EDRG 3321 Wed. Night - Chapter 3

The emphasis of chapter three is placed on comprehension and vocabulary. While reading our textbook we learn that comprehension is the process of understanding or making meaning from what we are reading. I liked that the definition of this was making meaning from print. This means that if there is not any comprehension that there is only a decoding of print as opposed to actual reading. I think that the definition goes with the quote in the beginning of the chapter. This quote was first we learn to read, and then we learn from reading.

Something that I never really thought about was the fact that we must have some prior knowledge to truly understand what we are reading, and that if there is not any prior knowledge present there is little to no comprehension. This is because is there is no prior knowledge the reader doesn't have any information to associate with the new information. I also enjoyed learning about the Transactional Theory of Comprehension, which discussed how every reader reads differently, and reads for different reasons. Under this theory there is aesthetic reading and efferent reading. Aesthetic reading is reading for fun or pleasure and is not very complex, while efferent reading is done to gain important knowledge and requires more work than aesthetic reading. I think that it is important to allow both types of reading in the classroom, because if you don't you may turn children off to reading. I also believe that when you are doing aesthetic reading in the classroom the students should be allowed to read what they chose.

Something that I found interesting in class is when Professor Pickett told us about how our brain actually reads ahead of us and this is something that helps us read with ease or fluency. I found this to be very interesting information, before I heard this I never really thought that our brain did that, I just thought our brain read along with the actual word we were on. I also enjoyed learning about reading and retelling. This is when you have the students retell or summarize what they or the teacher have just read, and where you gain insight to their listening skills. Something that I liked on Wednesday night was the retelling activity we did by making presentations on the books that we read. I found it interesting to see how everybody took the templates that Professor Pickett gave us and made them there own so they could retell the story in a creative way. This is something that I would do in my future classroom as a way to let the students to be creative and show their comprehension of what they have read.

This chapter had a lot of information on understanding comprehension, and how to approach and teach it in the classroom. I found all the information useful and important things to take into consideration when I have my own classroom. Reading is one of my favorite things to do, and I believe that it is important to teach children reading and how to comprehend what they have read. I also think that the quote that first we learn to read and then we read to learn is true. This is why we need to use the information we learned in this chapter in our classrooms, so that we can help students understand what they are reading. If we teach students how to comprehend what they read it can help make reading a more enjoyable experience for students.