Bean, Baldwin, and Readence Chapter 6 Reflection

I really enjoyed Bean, Baldwin, and Readance’s chapter on improving comprehension. This chapter made me reflect about my education and how I progressed in reading comprehension skill and then I reflected about my expectations for my students when they read  passages I tell them to read. As teachers are already so stressed for time as it is, many teachers simply state to their students read pages… Scaffolding pre reading activities, during reading activities, and post activities requires time and effort from teacher and student. While the time required for comprehension strategies may be a major negative to many teachers, but I feel the benefits far outweigh the cons.  Not only does it give excellent activities to increase student comprehension, it gives teachers activities that can be useful in nearly all classes and a variety of situations.

Most of my students have used KWL’s before and have been met with groans of discord. However, the other comprehension strategies may be newer to them and would therefore be deemed more acceptable. I would like to use the quick write or mini study guide strategies in accompany to an article we would read. The quick write strategy seems to be a great way to introduce a unit. Students could write down everything they know about the topic and then read an article. The mini study guide allows students to focus on key aspects of readings and could easily be attached to articles or text passages on whatever unit we happen to be on at the time. Overall, this chapter provided a great array of strategies for teachers to increase student reading comprehension.