**REMINDER** Papers are due next week, June 25.
We started class with a look at some hypothetical situations and tried to diagnose the causes of possible reading problems. The focus of this class was "Comprehension" and we examined activities in the Before, During and After phases of lessons that would add to this. We applied this knowledge in lessons that we created from Highlights Magazines. Last, we formed groups for the Reading Lesson Presentations. Please bring what you have so far to class next week and we will have time to work in groups again. Enjoy the weekend.
(P.S. Have a look at the prompt below this one -- it is part of last week's postings.)
The activity about diagnosing reading problems was a big eye opener for me. There are so many factors at play when trying to assess students’ reading abilities. Not only can there be a learning disability present but there are so many emotional issues that can affect reading. I think it is really important to get to know students and develop trust before trying to diagnose any reading problems. My scenario was a grade 8 bilingual student (avid reader and story writer) who scored 2 grades below his age level on an entrance exam to an elite private school. Presently, I would have no idea where to start to diagnose the situation. As a teacher, I think I would have to ask for assistance from the resource teacher because this situation is so complex and I don’t feel as though I am knowledgeable enough to even begin helping this student.
ReplyDeleteI really liked the group activity we did where we planed a mini-unit, taking in account the “before-during-after” strategies for reading comprehension. It is so important to set the stage and identify the focus of a particular reading lesson for students. As with other subjects, I find that if students know what skill they are working on, it helps direct them in their activities. During a reading lesson, teachers must stop and gauge student understanding. If we wait till the end of the reading, we will probably lose student’s interest because we have not made sure they comprehend what they are reading to be able to follow along. My favourite strategy for “during” is predicting – this uses some many skills (critical thinking, comprehension, problem solving) and also students love it. It’s fun to see if their predictions come true or even to vote whether they like the stor’s ending or one the students’ predictions better. With “after” strategies, what would the point of the lesson be? Students need a “wrap-up” and teachers need it as well to ensure that they what they have set out to teach/model as been achieved.
This week’s topic was comprehension. I found it fascinating how so many components are interlocked in order for reading and comprehension to happen successfully. I have worked for a few years with children who struggle immensely with the mechanics of reading that comprehension seemed to take a back seat. I better understand now how they are all connected and in order for each one to improve it is dependent on the other. I must say I have not done a good job at accessing prior knowledge type discussion before reading a new passage. So last week I tried a new approach my group was reading an article about popcorn. Before we read it we talked about how we make it, if we like it, when we eat it, etc… While I was reading the story we popped popcorn in the microwave. After I read the story the students snacked on the popcorn and talked about the features of the kernels and the fluffy popped corn. This built in all the vocabulary elements that were needed before the students read the article aloud. After they had read it we discussed some of the questions that followed the story. While we still had popcorn to visualize and eat. I was amazed at the quality of written output these students were able to produce. Many of the students shared with me that they had their family make popcorn that night and they described to them the stages from kernel to fluffy white popcorn. Wow! I guess this little extra effort to make it engaging, access prior knowlege, vocabulary building was so worth it. It helped that the students were motivated, interested and engaged and having fun!
ReplyDeleteI would like to thank everyone for there suggestion on my own personal case study. The student who memorizes stories, yet is not able to read much beyond an early grade one level. I look forward to trying some of these suggestions in the fall. I am going to do some prep work over the summer. I think the idea of lots of different manipulative for him to use to build words will be engaging for him.
I remember when I was younger and use to get the Highlights Magazine, it was always so exciting to look at and read. My favorite thing was reading the words and finding the object in a picture. I was often entertained for hours. In our group we developed a plan around a story about going to the beach. Our group had many different ideas. I find that I learn lots from discussing scenarios. They always make me think and I enjoy trying to develop different strategies to support the various needs of the children I work with or children that I may one day meet. Once again it was wonderful to hear the variety of ideas and techniques that people have thought of. I found it wonderful that one of the groups thought that the student in the scenario may have needed glasses, what a simple but important point. It was really nice to have time to develop a plan for our reading lessons as I was feeling a little anxious about not starting to plan the lesson and now we are well on our way!!! I am looking forward to hearing, seeing the various lessons that are presented.
ReplyDeleteThe topic of comprehension was very interesting as I had reading/comprehension learning disability when I was younger. I really liked the strategies of "before, during and after". I can really see a difference when kids are taught through this way. I used this strategy when I was in my practicum. Before reading the text, I had my students predict what was going you that I had soo many wierd and wonderful ideas. During the story, I made questions or stopped and asked them what they thought. It was interesting to see if they were getting the same ideas as what they predicted at the beginning. I think that by getting them involved during the story the students are going to want to learn becasue they have a part in the learning process. The final step 'after' is one of my favorite learning parts. This is where I get to see if the students really understood the story or task. I think that we as teachers can do this in many different ways. Instead of using the traditional form of read and answer the questions, lets have the students do projects or art projects that connect what they read thus demonstrating their comprehension.
ReplyDeleteThe other part of the class that I enjoyed was looking at the Highlight magazines. I remember when I was younger that I was so excited to read a magazine. I think the magazine offers multiple reading opportunities to students as they offer different levels. My favorite was the section on where the words were put into pictures. I think this would be a great tool for kids who are learning to read because they can look at the picture and come up with a word. I think this would be great for students who have trouble reading. During my practicum, my class were buddy readers with a grade 1 class. This was one of the strategies they used to help the grade ones. They encourage the grade 1 to look at the picture if they could not figure out the word. The grade 1's felt successful because they accomplished their reading thus empowered them to read more. I think if we could use a tool, such as other alternative reading form, it will encourage students to read more often. Personally, due to my reading disability some books were overwhelming which caused me not to read as often. I want to make my students enjoy reading, thus I am going to provide different reading materials in my classroom.to happen in the story based on either questions I proposed or by the cover. I tell
Last class we looked at the Highlights magazine and comprehension. I was thrilled to look at Highlights as I had ordered them when I was younger and remembered anticipating their arrival each time we checked the mail. I remember doing the searches, reading the funny stories and finding out lots of interesting facts. This only emphasises that children read when they are interested!
ReplyDeleteHowever, I had no problems picking up a book or reading anything I could get my hands on but my mother has always said that she could not get my sister to read anything except for the little miss sunshine books! Through this course I have learned that my sister reading every possible book in the little miss series was okay, at least she was reading, at least she was interested. Now that she is older she has started reading more, even the long Harry Potter series, information books, and reads regularly. However, when she was younger she would rather my parents read to her before bed than her read to herself and if my parents asked her to read she would pull out the little miss books. She also loved to hear the three little pigs over and over and over again, which I have also found out is important, as it is repetition. She also would watch movies over and over again! Is this similar to repetition for reading and its benefits? It drove me insane as I was so tired of hearing the books and movies over and over but now I know if in future a child wants to hear a story over and over I can chant to myself, “repetition is good”, to get over my impatience!
Even though I was late for class, I still got to enjoy listening to solutions to many of the reading problems students might have. Sometimes, we don’t think that exactly the same scenarios might be present in our own classrooms. For some of those examples, I had to think really hard to try to come up with a solution. It was definitively worth while listening to different groups offering helpful suggestions. Many of those reading problems were due to more than just a reading disability. What students are going through outside school might have a great impact on how they perform at school. So before making judgments and jumping to conclusions, teachers should be careful when assessing abilities.
ReplyDeleteThe topic on comprehension was really interesting. For me, it is one of the most important I read about so far. Students develop comprehension gradually. As they read their favourite books they go through their past experiences activating their prior knowledge. As comprehension continues to develop they make predictions, respond to and explore the stories. Reading logs are a great way to write story responses. As students move to work on final projects, they further move beyond the actual text. These “Before”, “During” and “After” strategies work for every subject taught. When we designed our lessons using “Highlights Magazine”, the most difficult for me was the find a “short and clear” purpose for reading. As many of us in class showed, we can be the masters of making a simple topic/story into something broader or into a few lessons. I’m having troubles stating a clear and short purpose for reading, especially since there is always a few good reasons why we are reading about the chosen topic. I hope somebody can further comment/ give suggestions.
June 18
ReplyDeleteJune 18th, class was great opportunity for me to learn about what other possibilities could be out there when children can not read. I liked reading and listening to all the case scenarios which was very insightful. I think it was a great occasion for me to think about all other aspects why children have trouble reading books. As a teacher you just think that this child is not the same level as the other class. But sometimes teachers ignore the small things like may be child’s eye sight is weak, or this child has had bad experience with this book, or the story of the book reminds him/her of bad incident, or may be it is a cultural boundary. So, as a teacher, I will consider all possibilities before I will make any decisions about child’s reading problem. These case scenarios were an eye-opener for me, and hearing to all the solutions was great learning experience for me.
After reading the book and attending the class, I learned the importance of comprehension. There were so many strategies we wrote on the board, and we created mini lessons on comprehension. It was fascinating how everyone had used different strategies to focus on comprehension. I am also reading a book called “Mosaic of Thought” by Keene and Zimmermann, in this book; I found the Metacognitive strategies that help students to comprehend what they read. Even though we may be familiar with or have read these strategies under different topics but I did not know these strategies are called Metacognitive strategies. See the strategies below.
1. Monitoring for meaning----knowing when you know, knowing when you don’t know
2. Using and creating schema----making connections between the new and the known, building and activating background knowledge
3. Asking questions--- generating questions before, during, and after reading that lead you deeper into the text
4. Determining importance---- deciding what matters most, what is worth remembering
5. Inferring----- combing background knowledge with information from the text to predict, conclude, make judgments, interpret
6. Using sensory and emotional images--- creating mental images to deepen and stretch meaning
7. Synthesizing---- creating an evolution of meaning by combing understanding with knowledge from other texts/sources
Week 7: Wednesday, June 24, 2009
ReplyDeleteThe hypothetical situations that we discussed were a great activity and a real eye opener. I found it interesting that our automatic response or solution to most of the issues was fairly detailed and quite complex. While this clearly demonstrates that we are all working hard at learning and applying the reading strategies presented in this course, it is easy to forget that sometimes, the solution is fairly simple, like an eye exam or glasses. I am not sure which is the best approach, but I do feel it equally important to understand “where” a reading issue stems from (the “why”) as it is to determine “how” to help students overcome it. I especially liked trying to “test” myself as the scenarios were read out and to see if I could come up with a solution too. Sometimes I was successful and other times, I honestly had no clue how to proceed. That is why discussions like this are so great. They get our brains thinking in new and creative ways.
Speaking of creativity, I am always amazed at the class’s ability to spontaneously create lessons for various aspects of reading and language arts. The “Highlight’s” comprehension lessons were full of great ideas. Even though I think that there is a lot of great information is our text book, it is the collaborative and creative lessons and discussions that I get the most out of. Thank you for sharing
Shanie
June 24, 2009
ReplyDeleteI am continuing to enjoy the group activities and lesson template brainstorming. I too had a subscription to Highlights magazine and thoroughly looked forward to receiving my monthly magazine. It is great to look at these simple resources that teachers can use to build curriculum from. When I first started my practicum I felt so lost when trying to develop lesson plans. My first reading lesson experiences were very basic. I feel it would be more helpful to have taken the Designs for Learning courses before even starting practicum studies and would suggest that it should be recommended to students. That way you have already built some skills and brainstormed about methods and materials to use before entering the classroom. It would have definitely increased my confidence.
I had the opportunity this week to attend a High Interest Aboriginal Theme Book Strategies workshop put on by Siya:ye and the Langley School District. They have put together a curriculum package of Aboriginal texts that are accessible to both elementary and middle school readers. The strategies complied provide a wide variety of pre-reading strategies to engage readers and have also been successful with struggling readers. It was beneficial to see culturally relevant curriculum made accessible to school districts and communities throughout the lower mainland with an emphasis on literacy using before, during and after reading strategies. I would recommend anyone interested to contact Langley School District, or I have more information as well.
I benefited from learning more about comprehension strategies. The book had so many great ones and I really liked how Sue had us split them up into before, during, and after sections so we could see what part of the lesson they would best fit into. I never really thought about ‘comprehension’ before I began my practicum but from my practicum and this class I can see how crucial it is to really understanding, connecting to, and thinking about various concepts. Sadly, I think my generation was taught to depend more on rote memory than actual comprehension. In my grade six class I used KWL for a unit on electricity and had the students add to it at the beginning and end of every class. They were often surprised by how much they already knew. By the end of the unit they were amazed by how much they had learned, when looking back at where they started. They were also able to use their KWL chart to study for the unit assessment.
ReplyDeleteI found it very interesting to try and “diagnose” the reading problems of a fictional third grade student. As I had never ‘met’ this student it really forced me to think outside the box and consider ALL the things that could possibly be the problem for the child, instead of just making an assumption or generalization, as can often happen when we have a student in our class. It might be easy to jump to the assumption that they have LD, when in reality they might have a bad home life and aren’t getting adequate nutrition or rest and so they cannot focus.
I found this weeks activity on diagnosing hypothetical reading problems to be extremely useful. Firstly because it was a great opportunity for us to apply much of the knowledge we have gained throughout the course of this class. Additionally, it is always wonderful to understand problems from a real-life perspective, be it hypothetical. However, more than anything else it was an excellent opportunity to understand the many factors that come in to play when assessing students’ reading abilities. It’s always incredibly important to consider all sides of an issue before attempting to diagnose or come to a conclusion, particularly when we are dealing with a child’s educational career. Therefore, we must initially develop a trusting relationship with the child and attempt to know all as many aspects of his/her life before making any diagnosis.
ReplyDeleteI also found the group activity on creating a mini-unit based on a comprehension strategy to be very useful. I find the “before,” “during” and “after” reading strategies are great guides to creating lessons at any age/grade level. They allow the teacher to determine how much relevant prior knowledge students already have and how much more the teacher may need to activate. Thereby, the teacher is able to address students at all ability levels. The “during reading” strategy is a great way to ensure students are engaged with the text and the purpose for reading. And the “after” strategy is a great way to follow up the purpose of reading the text. These comprehension strategies are all great ways to teach an extremely complex topic!
It was so great to be reminded of Highlights again. I used to subscribe as a child and looked forward to each time it came in the mail. It is a really good resource to launch a lesson from. Obviously I wasn't aware of the rich learning packed inside of those pages as a child, but now I see the benefits.
ReplyDeleteI'll be honest, lesson planning is one of my weaker points in teaching (I know, this is really bad). I find it so helpful to walk through the planning aspect in class, especially considering the creative wealth of knowledge I am surrounded by. The before during after strategy really works for me. Even though this is a fairly standard approach, visually having it written out sequentially like we did in class makes it so much easier. As for the group lesson planning, I think this will be a really enlightening experience for me.
Esanju
The topic of the class was comprehension. Comprehension is such an important aspect of reading, and it is very helpful to learn about different activities to help students develop comprehension skills. I loved the idea of the before, during and after activities. There are such a wide variety of programs (Reading Power, START, etc), and it is nice to hear the different opinions and thoughts about the activities that go along with these program. The before, during, and after activities are something I will definitely be incorporating into my practicum this September.
ReplyDeleteI think everyone had fun looking through the highlights magazines. Like many people in the class I have several memories surrounding these magazines. It is interesting to hear the different lesson ideas surrounding materials such as these magazines. It is interesting to see that a good teacher can make a lesson out of just about anything.
Like many others, I have to agree that analyzing the various case studies was a great experience. I think that the key thing I will take away from this is that even though a child is having problems in reading, that problem isn’t necessarily caused by a difficulty with reading. The problem may stem from something emotional or even a physical challenge such as needing glasses. When I was in my short practicum I remember my SA was eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new student’s records from his previous school. It took three months for his school in the U.S. to finally send them to his new school in Surrey. Even though we assume we’ll always know more about “real” students than what we are presented with in brief case studies, sometimes that isn’t the case. My SA was concerned about this new student because even though he was doing well academically he was taking a lot longer to make friends and was more socially awkward with the other students than she felt was typical of new students. Having his history from his previous school would help her with this problem because she would be able to see if he typically has problems socializing or if this was a result of the family move, or cultural differences between his old school and his new one.
ReplyDeleteThis week’s reading on comprehension offered a lot of useful advice, but one activity I have mixed feelings about is the ERT activity that is described on p. 214. On the one hand I like the idea that one student would be responsible for saying the answer and another student would be chosen to read the text that demonstrates the answer. Being able to find the evidence in the story that you have the right answer is an important skill for students. I also like that this may allow students who are self-conscious about their oral reading to demonstrate their knowledge without the high anxiety task of oral reading. On the other hand, I don’t really like the idea that students raise their hand as they find the answer. I think that this may make slower readers feel self-conscious as they notice that most of the other people already have their hands in the air. Plus, I can think of specific children I worked with during my practicum that would have difficulties with this. These two kids would always raise their hands when lots of other students had their hands up, even if they didn’t know the answer. They simply wanted to give the perception that they knew the answer because it was clear that so many of their peers did. Perhaps instead of having students raise their hands there could be a more subtle cue students could use. Alternatively, I think a lot of emphasis would have to be placed on the idea that it is not a race to see who has the answer first.
Week 7
ReplyDeleteComprehension
Well I was unable to attend class last week but I have done the reading on comprehension and in fact decided to write my paper on the subject. The one thing that I think about when I think about comprehension is English class. I can remember doing those comprehension quizzes after doing short stories or poetry or even novels. I can remember the various strategies all my teachers used, of course none of them could agree on using just one. But I think that using multiple strategies was probably to my benefit anyways because it allowed me to pick and choose what seemed to work the best for me. Out of all of my memories though I don't remember being taught how to read in social studies, science or math. I see this is a cause for concern because I think we can all agree that all of those academic disciplines require you to use different knowledge and skill sets to read. I never thought about it at the time but high school students are expect to read and comprehend various complicated subject matters without any time in class being taken to teach comprehension. To make connections between scientific theories and compare and contrast research requires a certain skill set and I think we need to make sure that our classrooms regardless of what we teach are focused on reading. I think that infusing reading comprehension into different subjects we will be able to create effective readers who will not only develop their reading skills but will be more successful in their academics.
Another interesting point from the textbook is reading in pairs. I think that sometimes in school we do to much silent reading. For example I had silent reading every day for my grade 8's. I like them having that time to collect their thoughts but on some level I think silent reading could be enhance if they were reading the same novel and could read and discuss as they go. Often in big group discussions students aren't able to express their own ideas but in pairs or small groups they can gain deep meaning from text. So I was thinking in any grade the next time we take our kids to the library have them buddy up on a novel and have them read it together and allow time to discuss in class.
I really liked the fact that everyone got really involved in class discussion last week. We all had our own unique opinions about possible solutions to the hypothetical reading comprehension problems Sue presented us with and I also thought this was a good strategy to use with a future class of my own. I think the public vs. private school issue was an interesting one, in regards to the question about the Grade 8 bilingual boy and his supposed test anxiety. But, like Sonja said, I feel I would not know where to start in order to be of adequate support to this student. There certainly are endless possibilities to take into consideration as reasons for his unexpected underachievement, but I think the important thing for us as teachers to come away with from this class is not to rule out any potential concerns until you have hard evidence to support the contrary. Unfortunately some students’ academic problems stem from issues at home or elsewhere that it may be easy to overlook. I know I myself am sometimes naive about problems students are having until it is clear that there is a concern. Therefore, I am grateful for this reality check.
ReplyDeleteWith regards to the Highlights Magazine lessons we created, I think these really helped me to unlock many inventive pre, during and after reading strategies. This magazine itself was something I had seen, but never had the chance to delve into. I really appreciated how this activity opened my eyes to a different form of literature I may never have otherwise accessed for my students because I was never really exposed to it as a child in school. I think it provides great lessons for kids packaged in a fun and interesting way and I very much look forward to further chances to explore children’s magazines as an additional classroom resource.
I had to miss last class, so I went to Sue’s Burnaby class instead. I must admit, it was really cool to be able to see Sue and the other group in action. I felt a little proud of all the knowledge of the other class. In so many ways, they were just like our class, in that they were excited about literacy and the possible ways to share it with their future classes. I also, spent some time thinking about the case studies we were given last class. Each case study was so different from the next. Some of the case studies were very complex. At first glance, it might seem extremely difficult to address some of the challenges each one faced. Yet, impressively, each group stepped up to the challenge and were quick to suggest strategies to help each child succeed. I would say that many of us are learners in literacy and are discovering much of this knowledge for the first time. Yet, the collaborative nature of the class joins each person’s experience of a topic and the resulting knowledge is impressive!
ReplyDeleteI thought to myself how there are a lot of fabulous, caring, and motivated teachers-in-the-making here at SFU. Such as the other class, which shared much of the same knowledge and many of the same passions in literacy as our class does. It was neat how they too have been discovering strategies to access students’ prior knowledge, expand vocabulary, increase comprehension, and so on. Due to the simple fact that they are reading the same textbook and learning from the same prof., they spoke of many of the same strategies as we have. I thought it was great to think about how in the future, I might walk into another teacher’s class and find a ‘Nifty Thrift Fifty’ list on the wall and discover they learned about it in Sue’s class too. I suppose this may seem like ‘no big deal’ to some, but to me the experience of going to Sue’s other class made me think about the community of teachers that we belong to now and will also belong to as practicing teachers in the future.
As most people mentioned, I also enjoyed the discussion that surrounded the case study activity. I especially liked that we were able to explore a variety of reasons for the specific cases. Since we had no background knowledge or personal relationship with the students, we were able to review their cases with less bias, thinking up more reasons for the current situation and developing more diverse solutions to help remediate the problem.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favourite lessons that incorporated before, during, and after reading, which I feel are important aspects to consider when planning, was my introductory lesson to my science unit. The class read a poem about light. The word light was not mentioned in the poem other than in the title and in the conclusion, which I kept covered. The students had to activate their prior knowledge and guess the topic for the upcoming science unit. Once the students figured out that the topic was light, I revealed the title and conclusion and we re-read the poem. Next, I had the students share with me all the things they knew about light and wrote them down on a “sunshine” web. Then we read the introduction in the science textbook (I read, they followed along and filled in the blanks when I paused). I also stopped a few times to discuss what we were reading, the benefits of light and its real life application. Afterwards, we were able to add new information to our web, as well as things that we were hoping to learn throughout our unit.
It is interesting that comprehension is very important for being able to follow through with a task in reading or writing and how it helps in students advancing one’s vocabulary or levels in reading. One thing that stuck out for me was the difficulty children face in understanding what to do when they have an ESL background. I tutored Korean girls 5 years ago and I remember that while they could read the words on the page perfectly, they often had a hard time understanding the meaning. This was because they were probably not thinking about what they were reading. I found that making them re-word the sentence or paragraph in their own way helped them understand better or sometimes even act it out (if there were concrete words). A question I wonder about comprehension and reading isI liked the textbook’s idea about using pictures to help them explain students’ ideas (for those who are acquiring a new language) or to find books that are bilingual. There is a website that has books written in different languages so that those who have trouble reading and understanding the English words, can check the words in their language to understand the meaning. (See: http://en.childrenslibrary.org/). The textbook also provides strategies for getting students to assess their comprehension through shared reading, ERT approach, partner reading and coaching groups. It’s great that it talks about how these strategies can be multi-level because those that are struggling or are gifted can either be given the proper support or be challenged in ways that won’t discourage their reading or comprehension of a subject.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the activity that we did at the beginning of class where we were given a scenario and had to come up with some sort of solution. It was great to hear everyone’s ideas of possible solutions to a problem. It was also very interesting that everyone came up with so many issues that could have been causing the problems. It really goes to show that you have to get to know your students before you can make any sort of assumptions as to why they act a certain way. For example, an issue suggested with my scenario was that the student was dealing with PMS. This is something that I never would have thought of yet very possibly could have been the problem. In this case, any sort conclusions on the behaviour would be inappropriate as the problem would go away in a few days.
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading about all of the different reading comprehension strategies in the chapter this week. I will definitely be using some of them in my classes. However, as reading, I wondered how you would know all of the students are getting meaning from the activity. I wish that the text has included some sort of assessment piece so that you would know all students are benefiting. For example, when I read about ERT, I thought that it may not reach all students. The teacher calls on students with their hands raised to answer a question and read from the text. However, in a class of close to 30 people, I think that some students may be left in the dark on what the reading was about. I do like this strategy; I just would have liked to know how you could have assessed that students were paying attention.
I was upset that I had to miss this class, since it looked like an interesting one. I don't personally remember using Highlight magazines when I was a kid, but my sister orders them for her son, so I was able to take a peek at one. They seem to have great activities in the magazines to get children engaged and introduce to them to a fun, interactive way of reading. My sister's son is only five and always looks forward to when his magazine arrives. I am interested in what the class came up with for lesson plans. It's so interesting how teachers can create lessons out of any book, when they put their creative minds to work.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading the chapter on comprehension I have come to realize that this is one of the most important chapters of the book. Comprehension is so important in order to make sense of anything that you read. I liked the idea that comprehension strategy lessons engage students before, during, and after reading. It is important to have students engaged throughout the entire reading lesson. I understand that the initial hook to engage students' interests is very important but it is also easy to lose students' interest along the way. A teacher has to be able to hold on to that initial interest and keep the students' engaged during and after the lesson as well.