Chap 7 Tompkins

Of the comprehension strategies listed in figure 7-2 on page 229 of the Tompkins text, I realize that I haven't seen as many of the strategies being used in the classrooms I have placed in. The strategies that I see the most often are predicting and connecting, summarizing, and evaluating. I cannot recall a time when I have heard a teacher asking students to visualize any part of a story or instruction for students to monitor their reading. The other strategies, questioning and identifying big ideas, I think I may have seen at one time or the other but may have been the grade levels that I was in. Anyway, back to the two that I cannot recall seeing, visualization and monitoring, strike me as two that I find odd that I haven't seen. It's obvious from the reading that these two components should not be left out when teaching student comprehension strategies. Visualization, I think, may be something that teachers don't think of as often because when we read to students, it's more often a book that already has illustrations. But if we don't teach students to visualize scenarios in their imaginations, then what happens when they are given a chapter book with no illustrations at all? Granted they won't be completely in the dark because kids imaginations run wild, but I think that visualizations could play a fun part in studying a book or an author. Reading a story to children, without showing them pictures, can be a way to get to know them as readers. If you ask students to visualize what they think a character might look like or to draw situations that the characters find themselves in, you can see if they automatically connect themselves or family members to the story, you can ask them to compare/contrast the physical characteristics of the characters they constructed to those of the author/illustrator, or maybe come up with other fun activities to enhance the literature. Monitoring their own reading is an interesting strategy because I doubt that I always use this strategy myself when reading. Sometimes I will read an article, chapter, or even a whole book without stopping to ask myself questions or summarize what is being said. Taking a time out during the reading to pause and reflect is something that should probably be taught more often (and I say this, I guess, based on the lack of me seeing it in previous classrooms). There are many strategies that can be used for comprehension, and not that all have to be used every time, but I think some strategies get left in the dust and thought of as not as useful, but I think it depends on the literature being read and each piece should be reevaluated by the teacher to determine the best strategies to be used, not just a couple to be used every time.