Up in the Night

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Home : 2003 : September : 30

Up in the Night
By Julianne

I think your second grade teacher is up in the night. I've taught kinder, first, third and fourth. At each grade level students are expected to comprehend text on their particular level. Seems to me either the two of you
aren't communicating in some way, or she's misinformed. It doesn't sound like it, but maybe she believes you want the students to comprehend way beyond what they are capable of reading. Hmmm.
Anyway, a couple of tricks to help comprehension at any level - work on comprehension during your read aloud time. Helping students make reasonable predictions of what will happen next is

a good way for them to review what they have heard. Learning to do this when listening to a story can carry over, eventually, into their own reading. Another way to help is to have students retell the stories they are reading. Instead of asking specific questions (which are great), just ask students, "Can you tell me the story?" Draw them out by asking more and more specific questions - "What happened after Goldilocks went upstairs?" for example. You can build these skills with their own reading or with shared reading or read aloud. You're trying to get them to focus on the process of comprehension. Sometimes working from a text that is very easy for them to read will help them do that. Read for reading strategies from a text on their level, read for comprehension from a text a couple of levels down.