Comprehension Lesson
Objective To stress the importance of comprehension in reading and to model strategies to check one’s own comprehension.
GLCEs Students will…
R.MT.02.01 self-monitor comprehension by recognizing when meaning is breaking down and use strategies including making credible predictions to increase comprehension when reading or listening to text.
S.DS.02.02 tell or retell stories (e.g., fantasy, legends, drama), using story grammar (e.g., elaborated information about characters, characters’ actions and motivations, plot, and setting as related to plot), while maintaining appropriate intonation and tone of voice.
R.MT.02.03 self-monitor comprehension by re-reading or listening again if uncertain about meaning, making inferences, and summarizing the most important ideas and themes in a text.
Materials
- Book Franklin’s Halloween to model strategies
Lesson
Opening
- Model stopping to check for comprehension while reading Franklin’s Halloween.
- Read part of story
- Stop and ask self aloud, “Do I understand this story? Maybe I should retell it to myself.”
- Retell story incorrectly.
- When children tell point out incorrect retelling: “Hmm, I must not understand this story. Maybe I should read it again and at the end of each page remind myself what happened.”
Lesson
- Why is it important to know what is happening in a book?
- Books can be really interesting if you understand what’s happening but they are really boring if you’re just reading words that don’t make sense.
- Often we read books to get information and learn something so we have to understand what we are reading.
- Authors write books so people can enjoy them. Do you want people to understand what is happening when they read your small moments stories?
- Knowing what is happening in the book is called comprehension.
- Listen to how I read this story. See if you think I can comprehend it.
- Read very fast, skip words, read only the first parts of words and guess at the rest.
- Do you think I could comprehend that? Why?
- No, sometimes we have to slow down.
(Added to the lesson because of T., taught to the whole class because I felt it could benefit everyone to be reminded.)
- How can you check if you comprehend a book?
- Stop and summarize or retell the story to yourself as you read
- Use the pictures
- Reread the page or the story. You may have read the words wrong or have been distracted.
- Reread first part of Franklin’s Halloween and model retelling correctly with a few pages.
Closing
- While you are reading your “just right” books today, take a break and ask yourself, “What is happening in this story?” I’m also going to come around and ask you to retell the story you are reading to me.
- You may read Franklin’s Halloween if you want to find out what happens at the end.
- Reading can be really fun when you understand what you are reading. Go enjoy reading!
Assessment
I will have children individually retell their book to me. If they are struggling, I will suggest a strategy to use or we might decide together that their book is not a “just right” book for them and they will choose a different book.