Comprehension

      Reading comprehension is extremely important, but the majority of the time spent in the classroom is focused more on the student's ability to read the words rather than comprehend their meaning.  I had never really thought about it before, but I can see how it would be hard in a classroom to make sure that you are not only teaching your students how to read the text but also making sure that they can understand what they are reading.  I really like the idea of having Oprah Winfrey interviews to promote comprehension in students.  I think that you could have a lot of fun with that if you made it a regular activity in your classroom.  You could make special labels for the chairs that the students sit in while they are being interviewed, and you could even have a special seat or something for the person who is going to be Oprah for that interview.  I also think that the students would like getting to pretend to be a character from a story that they have read.  I also think that this is a good way to promote reading, because if you have different groups of students reading different books then maybe once a student hears an interview that sounds interesting then they might decide that they want to read that book on their own.
     What are some other good activities for promoting reading comprehension?
     Would you use an Oprah Winfrey style interview in your classroom?
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Fluency

     When I read something I do not think about having to decode the words to figure out the meaning.  I know the meaning of the majority of the words that I am reading so I am able to go through them quickly because I developed my reading fluency when I was younger.  It is very interesting to think that there was a time that I could not just look at a book or article and not know what it said.  I use reading so often in my life that without reading fluency I would struggle to get through my homework and even my day.
     Also, I think that Word Walls are a great way to get children to learn the more difficult words that they come across.  I babysit this little girl who is six and we were reading a book the other day and she came across a word, I don't remember which one, but she said said,"Oh Lindsay I know that word because it is on my Word Wall at school."  Just to hear her say that shows me that the Word Wall is impacting her ability to read, so it is most likely impacting the other students in her classroom too.

What would your life be like if you were not a fluent reader?     
Can a Word Wall be too big?

This is a website that gives different ideas on how to help struggling readers: http://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading101/fluency/
     

Making Words

      I think that the idea of encouraging students to invent the spelling of some words is very interesting.  Because if I didn't know any better, I would think that letting kids make up their own spelling of words would be bad for their education by encouraging bad spelling.  However, I have learned that inventive spelling indicates that the students are developing in their phonemic awareness and starting to understand relationships between different letters and their sounds.

     I also really liked the making words game where the teacher gives the students letters and instructs them on the words they are suppose to be making, but lets the students make the words for themselves.  Once a student gets the spelling correct they go to the board and make the word for everyone to see.  I think that this is a great way to give the students some freedom to play with letters to make words, but at the same time showing them the correct spelling for the words.
     What are some other ways that teachers could encourage inventive spelling?
      When should teachers not encourage inventive spelling?
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