#6 - “Can You Hear Me Now?” Comprehension in the Classroom

READINGS FOR TODAY:

“Chapter 8: Comprehension in Secondary Schools,” by Fisher & Fry, from Best practices in adolescent literacy instruction (2^nd ed.), Edited by Hinchman & Sheridan-Thomas

“Chapter 4: The Essence of Understanding,” by Keene, from Adolescent literacy: Turning promise into practice, edited by Beers, Probst, & Rief

How many times have you re-read a passage of text multiple times just to figure out what the heck the person is trying to tell you?

Sometimes it’s too boring and you mentally check out; your eyes scan over the words but your brain doesn't take in a single thing.

Sometimes it’s too difficult and you don’t understand; you might even put the book down and distract yourself with something else. Maybe it’s a television or your phone. Oh my goodness, that laughing baby video on Youtube is just the cutest thing ever.

Sound familiar? Yeah, me too.

Funny thing is – though maybe not quite as funny as that laughing baby – that this is possibly a habit you have been nurturing since elementary and middle school. Many students complain that they don’t understand their lessons or homework. They get discouraged, and by the time they reach high school, some have given up altogether.

So how do we get kids engaged and increase students’ comprehension of the things they read? How can we make it so they remember information even after they've taken the test on it? Good questions. I’m so glad you asked. In fact, that’s what I’ll talk about today: questions and, by extension, discussion.

The big thing that I noticed authors from both texts agree on is the need for what I’m going to call integrated study. Allow me to explain. The way I see it, integrated study in secondary school, or really at any level, involves the integration of multiple teaching tools in the classroom at the same time, so that students have a toolbox of information to pull from at any time. 

I have seen elementary teachers use what are called anchor charts (check out the link for examples). As they move through the process involved for a particular lesson – whether it’s steps to solving a particular math problem, a history timeline, the scientific method, or tips to understanding the setting of a story, the anchor chart is made by the teacher with suggestions from the students and posted on the classroom wall for students to refer to when needed. 

Student-made notecard glossaries can be added to their toolbox as well. Have students write a word at the top of the notecard, write the book definition under that, and then write the definition in their own words. They can use their definitions to teach classmates. Variations could be made for various disciplines as well if that doesn't quite fit. As students accumulate more vocabulary words, they simply need more notecards and they can refer back to the stack whenever they need to.

Photosynthesis

Book Definition: A chemical process used by plants and other organisms to convert light energy, normally from the Sun, into chemical energy that can be later released to fuel the organisms' activities.

My Definition: The way plants absorb energy from the sun and use it for energy, the same way I use cheeseburgers and french fries.

Simile

Definition: A comparison of two things using the words ‘like’ or ‘as’

Examples:

Suzie is as pretty as a picture.

Carlos is as loud as a lion.

Lee’s smile shines like the sun.

More than these reference tools, though, questions and discussion are important tools for helping students understand the lessons we are trying to teach them. One of my favorite ways to get students talking is to have them annotate. This was something big that Fisher and Fry suggested. I wish with all my heart that I had learned about annotating in fourth or fifth grade rather than high school. Better yet, I wish I could have seen other people’s annotations. It took me most of college to figure out my own style of annotations that works well for me, and the best thing that happened on the way was a few instances where I borrowed notes or textbooks from classmates. 

Maybe these are some ideas someone else has already come up with. Maybe that someone else is even smarter than me (there are a lot of people like that in this world!) and they’ve got modified versions of these ideas that work even better than mine. Either way, I enjoyed this little brainstorming opportunity to figure out ways to get students engaged.