Comprehension Checks-Barb Cartford and Leslie Davison

This session was a summary of a lot of things we had been seeing in our other sessions...well, as far as comprehension checks go. We have seen the instructors model these skills, and now we have a list of some to try.

We can do translation checks asking kids to translate what we just said (either the whole phrase or a portion) or even retell the story so far in English. Obviously, we need to choose the question based on the ability of the students.

We can also ask the students to tell us how much they are understanding through a finger check, answers to questions, or through a gesture to tell us we are going way too fast.

For us, we need to teach to the eyes...this will tell us quickly if a student is lost (unless they are faking it...).

The coolest things that I learned in this session is how to say "You are really good today" in Swedish...which sounds like Doo air duke diggy dog...or something like that. The other cool thing was how to have students text their level of understanding using www.polleverywhere.com. I can't wait to use this in my classroom! I think my kids will pee their pants when I tell them to pull out their cell phones in class!