Comprehension

        I'm so glad we're spending so much time learning about comprehension. I honestly didn't realize until we did the excercise in class where we answered the fake comprehension questions about the nonsense paragraph how easy it would be to be deluded about how much a child actually comprehends. The questions we were asked were very easily answered by scanning the reading and plugging in the answers where they went. They did not in any way measure how much we actually understood.
      The comprehension matrix is something that I definitely want to employ in a future classroom. What I liked about it was that it not only focused on how much a child comprehends, but it stretches them in other aspects of their reading acquisition. It's such an easy tool to make sure students get it.
       The book also had several great options to prime kids comprehension. My favorite was the "Oprah interview." Oprah is a master at squeezing the most information she can out of a person, and using the format she uses on the show to ask a child comprehension questions would be perfect to make sure they understand.

She asks why certain things happened.

She asks participants to expand on what they know.

She asks agreement and disagreement questions.

     By treating a student like they are a book character on the Oprah show, a teacher can have a solid idea of whether or not the child understood what he or she read. It makes me wonder:

Can you remember ways that your own teachers provoked comprehension while reading?