I think that we can understand comprehension at a word level, a sentence level, a paragraph level and then at the chapter or whole text level. I have seen lots of kids who know when they make word rec errors and can correct them using meaning and syntax at the sentence level, but who can't comprehend the whole text. Often these kids are the ones who can't synthesize ideas as they read...meaning for them, is a series of unconnected thoughts...they can often answer easy literal questions about some details, but if you ask for main ideas, messages, then they can't do that. I also have been reading an IRA publication called Why Johnny Couldn't Read---and How He Learned. The author studied successful adults who struggled with reading in school but read and comprehend well as adults. Interestingly, many of these adults still have poor phonemic awareness, spelling and phonics knowledge but comprehend at high levels. A common thread with all of these successful adult readers is that someone, a teacher or a parent, got them books that were of high interest to them. They learned to read in that genre first and then could apply what they learned (some of them) in other genres. Fluency was also often "field dependent." The book described a scientist could fluently read difficult texts in his field but not a novel. This is a relatively new idea to me, but it makes sense. If you have schema for a particular genre, it could pull you through and help you read more fluently. Jennifer Maryland In a message dated 7/8/2007 1:42:54 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Now she must have comprehended at some level to get the "interpretation" so well. But it evidently didn't transfer to short term memory/recall or whatever. ************************************** See what's free at http://www.aol.com. _______________________________________________ Mosaic mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe or modify your membership please go to http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/options/mosaic_literacyworkshop.org. Search the MOSAIC archives at http://snipurl.com/MosaicArchive.
