Don't Just Remember- Understand Instead!

Though I really enjoyed both the Allington and Pinnell articles this week, I personally connected with Allington's take on understanding vs. remembering. Allington talks about what he calls "confusions" that have made it difficult to change classrooms (and schools) for the better. Understanding vs. remembering is one of these confusions. This is the notion that we have "confused comprehension with question-answering." This sad reality directly impacted my learning experiences while I was in grade school. I specifically remember getting caught up in the details of the stories I read because I knew those questions would arise on my Accelerated Reader tests. This problem of asking known-answer questions undermines the opportunity for children to demonstrate their understanding of what they read. There is no expectation to grasp meaning, to comprehend- simply an overemphasis on reciting facts. This issue stems from not teaching proper comprehension strategies and not holding children accountable through meaningful assessment. It consequently runs deeper into other subjects in the curriculum. Of my own education experience, I realize that I never knew how to "learn" until college. My studying strategies were filled with memorizing pages of notes and making flash cards- remembering at its finest. I only hope that I can help foster a different experience for my future students.

A better way to assess reading understanding!

Running Records and Other Things!

I would first like to reflect on the Running Records book. I found this brief review of recording/scoring procedures to be both informative and complex. I agree with Clay when she suggests that teachers should not implement running records without some training from another knowledgeable teacher. I realize the usefulness of using a recording strategy like this, but I doubt I would be able to use it effectively without lots of practice. I like that the end result is both informative to the teacher (in that it provides evidence of how well the child is directing her knowledge of letters, sounds, and words to find meaning in the text) and evidential to the parents. Although they may not understand the format, parents like to see proof of your concerns for their child. Having records such of these shows that you have spent time alone with their child and are not making generalizations based on the class's performance.

I also read the Rog and Burton article. I really liked the section about developing a leveling system. I had never considered the reality that each publisher uses its own leveling system, making the levels less uniform and reliable. The article says, "readability of a Level 3 book from one program might not compare to that of a Level 3 book from another program." I decided to research this further for myself, and I found this:

This is a DK Level 3 Reader- designed for 2nd grade and above. I could find little information on the criteria of which it was leveled as 3.

This is a Scholastic Level 3 Reader. The only specifics given are grades 1 and 2 or ages 6-8. No characteristics of the text were found.

As you can see from the examples, there are variances in the grade level (grades 1-2 vs. grades 2+). The fact that we as teachers cannot always rely on the leveling systems when trying to find the "just right" book is a very important realization.