I don't think I ever "got it" until grad school and Theories and Models of
Reading Instruction. I thought the meaning (comprehension) was all within the
writer and the only job the reader had was coughing up the writer's meaning. I
remember clearly realizing like a clap of thunder that every reader who read,
read something different, and that all comprehensions were legitimate to some
degree. I think I was primed, though, by Bill Martin, Jr. as I used his Sounds
of Language books and read the teachers' editions that went along with them
(from Holt Rinehart). Reading those was a 3-hour graduate class in teaching
reading. Oh, heck, if you got it - a PhD!! Then, of course, came my
introduction to Louise Rosenblatt and I was off and running.
So when I think of comprehension strategies, I think of them as more layered
than I might have had I not ever thought of transactional meaning. I see every
generally-accepted stragegy as an aid that a reader uses to nudge out the
author's meaning as much as possible, in order to create the new meaning
derived from the interaction between author and the reader herself. EACH
strategy, when you really examine them, requires the coaxing out of the
author's intended meaning, but made new by what the reader brings to the
meaning.
That understanding makes it obvious why passive reading will never produce
comprehension. Oh, maybe low-level literal. But any dynamic understanding has
to come from active reading, from active meaning-making. And I think Ellin
might say that when we, or any reader, just passively "reads" a passage of
words, there is no need for strategic reading because the purpose of reading in
that case is likely inauthentic, perhaps passing a test or spouting back
predetermined answers. There are no "answers will vary." And that is
precisely why I believe all readers, even emergent readers, must monitor their
comprehension and adjust by using comprehension strategies - because if there
is true comprehension ANSWERS MUST VARY!
What is the benefit to readers who learn and use comprehension strategies?
>>
They learn to interact with the text - to internalize it and make it "theirs".
As a young reader I was never taught to do this -not until college when it was
expected and I had no idea that I was supposed to think something about the
text - I just read it and took everything at face value -my English professors
shook their heads at me -a lot.
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