Read Ch. 4 - 6

Rufa: Week 2

Rufa: Week 2

by Wendy Rufa -
Number of replies: 2

-The inferences section in Ch. 6 stuck out to me.  What made an impact on you in these chapters?

  • Inferences seem to be a natural occurrence, however the skill MUST be taught.  Knowing this has really helped me as a teacher, and using the term frequently so that students remember that it is necessary skill to use while reading.

-How do you respond to students “who don’t get it”? After this reading how will that shift?

  • I will definitely become more specific with my questioning.  Like the author, I have said, "what don't you get?"  Instead, I will ask more specific questions to find out where the comprehension seems to be breaking down.  Is it the prior knowledge, use of pronouns, inferencing, or vocabulary?

-Comprehension, understanding, and change is the goal of any reading.  What will you do differently in your teaching after reading this section?


  • It's funny/not funny being an educator for so long how shifts in education sometimes swing like a pendulum.  The skills we need to teach to enhance comprehension are still: prior knowledge, vocabulary, inferencing, and catching when your comprehension is breaking down.  Recently, instructors were told to avoid doing that as a prerequisite to reading so that the students did the thinking without our bias, or that we were doing this important work for them.  Reading this again reminds me how important it is to explicitly teach these skills.  When we teach these skills, it will be less of a challenge to work with students "who don't get it" because they may be better able to vocalize/explain what it is that they don't get.  

In reply to Wendy Rufa

Re: Rufa: Week 2

by Hunter Dewey -
I also need to work on asking more specific questions when students tell me they do not understand it. I always ask, "what part doesn't make sense to you?" Sometimes the response is "all of it."
In reply to Hunter Dewey

Re: Rufa: Week 2

by Sarah Wichterman -
So much of the work of reading is invisible and as a strong reader that invisible work was second nature for me. This is not the case for so many of our kids, so having specific language to describe what they aren’t getting, gives us an inroad to make that invisible work, visible.