Shade: Nov Chapter 8 Routman: Teach Comprehension

Chapter 8

Teach Comprehension

This was chapter was a wonderful reminder about what the focus of reading instruction should be and what we often make it out to be. Routman notes, “When we spend most of our energy focusing on words, students get the message that reading is about words rather than meaning.” (p. 119) I can relate to this statement so much. When reading one on one with a student or when reading with a group of students, I have to remind myself of this fact. It is very easy to spend a lot of time working with a student, especially the struggling ones, on “sounding out words” rather than focusing on comprehension strategies. I am reminded of a video I watched in a college reading course. In this course we watched a video of a child reading a story. She struggled over words. I would definitely sat this child was not a “fluent” reader. There are many times when I as a teacher would have wanted to jump in to help her decode words. I thought that there was no way the child was comprehending because she was struggling to decode so many words. However, afterwards the child did a perfect retelling of the story and answered many questions accurately. The child was reading for meaning accurately and if her teacher was focused on her reading the words accurately, he/she may have missed that the child’s comprehension was excellent. I appreciated Routman’s description of six strategies for achieving full meaning as we read: make connections, monitor your reading for meaning, determine what’s most important, visualize, ask questions, make inferences, synthesize. While I teach these strategies, it is an important reminder that these are best practices for teaching students to read for meaning. Routman also points out that teaching these strategies is important but that we often do not allow time for our students to practice using these strategies independently. Giving our students the time to practice these independently would allow them the chance to see how these fit into the big picture of reading.