Laurel Helm
Edok #4
Fall 2012
Dr. Cozens
Scharlach, T. D. (2008). START comprehending: Students and teachers actively
reading text. The Reading Teacher, 62(1), 20–31.
CENTRAL THEME:
When teachers use the START framework while reading aloud to students, they can help their students to be better at comprehending.
MAIN IDEAS:
1. Teachers often see that their students can read but they don’t really understand what they read. Comprehension can improve if students practice reading a lot but it improves more if students know good comprehension strategies. Even though teachers know this there still usually isn’t a lot of time each day dedicated to teaching comprehension skills. Teachers are so busy that they don’t have time to sit down and come up with ways to teach.
2. The START program is easy for teachers to understand and implement into their own classrooms. Teachers model the strategies during their read aloud time and gradually scaffold the eight strategies to their students for their independent reading.
3. Reading comprehension is something that all students need. Many reading programs focus on strategies and skills to help struggling readers improve. While this is important, teachers must not forget about their average and advanced readers. They need to become better at comprehension as well.
4. The eight strategies are, predicting/inferring, visualizing, making connections, questioning, determining the main idea, summarizing, checking predictions, and making judgments.
5. The study that was done involved students in a control classroom that just read as they normally had. The ST classroom just taught the students the strategies. The START classrooms taught and modeled the comprehension strategies and then the teachers could scaffold them to their students during their independent reading time.
6. In every aspect the students in the START classrooms improved in their reading comprehension. In the ST classrooms the students showed some improvement but not anything close to the START classrooms. In the control classrooms many students fell behind grade level.
AUTHOR’S CONCLUSION:
The START program helped students improve their comprehension skills much more than just teaching the comprehension strategies alone. Not only did student’s skills improve, so did their attitudes towards reading. Students also said they did more while they read. In the pretest they said they did ‘nothing’ or ‘looked at the page when they read.’ In the posttest students said they created a picture in their head when they read. They also said they predicted what might happen next. The students in the START classrooms also paid attention more when their teacher read aloud to them. Parents at home also noticed changes in their students. The advanced readers gained as much as almost a year and a half by the end of the START program. The author points out that the gains the advanced students made proves that they need to be challenged as well as the struggling readers.
EVALUATION:
I really enjoyed reading this article. It helps me to be a lot more aware of how important comprehension skills are. I like to know that there are easy to implement programs out there that I can use with my students. I really liked learning something that can help every reader in the classroom. I liked that students had a better attitude towards reading after they learned better comprehension strategies.
Edok #4
Fall 2012
Dr. Cozens
Scharlach, T. D. (2008). START comprehending: Students and teachers actively
reading text. The Reading Teacher, 62(1), 20–31.
CENTRAL THEME:
When teachers use the START framework while reading aloud to students, they can help their students to be better at comprehending.
MAIN IDEAS:
1. Teachers often see that their students can read but they don’t really understand what they read. Comprehension can improve if students practice reading a lot but it improves more if students know good comprehension strategies. Even though teachers know this there still usually isn’t a lot of time each day dedicated to teaching comprehension skills. Teachers are so busy that they don’t have time to sit down and come up with ways to teach.
2. The START program is easy for teachers to understand and implement into their own classrooms. Teachers model the strategies during their read aloud time and gradually scaffold the eight strategies to their students for their independent reading.
3. Reading comprehension is something that all students need. Many reading programs focus on strategies and skills to help struggling readers improve. While this is important, teachers must not forget about their average and advanced readers. They need to become better at comprehension as well.
4. The eight strategies are, predicting/inferring, visualizing, making connections, questioning, determining the main idea, summarizing, checking predictions, and making judgments.
5. The study that was done involved students in a control classroom that just read as they normally had. The ST classroom just taught the students the strategies. The START classrooms taught and modeled the comprehension strategies and then the teachers could scaffold them to their students during their independent reading time.
6. In every aspect the students in the START classrooms improved in their reading comprehension. In the ST classrooms the students showed some improvement but not anything close to the START classrooms. In the control classrooms many students fell behind grade level.
AUTHOR’S CONCLUSION:
The START program helped students improve their comprehension skills much more than just teaching the comprehension strategies alone. Not only did student’s skills improve, so did their attitudes towards reading. Students also said they did more while they read. In the pretest they said they did ‘nothing’ or ‘looked at the page when they read.’ In the posttest students said they created a picture in their head when they read. They also said they predicted what might happen next. The students in the START classrooms also paid attention more when their teacher read aloud to them. Parents at home also noticed changes in their students. The advanced readers gained as much as almost a year and a half by the end of the START program. The author points out that the gains the advanced students made proves that they need to be challenged as well as the struggling readers.
EVALUATION:
I really enjoyed reading this article. It helps me to be a lot more aware of how important comprehension skills are. I like to know that there are easy to implement programs out there that I can use with my students. I really liked learning something that can help every reader in the classroom. I liked that students had a better attitude towards reading after they learned better comprehension strategies.