Do you Understand?

Today was all about comprehension. We thought about what a child would need to know in order to make sense of the sentence 1 "A mouse took a stroll through the deep dark wood.". Primarily, they would need to know what a 'stroll' was! So they need a lot of prior knowledge to help them! They might use the picture and they might just read on and it'll start to make sense that way. Either way, it's not just phonics, is it?!

Comprehension was split into 3 levels -

1. literal (what can you see?)

2. Inferential (deeper understanding - what are the clues?)

3. Evaluative (how does it make you feel?)

We looked at different ways that children read in school. From independent reading to guided reading or shared reading. We had an interesting discussion about guided reading, which I have always seen as sort of 'diluted' one-to-one reading. Actually, there is a real point to it which I clearly have either missed, or it is not explicit in the lessons I have been in!

Guided Reading

I was surprised to hear that there has been a move in some schools to whole class guided reading, which can be useful for children who can't read it yet, but can listen and comprehend nonetheless. This would need to be a whole school approach for it to work, so that the children understood the expectations on them. It's important to consider what are we trying to get out of guided reading! Not just a 20 min filler during the school day. Rhoda Wilson has looked at whole class guided reading and even produced planning for it around The Boy in the Tower.

We watched a session of guided reading as a carousel. The teacher went through some very clear steps:

1. Text should be linked to the main topic which the class are covering

2. have an intro/hook (looking at the front cover perhaps?)

3. have a pre-prepared thinking questions

4. children to take turns in reading, noting down thoughts and evidence about the thinking question

5. teacher asked questions about the reading

6. teacher sets up follow up task for the next day

The other groups were doing:

1. the follow up task

2. a writing group

3. reading for pleasure

The video is here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWDnN7nGqiA

Shared whole class reading

We also looked at a video of a whole class shared reading which is essentially reading a story and then asking the children lots of questions about the book.

Comprehension strategies

Aiden Camber's book 'Tell Me' was highlighted as a great resource for considering questions for comprehension. The 3 starting questions:

1. Is there anything you liked about the book?

2. Is there anything you disliked?

3. Are there things that puzzled you or you have questions about?

Seemed good - although I think I would make them open questions. I might rewrite them as something like this:

1. What did you like about the book?

2. What did you dislike?

3. What questions were raised?

You could definitely put the children's answers up on the working wall.

We touched on Bloom's Taxonomy. I'll be honest, I found these a bit abstract and hard to work out what questions related to which part of the triangle. I have found a couple of images which I can relate better to:

And I like the below which has questions for each stage. I need to spend more time looking at these I think.

We also thought about developing vocab during comprehension lessons. Coming up with some key vocab used in the story/chapter, defining the words, finding synonyms and then challenging the children to use those words in their writing that week.

Our activity was a 'Role on the Wall'. We could choose a character from The Boy at the back of the Class and draw a person. Inside the person we had to write the implicit characteristics (i.e. what is implied) and around the outside, we have to write down the explicit characteristics (i.e. what is written) and cite the evidence for this.

Once again it all seems to come down to good questioning by the teacher!!!!!