Valorie Whiteside Blog post #4, Routman Chapter 8: Teach Comprehension

In this chapter Routman discusses how the emphasis on word calling is at the expense of understanding.  This really hit home for me as an ESOL teacher because this is the discussion that I most often have with classroom teachers.  So many times I have heard, “Jose can read perfectly so why does he need ESOL?”  The truth is Jose CAN read perfectly but he doesn’t understand a lot of what he has read.  He has simply decoded a text and not comprehended it.  I recently started teaching a student who arrived in the country as a complete non-speaker of the English language.  She knew about five words total in English.  But when she read, she could read complete text perfectly!  This ability can give a teacher the since or idea that the student knows what she is reading.  I have heard teachers say, “she knows much more than you think she does.”  As if a student is purposely feigning lack of knowledge as a huge joke or something.  However, the student had no idea what she had just read!  She can regurgitate what she just read even if you ask her a question.  But she knew almost nothing about what she just read.  She just had a great memory at recalling data.  This situation occurs often with ESOL students.  Not as extreme as the non-speaking student but it occurs nonetheless.  Routmans states, “Students can give us the rudimentary facts but rarely an analysis of what they’ve read. They look and sound competent.  They read smoothly and can retell what they’ve read with some detail, but they are unable to go further.”  This is exactly what is happening and it needs to be corrected! 

The comprehension strategy used in the guided reading lesson “Making a Hat” conducted with struggling first grade readers is very conducive to reading.  Letting the students converse about the books first after they have looked at the pages sets the stage for their reading.  The students get to make predictions and prepare their minds for what the book is going to be about.  Since they know what they are going to read about they are more likely to 'word call' words that they may not be able to read otherwise.  For example when the teacher ask the students what is the letter and the sound the letter makes for the word scissors the student can say the word.  Scissors is a very difficult work for a first grade student to read.  However, through discussion of the book prior to reading and use of the illustrations the student will have a high probability of reading the word ‘scissors.’ 

I completely agree with Routman when he teaches that the use of writing plays a big part in aiding comprehension.  When a student now have to write what they have read it reinforces the comprehension and learning of what they read.  I think writing is a useful tool when reading educational text.  However, I don’t see how writing helps when reading for fun, leisure, or practice. I think students would dread the writing part of a lesion when they are reading text for fun.  When students are able to choose what they read and enjoy the book it becomes more work or punishment to have to write about it. 

After reading this chapter, all of the problems are stated and discussed thoroughly.  However, I don’t really feel that I got any new answers of how to teach comprehension.  I feel that this text was a very interesting forum of discussion for the problem.  But I don’t feel that I got any clear answers that will help me teach comprehension to my students.