While conferencing with my focus group, it became clear that it will be a struggle to get a majority of them to read during independent reading (IR). Most students in the group are the students that I am constantly watching to make sure they are actually reading and not "fake" reading. It is very evident that this group struggles with comprehension of what they're reading. After being given a passage to read, it was a challenge to answer simple comprehension questions about the text. While some students referred back to the text during these questions, it still did not help them gain an understanding of the text. I do not think they know how to pull meaning from a text or passage.
For example, four (out of six) of the students could not give me the main idea in the passage. All of them could give me specific details about it. Vocabulary was a struggle...they did not gain meaning of words through reading the passage. Which leads to inferencing...only one student was able to decode what was read and make his own understanding of the passage. In the future, I will focus on helping this group truly understand what they are reading. I believe that will have an impact on their "love" for IR time, and they may just actually spend that time reading if they're understanding what it is they're reading.
Hi Shannon,
ReplyDeleteYour conferencing reflection showed what you learned about your students' strengths and areas of weakness were during independent reading. It also showed how you are reflecting on the formative assessment data you received from the conferencing to guide your instruction so that you can target comprehension strategies such as self-monitoring and re-reading to help improve student understanding. Thank you! Sincerely, Dawn
Shannon, it sounds like your focus group may need to pick easier books to read. I know that sounds crazy, because we are always wanting to push their reading levels up, but I think they may benefit from the success they would feel from an easier text. Also, it will give you an opportunity to model skills that you want them to transfer to their own reading. Once they fell successful, they will naturally start choosing books that are more challenging for themselves. Give it and try and let me know how it goes!
ReplyDelete