Compare And Contrast Reading Comprehension

As I sat in the front of my 6th grade English class, I anxiously awaited my turn to read. While reading several paragraphs from Lowry’s The Giver, I stuttered, mispronounced words, and even worked up a sweat. Every since I could remember I hated reading. Why do I always have to read out loud and embarrass myself to the entire class? Why can I not read as well as everyone in my class? How come I can never understand what I am reading? This was when I realized that I had a reading comprehension deficit. Reading comprehension is a constructive process whereby the reader uses the text, prior knowledge, and comprehension strategies to decode the text into meaning units of connected knowledge. There are many ways for teacher’s to help students with

Both techniques help students take a lot of information and write down the main points. Both allow students to put the story or text in their own words, making it even easier to recall certain events and characters. The main difference of the two is that story mapping is extremely visual. For visual learners, this method could be efficient, while paraphrasing may appeal to all other types of learners including visual learners. Story mapping could also be helpful to the entire class as it visually organizes a story. Visual learners, including students without a reading comprehension deficit, may benefit from drawing story maps. I can imagine that students in older grades may not want to story map a text because it may seem silly to draw circles to make connections to the story. However, it is an effective strategy that may work regardless of grade level. Paraphrasing may be helpful for an entire class, or anyone who struggles to retain all the important details and information about a story. A student with a reading comprehension deficit may paraphrase every single chapter or paragraph of a book, while a student without a deficit may only want to write down a few main ideas to help recall the story.

In my health classes, I will implement both paraphrasing and story mapping. One way I can implement story-mapping activities into my classroom is by giving my elementary students a worksheet that has a structured story map with large text and pictures. I would also give students the opportunity to create their own story maps, draw circles, characters, and other relevant items from the text. I can use paraphrasing in my classroom by having students write down the main point of each section and the two most important