling learning was done at home and was just repetition   I would have really enjoyed an activity such as this.  Does anyone else remember being able to do this type of activity when they were in school?  Did you enjoy it?  I am wondering if some kids may get frustrated or embarrassed by it if their peers can see that they are struggling with it.

Coaching Word Recognition

One of the topics included in this weeks readings was coaching word recognition.  This coaching is done when the teacher gives cues during reading time to help his or her students recognize and sound out a word by breaking it apart.  Kathleen Clark tells us how important this teaching strategy can be, and describes how more and more teachers are learning to do it after they have started teaching.

There are two different types of cues that teachers present to their children.  They sometimes use general cues that make their students think about what to do on their own without giving any specific cue on how to say a word.  Teachers also use more specific cues in which they prompt a student to focus on a certain part of a word or to the context around the word.  Both types of cues are great tools to use in the classroom.

I see coaching through the use of cues as a valuable tool to use in my future classroom.  By doing this it allows the students to recognize words using their knowledge that they already have about specific sounds or smaller words that make up bigger words that they are unfamiliar with.  It seems like a very simple task that could really help the students in the long run.

To me, the whole idea of teaching cues is really familiar.  I have seen teachers do similar things multiple times, yet I never knew that it was actually a teaching strategy.  Do any of my blog readers recall being aware of the importance of cues?  Does anyone have some different ideas for teaching word recognition that does not involve giving cues?