Andrianna Boykin

READ 436
Professor Sullivan
30 April 2019
Comprehension Minilesson

Every week, I have observed one small reading group. Many of them can read fine on

their own but seem to struggle with comprehension. To remedy this, my CT has each person read

one page and then ask a few questions to assess their comprehension and understanding. After

watching for a few weeks, I was able to take over. Knowing that they had been reading “Double

Fudge” every day and I only came once a week, I was able to phrase my questions as if they

were simply catching me up with the story. Before we started, I asked a simple “what page did

you all leave off on last time?” No one could answer that, even when I prompted them to look in

the book and see what they remembered. Of course there was one student that tried to convince

me that they were on the very last page of the book. Finally, there were two students who said

we were on a certain chapter. I read the first few sentences aloud and asked if that sounded

familiar. Most didn’t, but some offered a different page and when I did the same thing, they all

agreed that was where they left off. By the time I had done this my CT had come back in the

room and told me the same page too. It is clear that they forget everything as soon as we close

the book. As we read, my questions were focused around comprehension, character

development and predictions, such as, “What kind of person is this character? How do you

know? How will they respond next?”

This week there was a character that was in the spotlight for nearly half of the chapter. I

asked the group about this character, “what kind of character is this?”. When they just looked at

me without answering, I reminded them that they had resources to use to answer my question.
“Go back and look in the book” after I gave them a few minutes, some of them raised their hands

to share. One student explained that he was Cousin Howie, the father of the “natural beauties”

which prompted me to ask who the natural beauties were. After giving me the basic background

information on the characters we read about, we moved into more in depth questions. I had them

go through Cousin Howie’s parts to see if we could find some distinct features. one student

pointed out that he was “overprotective”. I jumped on the chance to expand on that thought,

“What makes you say that?” “Which part of the book can we use as evidence to prove this?”.

After a few minutes, I pointed to a paragraph and asked them to read that again. A few students

offered up some ideas about how cousin Howie didn’t want them to watch any tv, I asked “why

do you think he doesn’t want his children to watch any tv ?” It was at this point I was looking for

them to bring up the part about Cousin Howie claiming that tv turns peoples brains into

vegetables, but I quickly realized that they probably didn’t know what that meant. I asked why

they thought he wouldn’t let them watch tv and explained the concept of tv turning people into

vegetables. Then I moved on and asked, “what does it mean when someone acts this way?” After

taking in all we had learned, we came to the conclusion that he was a strict parent.

Next time, I would have a writing component as I believe it will be a good way to

incorporate writing but also solidify their findings. In terms of my future classroom, I will be

incorporating this type of comprehension. I have always felt discussion is the best way to assess

understanding in many subjects, reading is no different. I also liked the video we watched class

about modeling the thinking process by having conversations with students as they read silently.

In my weekly literacy plan I had both methods so that students get a chance to work together to

comprehend a given text and then be able to use the same methods during silent reading. While

they read silently, they can write down answers to comprehension questions in their journals
while I walk around and check in with a few students. Monday, Wednesday and Friday will be

small group reading discussion, Tuesday and Thursday they will have to keep up their journal

during silent reading.