Why is SAIL the most appealing comprehension routine



Why is SAIL the most appealing comprehension routine?

by Heidi Riehl

EDRD 6641, Foundations of Reading Instruction

June 13, 2009

Students Achieving Independent Learning (SAIL) is the most appealing comprehension routine to me as a Kindergarten teacher. The name alone screams Kindergarten as one of our biggest goals is for students to go from completely dependent learners to independent users of strategies and skills. SAIL lists their strategies as predicting, visualizing, questioning, clarifying, making associations, and summarizing. The strategies are taught through teacher think-aloud and explicit instruction. Students practice in various settings and emphasize understanding of texts by deciding which strategies to use. (p. 228) This comprehension routine describes much of what we do and teach in readers’ workshop throughout the year.

Predicting is the first strategy Kindergarteners easily pick up when listening to a read aloud. I begin with this strategy because I feel it comes naturally to young minds when reading. Because it is natural, I think students need to realize when they are doing it as readers. Through think-alouds with a story, I can model what predicting looks like and students will connect with their own predictions. Much of their experience in the beginning of the year is with shared reading and read-alouds, so practicing predicting skills would be done as a group. Later in the year as they become independent readers, they can then transfer this strategy to simple texts during this time.

Visualizing is a bit trickier for young minds. I wonder if they are so used to having images supplied to them with words by television that visualizing a picture is harder to learn. I usually introduce this strategy later in the year after they have had a lot of exposure to stories and modeling of the strategy. Usually, I practice this skill through read-alouds and refrain from showing them the picture as I am reading the text, so that they can create a picture in their minds. I often relate is to their imagination. This helps them connect, but can still prove to be difficult as they are in control of what they imagine and with visualizing I am providing them words to build a picture.

Questioning the story is another strategy that Kindergarteners connect to easily. They are full of questions about everything. Again, it is a matter of getting them to recognize they are doing it as they read. This is another strategy that is easy to model through a think-aloud. Once they have had a chance to share a question, they may have about a text either in a group context or as they read independently, I like to take them further by deciding what a good question is. This too is dependent on what type of text they are able to read. Questions can form from the pictures, but will they be answered by the text? Many simple pattern books do not have a story line and so the student is stuck with the question “What happens next?”

Clarifying is another hard one. In Kindergarten, I am usually the clarifier. I am the number one resource for a time. We focus on how to get clarification through a look back at the text, relating it to another book or their lives. Sometimes Kindergarteners will ask another student for help as well. This is not ideal when reading independently, but great for when they are buddy reading or reading during center time.

Making associations is another strategy Kindergarteners can take in and apply easily. They make associations to their lives, other books, and TV (primarily Spongebob Squarepants) to help understand what is happening in the story. My job is to model what is a relevant association to the characters and storyline and what is a quick connection with no relevance. In the beginning of the year, many students will blurt out that they have a dog anytime I read a story with a dog in it. If the story is about having a pet dog, this blurt can be developed into a meaningful association, but if it is not, students need to understand why it is not relevant. Often, this strategy becomes automatic quickly as they engage in reading.

Summarizing is a difficult one for Kindergarteners and while I may model it throughout the year, I do not expect them to transfer this strategy until much later. Some students can do this right away, but others it takes time and scaffolding with different lengths of stories. This is primarily an oral skill in Kindergarten and so I don’t think Kindergarteners necessarily recognize the significance of the strategy until later grades when they can write more and engage in deeper discussions.

Kindergarten comprehension strategies taught during my readers’ workshop basically follow the same formula. A mini-lesson is planned and taught through teacher modeling and explicit instruction. Students are given opportunities to practice strategies in whole group with the teacher, in small group with four or five peers, in teams of two, and finally independently. I believe they need a lot of practice to implement strategies even if they are somewhat natural to them. At their level, teacher modeling, think aloud, and explicit teaching is important in introducing strategies and skills. It is also helpful to continually practice strategies over and over in a variety of settings until they become automatic. I feel that with SAIL, Kindergarten teachers are laying a foundation with the strategy approaches for later teachers to build on and take deeper with more difficult texts.

Resources

Duke, N. and Pearson, D. (2002). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. In Farstrup, A. and Samuels, S. J. (Ed.), What research has to say about reading instruction, 3rd ed. International Reading Association.

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