Day+4

=Reading=

Today we will be experiencing various strategies you might want to use in your classrooms to enhance and develop vocabulary. We will also move into areas of reading comprehension and specific strategies you might want to use with different types of reading assignments. We have already spent some time on vocabulary development and its importance. Equally important are ways to help your students to read more fluently and to enhance their comprehension skills on reading tasks.

DISCUSSION: You have been asked to read one set of readings from a particular text. Find someone who has read the opposite text and discuss the main themes, useful strategies, and whatever else you learned in the reading that you feel is important to your practice. Then find one or two other pairs and create any graphic organizer that highlights before, during, and after reading concepts.

Reading Fluency
//What the research says about Reading Fluency....// For a significant time reading fluency was not considered an important part of reading programs even in the earlier grades. Today we know the importances of emphasizing fluency. Increased fluency leads to greater proficiency and comprehension in reading. Reading fluency is heavily emphasized in the earlier grades (think of site words, for example). Yet, in middle and high school fluency receives little attention. The strategies you will see presented will help your students improve their fluency, thereby improving their comprehension of the content you want them to know.

//What fluent readers do...// Fluent reading goes beyond those skills merely associated with oral reading, and word recognition. //Deep fluency// includes a greater battery of skills. Fluent readers will:
 * adjust their rate of rate and expression to the type of text they are reading
 * use multiple resources to comprehend text that is difficult
 * make personal responses to the reading
 * metacognitively examine their own reading process

"Without being fluent in their reading, students cannot expect to read for learning."
(Antonacci& O'Callaghan, 2011)

PRESENTATIONS: Reading Fluency Strategies Presentation By: Eugene and Mike Presentation By: Neetika Sadia & Makiko Presentation by Claire

Developing Comprehension for Narrative Text.
Research show that students need direct and explicit instruction in comprehension. Student engagement with the text can be scaffolded before, during, and after reading. Many of the strategies you will see in relation to reading comprehension have components that address before, during, and after reading practice. We know that fluency is extremely important and that struggling readers attempt to read by reading "word-by-word" These students need guidance shifting towards the comprehension of the text rather than the decoding of the text. We also know that struggling readers do well when the text is connected to their out of school literacy practices and when it is pertinent to their lives. Therefore, providing diverse texts with a ranges of reading levels and topics increases engagement and motivation. //What effective readers do....// Struggling readers need to be shown models to engage in the metacognitive processes mentioned above to learn how to solve problems while reading. Effective strategies include comprehension monitoring, summarization, graphic organizers, question generation, and story structure. Finally, when students read, write, and talk about texts, they can experience varying ways of thinking and evaluating text.
 * take risks while engaging in text and set goals before, during, and after reading
 * question the text while reading
 * make predictions
 * connects the story genre to their understanding
 * considers the authors of the text, style of writing and its impact on the main ideas

PRESENTATION: Strategies to Develop Narrative Reading Comprehension Presentation by: Tanya and Lily

Developing Comprehension for Informational Texts
Students use different skills and strategies to comprehend fiction and nonfiction. Much of the research on reading comprehension attributes the fourth grade slump in reading comprehension to the sudden demands of informational texts to learn from the their reading. Students in the primary are often immersed in stories, though that is changing given the importance of developing background knowledge and informational texts. Since reading informational texts is more challenging to readers, it is important for teachers to instruct their students about the features of informational texts and to use those features to guide then to their understanding of the text. In addition to background knowledge, understanding the features and the structures of informational texts are crucial to comprehension. Since the author selects a specific structure to fit the information that is provided, it is important for students to have explicit instruction about each structure. The most common structures of informational text are: description, sequence, comparison, cause-effect, and problem-solution. Many schools teach students the previous structures in their writing so it might be helpful to connect the students writing experiences with the text structure.

PRESENTATIONS: Strategies to Develop Comprehension of Informational Texts Connect to It - Presentation by Anjana and Moni Terrey and Thomas Rekha, Faene Kim, Jesse, Ramu = =

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