The class readings did a few things for me. The first thing was they made me think about how I comprehend what I am reading without even thinking about it. Comprehension, and prediction, and reading has become such a second nature to me, that I forget that it is something you develop and learn how to do. The other thing reading this chapter, reminded me of was the strategies that my CT uses to help students develop some of these skills that Tompkins talked about. One of the things he talked about for comprehension was predicting what is going to happen in the story, and my CT does that a lot when they are about to begin reading a book. She has the students look at the cover, and read the title, and then go back to their desks and write four sentences about what they think the book is going to be about. This is something that I do without even thinking about it, when I pick up a book. But Tompkins reminded me that this isn't something I always did, you learn to predict. Tompkins also reminded me how vital prediction can be for comprehending a text.
The other thing that Tompkins touched on in this chapter, was the importance of making connections. This was one of the things that stuck out to me, because my teacher spends a lot of time making connections with the students. She most commonly encourages them to make text-to-self connections. She does this by asking them to think of a something that has happened to them that is similar to something that has happened to the character in the story. She also makes text-to-text connections by reading books of a similar theme, and having the students discuss how the books relate. I don't think I make a lot of conscious connections while I read. I have been doing it more since we started talking about it/ reading about it. I think making connections is one of the most important things you can do to improve comprehension.
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My CT also encourages her students to make connections. Their district actually requires the teachers to do author studies so that the students can learn to make text-to-text connections. The students have read a multitude of books by Jan Brett and Tomie de Paola. The students have learned to love all of their books. As my CT reads books they often raise their hand to share how one book relates to another. I really like how Tompkins focused on this. Prior to this class (TE 402), I never thought about text connections. Now I see how vital they are in helping link new knowledge with old knowledge.
Jessica - I was noticing that in my classroom too. While my CT did not scaffold the note taking skills she does scaffold their reading comprehension. Whenever the individual reading groups (four or five students) get a new book their is a set of steps my teacher follows. The first thing she does is have them look at the cover, and then she has them take a "picture walk" which is where they look through the book and try to guess what the story is going to say and talk about. Then she reads the stories with the students following along and reading quietly along if they can. then she had the student take turns reading the story. I feel like that is a good thing because it gives the students multiple ways of looking at the text before they have to concentrate on reading the story.
Jessica-
My CT also emphasizes connections between the text and the students' lives. Most of the time the students will verbally share any connections that they may have to the book. Once in awhile the students will draw or write and any connections. When the students are asked to write or draw the connections, the teacher will always model her connection first. I find that most of the time, the students will have the same exact connection as her. So I am curios as to how a teacher can incorporate the modeling of the activity while ensuring that students will actually make a real connection to their lives, instead of just copying the teacher.
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