On 3/21/09 7:48 PM, "cnjpal...@aol.com" <cnjpal...@aol.com> wrote:
> pg. 168 " I wish I'd recorded the number of times a child arrived at an
> insight or observation that represented a more far-reaching level of
> comprehension than I had imagined possible. This happened so many times I
> finally
> realized it wasn't solely the use of comprehension strategies that elevated
> their
> understanding--it was defining and describing what the strategies allowed the
> students to understand."
I am often amazed at the insights or observations of children with
comprehension. Every person comes to the text with a different perspective
and different background knowledge. Those experiences and perspectives lead
them to their understanding and when they share it, it adds to the groups'
understanding. Students often go down a path I would not have gone down and
what we find down that path can be awe inspiring. That is why I truly
believe all children are teachers and learners. They are candles to be lit,
not empty bottles to fill.
I have had classroom experiences in math where students say "I just knew
it", when they had been asked to explain how they got the answer. I spend
time unpacking problems to lead to understanding of the concepts. I help
them link the concepts and how the process they used fits in, to solidify
their understanding. I see so many light bulbs going off. The mathematical
explanations are so much stronger now. They can justify their work
referring to the concepts ("I know I can do this because of the commutative
property of multiplication which lets you switch the order of the numbers,
and the answer is still the same")... Now that they think about mathematics
differently, because they are thinking about how it works, rather than just
get the answer, it has made them so much more powerful as mathematicians.
The same is true in comprehension. Once they learned how comprehension
works, and how we use strategies it brought them to another level in
comprehension. We have been having classroom conversations lately about how
as readers we tend to have some comprehension strategies we use more than
others -and each of us is different. We have also talked about how some
strategies are better to use than others with certain texts. I have come to
realize this is why some children have "weak" comprehension -their toolbox
doesn't have enough tools. They rely too much on one strategy because it is
the one they are comfortable with. And yes, we can teach the strategies,
but it still takes time for understanding and use of them. It takes a lot
of practice -and we keep working at it until they find the aha moment.
Jan
We must view young people not as empty bottles to be filled, but as candles
to be lit.
-Robert Shaffer
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