Supporting Students Who Struggle with Comprehension
Students who struggle with comprehension are
often overlooked. They may be reading the material but that does not always
mean that they are understanding what they have read. They may just be reading
mechanically. Here are 5 strategies that can be implemented into the classroom
to help students with comprehension.
1.
Target overall comprehension of language:
students who have poor grammar and do not have a large repertoire in speaking
orally will have difficulties comprehending in reading and writing. To support
these students using smaller texts and simpler texts with the same information
that a complex text has could make it easier for students to understand and
know what the main idea is and where it is located.
2.
Teach vocabulary: students often
encounter vocabulary words that they do not understand and therefore cannot
connect it to what they are reading. Using context clues and learning prefixes
and suffixes is a mayor player in this role. Also, utilizing pictures for
example the word unicycle could be accompanied by an image with the prefix uni
underlined and then a short definition.
3.
Teach thinking strategies: students forget
to connect new material with previous material. KWL charts are a great tool to
bringing this previous information to light so that they can use to it to
connect new with old. Also, looking back at the text is a strategy that they
should feel comfortable doing and they will not be penalized for looking back.
It will be encouraged.
4.
Have students practice reciprocal teaching:
students need opportunities to implement what they have learned and using roles
is a great strategy for them to show what they have learned. Using sections of
a text or chapter students can be paired up into groups and given the following
roles (questionnaire, summarizer, clarifier, predictor) they can take on that leadership.
5.
Directly teach comprehension skills: comprehension
skills are a great tool to use when reading because it allows them to visually
see what they are reading. Plot mountains and story structures a great
organizational tool for them to see everything laid out especially in complicated
literature like Lord of the Flies.
Children’s Books
to Teach Literary Theory in High School
Literary theory is a complex lesson that is best taught
using children’s books. In the article the author spoke about using two different
versions of the same fairy tale to teach this concept. I love fairy tales. Most
students have heard a variety of fairy tales growing up and can remember the
original story they heard.
For this very reason, I like to take spin offs of original
fairy tales because they had humor to old stories and the students love a
naughtier stinkier cheese man. This book is great because the perspective of
the characters changes drastically. We get to hear the “true” version of the story
according to the big bad wolf and other fairy tale creatures. We often do not
think about what the wolf felt dealing with three little pigs or a smart nosed little
girl in a red cape. I would challenge my students to think about other fairy
tales and think from the perspective of the huntsman or Prince Eric. And then I
would have them apply this to real world problems such as the deaf community
and how would you interact with someone who signs because they are nonverbal.
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