November 4th Blog Post

Building off of last weeks blog, I will discuss how important reading comprehension is. Gill stated

that many teachers find comprehension a mystery and often focus more on understanding rather than comprehending. Students reported that they comprehend poorly when the text was assigned by teachers, when they knew little about the topic, or when the text was dense with few paragraph breaks or illustrations.

The same readers reported that they were able to comprehend well when they had interest in the topic, when there was a purpose to read, and when they weren't distracted by worries, chores, or noise. All of these things are things that teachers should jeep in mind when planning to teach reading comprehension. It is so important that students are enjoying the text they are reading. If they have no interest or if they are being "forced" to read it, then they will more than likely just skim the book instead of taking the time to really comprehend the words and concepts of each page.

What are some ways that your teachers allowed choice when it came to reading? Were you allowed to pick out books that you wanted to read? Did this help your reading comprehension?