Professional Development Book Review and Gallery Walk Questions by Sue Biewer
Book: I Read it, but I Don't Get It by Cris Tovani
1. How do we teach students to comprehend?
2. Why are teachers not responsible for students’ comprehension of a book?
Supporting Research
P. David Pearson and colleagues (1994) have synthesized and isolated 7
strategies used by successful readers.
Rumelhart (1976) identified 6 Cueing Systems that readers use to
understand text.
Pichert and Anderson (1977) have determined that readers determine what
is important based on their purpose for reading.
Whimby (1975) determined that think alouds show students how an expert
reader makes sense of text.
Buddy, Keene and Zimmermann (1997), and Harvey and Goudvis (2000)
categorize 3 types of making connections.
Tovani (2000) presents personal experiences throughout the book and
includes access tools for implementing the information presented.
Summary
Cris Tovani takes comprehension strategies and shows how students can apply
these strategies in monitoring their own comprehension as good readers do. I have
listed the strategies and supporting ideas for implementing the teaching of each
strategy as stated in her book.
• Purpose for reading (think about The House activity we did in class for
determining a purpose for reading). Model thinking aloud to show how good
readers make sense of text. Model marking text with sticky notes or coding
the text. Model double-entry diaries which is similar to Cornell notes. Teach
comprehension constructors (2 or more thinking strategies outlined on a
worksheet).
• Listening to your inner voice. Model how you put sticky notes next to text
that you find confusing. There are 6 signals that you are losing that inner
voice: 1. Your inner voice isn’t interacting with the text, 2. You are not
visualizing, 3. You are not making connections, 4. You can’t remember what
you have read, 5. Your clarifying questions are not answered, 6. No memory
of characters being introduced.
• Fix-Up Strategies. Listed are 11 fix-up strategies students can use: 1.
Make connections, 2. Make predictions, 3. Stop and think about what you
have read, 4. Questioning, 5. Reflect in writing, 6. Visualize, 7. Use print
conventions, 8. Retell, 9. Reread, 10. Notice patterns in the text structure,
11. Adjust reading rate.
• Synthesizing. Teaching students to connect the known to the unknown. This
can be done with Venn diagrams. You can incorporate making connections to
help students create their “Known”.
• Questioning. Start by asking students what they wonder. Asking questions
engages students, makes them attend to print because they are interacting
with the text, motivates them with a purpose, clarifies information, and infer
meaning.
• Inferring. By far the most difficult for students to do. As you model
inferring teach students to refer back to the text to find information that
supports their inference.
The objective for teaching these strategies is that students are able to monitor
their own comprehension. Students think it’s the teacher’s job to monitor their
comprehension, but this book puts that responsibility on the student so that it
becomes a skill they take with them.
Validity of Research
Tovani’s use of information has been researched and tested in her classroom and
classrooms around the world. I am particularly impressed by the use or real life
examples that allow us to use the strategies she presents to comprehend her book.
I also like how she drills the importance of modeling and think alouds (Whimby)
to our students and then scaffolding the modeling to release full responsibility to
students.
One criticism I have is that the Fix-Up strategies she presents show no research
based data that shows these strategies are valid.
Application to a 4-12 Classroom
Once students have turned the corner to go from learning to read to reading to
learn these strategies become essential in teaching students to become independent
thoughtful readers. Comprehension strategies can be taught on a continuum
throughout a student’s school years. As texts get progressively more difficult
students will need continued support using these strategies. They can also be
adapted to different content areas by the content area teacher, because, for example
a science teacher my focus on synthesizing more than a social studies teacher.
Incorporation in the Classroom
Each content area classroom teacher should model using these strategies and adapt
them to their content area.
• Science teachers use prediction or hypothesis in their labs this is a great time
to make a connection to having a purpose for reading.
• Math teachers can apply the inner voice strategy as students try to work
through word problems and determining if their computations make sense to
solving the problem.
• Social Studies would require the most out of these comprehension strategies.
• Other elective classes need students to be able to comprehend their particular
content.
These strategies are global for all content areas and can be applied to all of them at
any grade level. These are skills that remain with you throughout your lifetime.
Reflection
Reflection for Content Reading and
Study Strategies EDUC 650
By
Sue Biewer
Artifact Description
This artifact is a Professional Development
Book Review and Gallery Walk. I read Cris
Tovani’s I Read it, But I don’t Get It. I prepared a self-guided display board that
included author background, key ideas presented in the book, an evaluation of
key points, and incorporation into the classroom.
Professional Growth
This class has helped me to learn
strategies that will enable students to comprehend text, especially in the
upper grade levels. I also created a
list of books I would like to read in the future. I came out of this class with a variety of
resources such as professional development materials, graphic organizers and
technology to facilitate student learning and help them understand and analyze
text. One of my favorite things I
learned was Cornell Notes. I have taken
this new knowledge and taught it to some colleagues in middle school content
areas.
Understanding and
Application of WI State Standards
Standard #6: The
teacher understands how children learn and develop, and can provide learning
opportunities that support their intellectual, social, and personal
development.
In this class I did my professional
book review on I Read it, But I Don’t Get
It by Cris Tovani. This book had
great insight into many ways to help students comprehend text. I learned that students start out learning to
read in the elementary grades then read to learn as they get to primary school,
middle school, and high school, and how this can fluctuate for individual
students. The comprehension strategies I
learned meet differentiation needs for students as students can choose which strategy
will work best for them, or I, as an educator, can guide them. It has taught me how comprehension occurs. By introducing different comprehension
strategies, students develop their own habits of what works best for them, and
then can build on that. These skills
will be life-long skills for students.
When introducing a new book it’s
important to reflect on background knowledge.
This knowledge comes to students in many different ways such as personal
experiences in their lives or other books they may have read. Acknowledging this prior knowledge gives
students a scaffold to build upon when reading new material, especially if they
have a personal connection.
We also learned about study strategies
and note taking. Learning about B-HIVES
puts another tool in my toolbox to help support students. As I mentioned above the Cornell Notes is
another tool for me to use with students.
Impact on Student
Learning
One of the impacts this class had on
student learning is that I can evaluate a text book and determine the reading level of that book. This allows me to match appropriate text for my students. I have taught
students in my class that it is their responsibility to monitor their comprehension. Students are able to
determine their purpose for reading, listen to their inner voice, use fix-up strategies, synthesize, question and
infer. For example, the first idea I present when reading a new text is what is our purpose for reading this.
This especially helps my struggling readers know why we are reading and what to look for in their reading
and sets the stage for the text.
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