I am guessing you run into students who misunderstand their reading or claim to have poor comprehension no matter what they do....
...so what do you do with that?
Do you feel that you have enough tools to help them with their reading comprehension? Or do you think we need to add more to our tutor training? Or is this not a problem in your experience?
One thing I try to encourage (not just by talking, but by demonstrating it) is to WRITE SOMETHING in the margins rather than highlight or underline. Highlighting/underlining can be just as passive as the passive "reading" that is the problem in the first place. You don't have to think very much or understand very deeply to underline. (Just ask a student WHY he underlined THIS sentence, right here, and see if he doesn't say something vague like, "I thought it might turn out to be important.") Point is, underlining seems as likely to identify something puzzling or just some minor thing the student "gets" as it is to identify something important in the piece. Writing something, on the other hand, is active and requires that you actively process the information at least enough to figure out what you want to write.
What do you do?
In my opinion, this is definitely an issue that occurs anytime reading is required for individuals with lower-end reading comprehension skills. Generally when a student is asked to summarize an article, or articulate an authors main ideas in a reader response. It can be a tricky thing to assist someone with. The "talking to the text" approach seems to be fairly effective in the long run, however it is difficult to teach this in a single drop-in session. I agree that stressing the importance of writing in the margins to help the student understand is beneficial, however this is also difficult to control. Sometimes students want to write something simple under the assumption that they will remember the significance of it later on, which is not always the case. This is particularly sticky, as it can be discouraging, or ever embarrassing for the student. It is important to keep their pride in mind and give advice without sounding condescending. I try to focus on what the student does well first and then focus on what could use improvement.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree that a lot of RA strategies like talking to the text are hard to use under drop-in conditions. I prefer think-alouds. I treat each one as an original demonstration--because, with a drop-in, it probably IS, and there may be little or no follow up. I just figure if I take the time to demonstrate thinking through the reading, and stop to point out what I have done ("Did you notice I had to go back and forth, rereading and comparing these two chunks several times?" "Did you notice I sort of went off on a tangent, but I really was relating this idea to my own experience?") then students might give themselves permission to interact more with their own reading.
DeleteBut the problem of WHAT to write in the margins is the real problem, isn't it? WHAT is important in the passage, and what is minor? It takes practice to be able to distinguish between them, and drop-ins don't have that time--with us, anyway.