After reading Tompkins chapter 7 and Profiles in Comprehension (Applegate) article I have learned a great deal about comprehension. I never realized that there were so many different ways that someone could comprehend readings and how important background knowledge is as a prerequisite for comprehension. As we have learned, it is important that the reader makes text-to-self, text-to-world and text to text connections. Teachers also need to make inferences for students. It is also important that they guide students towards the big ideas of what they are reading. This can help them make predictions and understand the important part of the text.
I feel like the most interesting part of the reading was the Applegate article. It discussed eight different types of thinkers. It mentioned that it is important for teachers to elicit patterns of thinking that help students think about ideas, not just text details. The first profile is literalists, fuzzy thinkers, left fielders, quiz contestants, politicians, dodgers, authors and minimalists. When I was in lower elementary, I feel like I was a fuzzy thinker at times. It is when they can be confused when asked a question that involves thinking. It can be difficult to express the right words or ideas.
2 comments:
A key point that you made in your entry is that background knowledge is a prerequisite for comprehension. This is often a fact that many teachers forget about. We expect our students to comprehend what they read but forget that a lot of what they read they may have never experienced before and is beyond their level of comprehension. This is why many students take of the profiles mentioned in the article titled, “Profiles in Comprehension.” As college students, we would also take on many of those profiles if we were submerged into a class we had no prior knowledge about.
I think that this ties in to what we have learned about constructivism. Studetns learn by connecting ideas to what they already know. The more connections a student makes to their prior knowledge, the better the understandnig of the new idea.In this context, I think it is easy to see why these profiles are describing faults in comprehension. Each profile lacks the connection to knowledge. I think that maybe fuzzy thinkers (like you were)might be misunderstood. Maybe they truely do understand the reading but they are lacking the discoursing skills, or level of vocabulary. This may develop with age and more practice with group talk situations.
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