After conducting my mini lessons and reading chapter 11 of the Tompkins text I started thinking about comprehension. Some kindergarteners are surpassing the class in terms of reading. They are fluent and have no trouble with decoding and vocabulary. However, I think that some of the them made be focusing too much on the words and are missing out on the comprehension aspects of readings. For my letter I would write to the parents of a student who struggles with understanding and comprehending books and stories that are both read to the class and that they read themselves. It would look something like this:
Dear ________,
While "James" has exceeded all of my expectations of where a kindergarten student should be at in terms of reading, I feel like he is missing out on the key themes and morals of what we read as a class and what he reads to himself. It seems like he is focusing too much on reading the words as he flys through the pages at a very fast pace but when asked to retell a story or answer questions about what he read he struggles quite a bit. In class I plan on spending some time teaching comprehension strategies with ALL students. It is important for every student to understand that comprehension and understanding what they have read is just as important as learning how to read. I plan on teaching students how to build background knowledge about something before reading, how to retell a story, using sequence boards to help retell a story and setting a purpose for reading. I think these will benefit James a lot because it will focus his thinking and my goal is for him to learn good comprehension strategies to use when reading so that he will be able to understand the stories more.
It would be very helpful if you would work on these comprehension strategies at home with James so he will get more experience with them. I will send home some retelling and sequence board worksheets along with some books so that he can practice with them. Thank you for your time and please let me know if you have any quesitons or concerns.
Sincerely,
Chelsey Pearson
As the parent:
ReplyDeleteI now understand that while my child is a great reader in the sense of processing words, there are other important aspects in the "spectrum" of literacy; such as comprehension. My child succeeds in processing and decoding words but has difficulty truly understanding or comprehending what they have read, which is just as important as being able to read. Just as learning to decode can be accomplished through a variety of activities and strategies, learning how to comprehend can also be accomplished through various activities and strategies. The teacher also specifically provided examples of activities that help build comprehension strategies, which can also be done at home to help build skills!
As a parent, I would feel proud that James is progressing so well as a quick and accurate reader but would also realize that certain skills still need strengthening. This letter does a good job of hitting the key points about the importance of comprehension and explains why it is such a critical skill to develop. I would be glad to hear that my son and the rest of the class will be working on things in school that focus on comprehension improvement and would feel that he is getting the academic support that he needs. Having specific instructions and worksheets to complete at home would be really beneficial and would make me much more likely to devote extra time to improving James' comprehension.
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