Katie Beach READ 436

Comprehension Minilesson Reflection

To promote comprehension of text, I decided to do before, during, and after-

reading activities that would focus on predicting, a skill that my students had been

learning about in class for about a week. My cooperating teacher wanted me to work with

the whole class since my activity would correlate with what they were all learning at the

moment. This led me to decide to do a Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA)—

something my students had not specifically done before, but would be comfortable

enough with as they had already practiced making predictions while reading.

I turned to Reading A-Z to find the text I would use for the DRTA, as it has pre-

leveled text that I can choose from based where my students are as a whole—level P-Q. I

chose for students to read the short fantasy story, The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, as it was

a spooky-themed text that went along with the October and Halloween-themed activities

taking place throughout Immersion Week.

My pre-reading activity prepared students for the DRTA by having them analyze

the title and cover of the story in order to make predictions about what they were about to

read, encouraging the activation of their prior knowledge about spooky, mysterious,

fantasy themed-books, and they became excited about the story based on the enticing title

and cover. I grouped students in pairs for this activity, and they were to discuss their

predictions and whether or not they were justified and why, throughout reading the text.

During reading, students made and proved their predictions about what would

happen next in the story multiple times throughout at stopping points that I indicated.

This forced them to stay engaged with the text at all times in order to make educated

predictions and accurately prove or disprove them.

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Finally, based on what they learned had happened in the story by reading, they

were to use their new knowledge of the story to make an informed prediction about what

might happen next if the story continued. They were to also summarize the story by

discussing what happened with their partner.

My students were excited about this story before reading it, making wild

predictions based on the title and cover that motivated them to want to read and find out

what would happen next. However, during reading students worked through reading the

text and doing the DRTA slowly, many simply sharing a book with their partners and not

actually working together. While the room became quiet as many of them gradually

transferred to working on their own, I noticed that many students also checked out of the

activity, as it was tedious and took away from their enjoyment of the story. None of my

students made it all the way through the book either, as making predictions, writing them

down, and writing down whether they were correct or incorrect and why took a long

time.

If I were to do a DRTA activity again I would spread it over three days; one day

for students to read the story, the next day for students to begin making predictions and

justifying or correcting them, and the final day for students to finish making predictions

and justifications and/or corrections and to discuss their understanding of the story with a

partner. This schedule would likely allow students to make it through the entire

comprehension activity process, as well.

Thinking about incorporating comprehension and writing instruction into my

future classroom, I will need pre-knowledge surveys and anticipation guides prepared for

different texts to gain a sense of what students know before they read, so I know what to

emphasize during and after reading through my explanations as the teacher. Additionally,
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I will need DRTA’s that I can have students complete over a number of days and collect,

and I will need summarization forms and/or outlines of timelines for students to fill out

so I know what students understand with respect to what happened in the text or story in

more detail. Comprehension lessons and activities will be presented to my whole class at

once for them to work on individually until they reach the after-reading activities when I

will have them work in pairs. This way, I will be able to gain a sense of their individual

understanding of a given text before and throughout reading, and compare it to their

paired understanding of the text to determine if it has improved. I will then be able to

determine specific students that need more practice comprehending text. As far as a

comprehension schedule, I will have students complete one main DRTA comprehension

activity throughout the week, with the first and last days of the week being devoted to

before and after-reading activities. In order to successfully carry this type of lesson out, I

will need DRTA’s for each text I assign students, and each student will have a notebook

in which they can summarize text or put it in timeline form using the outline I will

provide as an after-reading activity. They will turn each activity and paper in to me for

me to review and determine who needs more practice with comprehension.