EDRG 3321- Chapter 3

I believe it's life long need and skill to understand what we read. Comprehension is the child actually being able to repeat, understand, or be able to explain what they read. Goodman and Weaver said this a bit simpler by stating reading is gain-ing meaning from the print. This was to emphasize how important vocabulary is. Without vocabulay and words, reading is just print. Meaning is so important, not just for a child to be able to answer a question on a TAKS test, but to be able to know what joy reading may have. It is the teacher's job to make sure that she builds on letter, sounds, words, and support the importance of a student being able to identify a word and know the meaning to comprehend the material. The teacher must also remember that if a student is not on the level of the rest of the classroom, time is needed. If time is needed to take out of the day for the student, a teacher may need to spend time before or after school for that child to reach the same as every child in the classroom. The fun part of teaching is activating prior knowledge. There are a number of activities a teacher may do, say, or assign for a student to do and not even know they are during a pre stage of a lesson. For example, a teacher may ask students to think about what they do at the beach and then introduce what sand is, what's beneath the waves of the water or creatures of the sea. Discussion is a another very important aspect of comprehension. There can be prereading discussion of an overview of the book or predictions, this time will allow the student to activate prewritting schemata. There's also postreading discussions which allow time to reflect and make connections. Reading is the key to comprehension, and vocabulary and word meaning are needed to comprehend. Learning may be difficult at times, but reading and remembering our lives at home away from school make learning enjoyable.

Author Profile

Brian Selnick has won the 2008 Randolph Caldecott Medal for his book titled The Invention of Hugo Cabret. His website offers a video of the book, resources, related websites, and links about the invention. I believe this would be a great book to introduce to the kids. Here is his website: http://www.theinventionofhugocabret.com/about_hugo_intro.htm.

Another author is Laura Vaccaro Seeger. She is an author who has many books and has been recognized as an honor book for the 2008 Randolph Caldecott Medal. She does not have a website, but I believe that the author expresses herself on this website http://www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/aifolder/aipages/ai_s/seeger_lv.html. Not to mention, a lot may be learned about the author through which the author's produces.