Week 5 Post

The Tompkins reading seemed like a huge review of TE 301!  It was helpful to see how to teach comprehension in the classroom.  My CT does a great job of this, instead of using traditional elementary language arts books (I can't remember the series that the rest of the Okemos teachers use.. I think it's Beacon or something), he has his students read trade books and he forms a huge packet of worksheets for each book for the students to complete as they are reading the books.  The worksheets in the book consist of prediction worksheets, text-text/text-self/text-world connections, alternative endings, summarizing etc...  This is a great way to assess the students comprehension because they wouldn't be able to complete these worksheets if they weren't understanding what was going on in the book.  My CT will also monitor the students' comprehension by pausing after important scenes of the book, and asking the students questions about it.  If he comes across a word that may not be in the students' vocabulary, he will stop and ask the students if they know what the word means, and then he'll put the word in a sentence to better help the students understand the word.  By pausing to monitor the students' comprehension, he is also modeling how students can monitor their own comprehension while reading silently.