To: Classroom Teacher
From: Reading Specialist
Re: Comprehension Strategies
Dear Teacher,
In regards to your current classroom assessments, most of your class has incredible fluency, sight word recognition, phonics, and word attack skills. However since most of your students are having trouble with reading comprehension, you may want to consider re-balancing reading instruction to include more strategies to facilitate reading for meaning.
You may want to begin with administering the Qualitative Reading Inventory-4 to each student, making sure to give them a chance to read each passage silently before having them read it aloud to you. It would also be a good idea to tape record their miscues so that you will be able to analyze very closely the types of miscues they are making. Often students with higher comprehension will have miscues that do not change meaning, demonstrating that they understand what they read. I would then form new reading groups based on current instructional level and the types of miscues made. After the groups are formed, I would invest them in reading by giving them choices of high interest books and passages, giving LOTS of opportunities to read all genres.
To further their investment in what they are reading, I would have the class begin keeping reading journals to respond to what they are reading. Writing about what they read, in addition to their own thoughts and experiences, will give you an informal assessment tool regarding their comprehension. The journals will also give them ideas for projects in Writer’s Workshop.
Please let me know if you have any questions.
Heather Akin
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