What's the goal? To get the gist.

Allington & Allington's chapter 7 "Developing Thoughtful Comprehenders" begins by putting away the myth that children "just can't think".  That is just no excuse.  The purpose of reading--the goal, is to comprehend the text.  As Laura Pardo put in her article, they need to understand the gist.

What helps us understand most of the text we read?  Largely, our expectations guide us in our reading.  Consequently, we must help children learn to examine genre, illustrations, and context to gather some expectations about what they are reading.  Along with proper expectations, we need to help them acquire a variety of tools that aid in information organization.

Organization

Venn diagrams, graphic organizers, KWL charts, timelines and story maps are all great tools children can be given to aid in finding and grasping more meaning.

Modeling

I do, you watch
I do, you help
You do, I help
You do, I watch 

(Allington & Allington)

With reading comprehension, it is critical to use these steps to help students understand what you mean by "discussing the text" without interrogating one another.  You need to show them how to have a conversation about a text!

Even putting on a quick production from a story can aid students in comprehension.  They must use rereading and comprehension skills to reform a story into a play!

How might you include a struggling reader that is under the majority of the classroom's reading level in the play?

play with your words, not with your food.

hmmm... makes sense, that when children don't understand the words in a text, they don't comprehend the text as a whole. I can read my sister's Pathology textbook all day long and the fact of the matter is, I comprehend nothing.  That's because I don't know what 80% of the words mean! (Let's be honest, I don't even know how to pronounce them).

Word study is crucial because their oral vocabulary is much bigger than their written repertoire, and they need to know what words look like and associate the meaning with that spelling. Children know lots of words, but they don't know how to spell them.

What to do?

• making words games
• studying Latin and Greek word roots
• grouping based on spelling patterns
• grouping based on rhyming patterns

play with the words!  Word study can be like playing with Legos; letters can be combined in countless ways to make all sorts of things! 

"Making Words is a powerful activity because within one instructional format there are endless possibilities for discovering how our alphabetic system works.  It is a quick, every-pupil-response, manipulative activity with which children get actively involved."  -Cunningham & Cunningham

How will you seize the opportunity to make word study fun and build students' vocabulary?