Why Blog


I’m passionate about finding ways to simplify comprehension instruction and learning. I’m concerned that we are defining comprehension too narrowly as an accumulation of five or six meta-cognitive strategies when cultivating comprehension involves so much more than that. We need to help children acquire accurate fluent reading skills and strategies; build background knowledge; develop their oral language and vocabulary; make reading-writing connections, and acquire a repertoire of meta-cognitive strategies to use as and if needed.


So I invite you to join me in blogging about this ever-so-important topic. I look forward to hearing your ideas, teaching strategies, book recommendations, classroom stories, etc., basically anything that will inspire a healthy conversation among colleagues.

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Slow and Steady...(You Know the Rest)

We’re on a fast track in this country. We think that moving kids up to higher and higher reading levels faster and faster is the way to go. We reward kids for reading lots of books, rather than encouraging them to spend time enjoying, learning from, and mining fewer titles. In “The Case for Slow Reading,” Thomas Newkirk makes the case for slowing kids down, rather than speeding them up. He gives practical ideas for how to do this, e.g., attending to beginnings, annotating pages, and reading poetry. Rather than me trying to explain what Newkirk says, I urge you to read his article for yourself—slowly and deeply. It’s a keeper!

2 comments:

  1. Sharon,
    Thank you for directing me to this article. I am glad that there are
    educators like yourself that keep bringing up questions that challenge
    my thinking about my practice.
    This article brought several points that I will ponder in the next few
    days. My teaching will be better because of my reflection.

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  2. hey judy, good to hear from you. newkirk certainly did a great job thinking this through. and now you're thinking...cool.

    ReplyDelete