What I found to be most interesting about this chapter is the section about Reading Fluency. Reading fluency consists of being able to read at a reasonable speed (100 words per minute for elementary students), recognizing words, and reading with expression. I think that the most important aspect of reading comprehenion is that of using expression when reading. I just had a recent experience in my field placement where a little girl asked me to listen to her read, so I did. She can read really fast. She was really pleased with herself, and I was impressed. I asked her if she could read with expression. She looked at me with such a serious expression and asked what is expression. I told her that reading with expression is reading with our emotions. I asked her to remember that when her teacher is reading Junie B. Jones, that when Junie B. is happy, the teacher reads with excitement, and that when Junie B. is mad, she reads with a tone of anger. The little girl looked at me funny, but she gave it a try anyway. She was able to read with expression, but only after she made herself slow down. It is only when students are forced to slow down and think about what it is that they are reading, that they will be able to comprehend what it is that they are reading. Reading at a good pace is a reasonable expectation because it should not take a student an hour to read a ten page book, since that would be frustrating for the student, but at the same time, the students should read at a pace that allows them to think about what it is that they are reading.
Until next time,
*Lisa*
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I found the section on Reading Fluency interesting too. I work with students on fluency all the time in the 3rd grade at Mt. Hope. I have a timer and the students have different poems/paragraphs to read from- I mark their errors and the students mark how far they read each time. Although this helps them on their speed, it doesn’t do anything for comprehension. I feel like that is the downfall with this activity. It also doesn’t touch on the aspect of expression that was discussed. Using Junie B. was a great example of reading with expression- I think students often get lost in the issue of reading fast and forget to actually comprehend and think about the words that they are saying. At Mt. Hope, there is a reading system and the books are all programmed into the computer, so you pick a book and type it in the computer and then questions about that book come up. This is better in the sense that it works on comprehension, but this system is also flawed in the sense that it doesn’t ask high order thinking questions, just direct quote questions from the book. Overall, I think both aspects of reading (speed/pace and comprehension) are important so I think that a combination of things need to be done in order to master both areas- each method has its own downfall, so other strategies must be used to make up for what the previous ones lacked.
-nicki lendo
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