As an educator, it is also extremely important that we continue to keep our education current. One way to help stay current with research is by reading professional books. When selecting which books to read it is important to consider the research, publisher, and authors related experiences. To enhance my current understanding of comprehension, I have recently read the book The Comprehension Experience: Engaging Readers Through Effective Inquiry and Discussion (2011) written by W. Dorsey Hammond and Denise D. Nessel.
In this book, the authors focus on the power of inquiry and its positive effects on comprehension. The authors suggest that we should not squash our students natural desire to investigate through the over exhalations of comprehension strategies. But rather, we should encourage students natural desire to discover by focusing on predicting and hypothesizing (narrative and informational texts). They recommend these can be done by focusing on questioning and probing students thinking.
After reading this text, I got some great ideas about how to encourage and enhances students natural desires to questions and discovers as they read. Several ideas include: thinking ahead and bringing up questions (related to the reading) before reading, pausing and discussing what has been learned or still needs to be learned while reading, and discussing vocabulary/further questions after reading.
Although I agree with focusing on predicting and hypothesizing to increase comprehension and desire to discover, I also believe there are times and places where explicit comprehension needs to be taught. Therefore, in my classroom I will work to find a balance between teaching comprehension strategies and relying on students natural desires to question and discover.
Overall, reading this text helped expand my understanding of how students comprehend/learn to comprehend. I appreciated the insight Hammond and Nessel shared with me. Reading this text encourages me to continue reading professional texts and discussing with other educators
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