Reading Comprehension
Key Concepts
Use a variety of research-based practices to teach comprehension effectively and comprehensively.
Comprehension is not a single skill that is mastered in a fixed period of time. Rather, comprehension is the orchestration of multiple skills and strategies. Comprehension also requires expertise with many different kinds of printed materials and many years of reading. There are six main classroom practices that should be considered when developing student comprehension. The six practices include:
- Promoting fluent reading
- Building background knowledge
- Boosting vocabulary knowledge
- Accelerating language development
- Teaching strategic processing
- Using text-based discussions to facilitate content engagement.
Promote fluent reading.
When working with students who struggle to read fluently. . .
- Ensure students have adequate decoding skills and opportunities to read with support.
- Use repeated reading practices with ongoing progress monitoring.
Build background knowledge.
Comprehension occurs when a student can integrate new information with his or her prior knowledge. So:
- Explicitly teach how to connect existing knowledge with new knowledge.
- Build background knowledge using both narrative and expository texts.
Boost vocabulary knowledge.
If students don’t know the meanings of individual words, it will be virtually impossible for them to understand the overall meaning of a sentence or paragraph. So:
- Directly teach words by providing a definition or synonym and some examples and non-examples to show the range of a word’s meaning.
- Use a variety of instructional approaches depending on the nature of the word being taught and purpose of instruction. There is no single “best” way to teach vocabulary. The use of contextual analysis, rich discussions about words, and visual word analysis are all good instructional options.
Accelerate language development.
Oral language places an upper limit on reading comprehension. English Learners and students with low language and vocabulary knowledge require extensive instruction in the development of language skills to promote comprehension. So:
- Build vocabulary and listening comprehension around more abstract language (e.g., words like will, can, have, because).
- Explicitly teach vocabulary.
- Use teacher facilitated discussions, extended conversations, and read-alouds as a context for language building.
Teach strategic processing.
Comprehension requires the use of multiple strategies to understand text and the knowledge of when to use a specific strategy during reading. So:
- Explicitly teach cognitive comprehension strategies (e.g., finding the main idea, making inferences).
- Develop student metacognition with question asking and answering strategies for the purpose of self-monitoring comprehension.
- Promote an understanding of how text works by explicitly teaching text structure.
Teach ELs explicit strategies that will help them understand text.
For ELs to be able to read and comprehend a variety of texts, they need to be aware of strategies they can use during reading to support their understanding of connected text. Retelling and summarizing activities are particularly important to develop academic language and build EL comprehension processes.
Getting the Main Idea and Summarizing
The following document provides a template for students to use when summarizing a chapter or a story. The process of summarizing is particularly useful for ELs.
Questions for Narrative Story Structure
The following document provides sample questions that help students understand the story structure of a narrative text.
Cross-Linguistic Transfer of Reading Skills for Children Learning to Read in English and Spanish
Explore the following PowerPoint to see which reading skills transfer well from Spanish to English and which do not.
Teach ELs explicit strategies that will help them understand text.
For ELs to be able to read and comprehend a variety of texts, they need to be aware of strategies they can use during reading to support their understanding of connected text. Retelling and summarizing activities are particularly important to develop academic language and build EL comprehension processes.
Getting the Main Idea and Summarizing
The following document provides a template for students to use when summarizing a chapter or a story. The process of summarizing is particularly useful for ELs.
Questions for Narrative Story Structure
The following document provides sample questions that help students understand the story structure of a narrative text.
Cross-Linguistic Transfer of Reading Skills for Children Learning to Read in English and Spanish
Explore the following PowerPoint to see which reading skills transfer well from Spanish to English and which do not.
Use text-based discussions to facilitate content engagement.
Teacher facilitated, text-based discussions overtly model the internal dialogue and the unseen conversation that occurs between a reader and the text. Text-based discussions help students actively engage in and focus on content. So:
- Use text structure as the anchor or framework for the discussion.
- Ask varied levels and types of questions.
- Use “follow-up” questions to help students expand or elaborate their thinking.
- Use student partner talk opportunities.
Engage ELs in text-related discussions that build language and comprehension skills. Use sentence starters to reduce the language demands and increase student focus on developing their content knowledge.
ELs in particular will benefit from extended text-based discussions in which they respond to teacher- and student-generated questions. Use the resources posted here to help guide the process of asking and answering questions to benefit ELs and native speakers alike.
Asking/Answering Different Types of Questions
The following document explains the three different types of questions that teachers and students can ask to help in the comprehension of a text.
Narrative and Expository Question Cards
The following document has question cards to use during pre-, during-, and post-reading discussions for both narrative and expository texts.
Engage ELs in text-related discussions that build language and comprehension skills. Use sentence starters to reduce the language demands and increase student focus on developing their content knowledge.
ELs in particular will benefit from extended text-based discussions in which they respond to "teacher-" and "student-generated" questions. Use the resources posted here to help guide the process of asking and answering questions to benefit ELs and native speakers alike.
Asking/Answering Different Types of Questions
The following document explains the three different types of questions that teachers and students can ask to help in the comprehension of a text.
Narrative and Expository Question Cards
The following document has question cards to use during "pre-", "during-", and "post-reading" discussions for both narrative and expository texts.
Professional Development Presentation
Reading comprehension is not one fixed skill, but is developed over time with effective instruction in multiple strategies. In this presentation, you will become familiar with six main classroom practices that teachers will want to include in comprehension instruction. Examples of valuable teaching procedures, templates and frameworks are provided to help you plan instruction that will move your students toward the end goal of reading – comprehension.
Apply the Concepts
Practice Activities
1. Reading Comprehension Obstacles
Read the passage about the concurrence principle. After reading, answer the comprehension questions written below the passage. As you read, think about what obstacles, if any, you encounter related to comprehension, and why you might be encountering these difficulties.
2. Reading Comprehension Challenges
After viewing the multimedia presentation, read the article by E. D. Hirsch, Jr. entitled “Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge–of Words and the World.” You will find answers to why the concurrence principle passage might pose comprehension challenges. When reading the Hirsch article, think about the following:
- How does the fourth-grade slump originate? Where does it come from?
- Why is reading fluency so important for comprehension? Vocabulary? Domain knowledge?
- How can you apply the concepts from the article and the multimedia presentation to your language arts curriculum and reading instruction? Identify one classroom practice you can implement to enhance your current comprehension instruction.
3. Thinking about Text Structure
To help understand the impact of text structure on comprehension, read "Thinking About Text Structure." As you read, observe the nature of your comprehension. For example, what questions do you ask yourself when you read? What vocabulary, if any, do you pay attention to or think about? How might an expert reader approach comprehending these two text examples differently? Note that this distinction is important because it requires us to think differently about how to use the text and for what purposes we are reading. Determining the difference between narrative and information text, for example, can dictate the entire comprehension process that follows.
Resources
1. Implement What Works: Strategies for Scaffolding and Activating Background Knowledge
A generic instructional template is available to help scaffold and activate student background knowledge. The template includes instructional procedures that can be easily integrated into reading lessons or content-related instruction.
2. Implement What Works: Generic Instructional Template for Explicit Strategy Instruction
This template outlines the instructional steps required to teach a comprehension strategy. The template is generic and can be used with any comprehension strategy (e.g., finding the main idea, making inferences).
3. Do's and Don'ts Checklist for Comprehension Strategy Instruction
This tool consists of a checklist with “dos” and “don’ts” for implementing strategy instruction.
4. Implementing What Works: Cue Card for Question Types
This cue card is designed to help teach question generation or question asking. The cue card outlines different types of questions, signal question asking words, and examples of each question type.
5. Using Expository Text in the Classroom
After thinking about the differences between narrative and expository text, consider how to increase your use of expository text in the classroom. Read the American Educator article “Filling the Great Void: Why We Should Bring Nonfiction into the Early-Grade Classroom.”
- Why is the use of expository text important in the elementary grades?
- How will you increase your use of expository text sources in your language arts curriculum and reading lessons? When and how can expository text be used?
- What comprehension practices will you use when teaching with expository text?
http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/ae/spring2003/duke.cfm
Duke, N. K., Bennett-Armistead, S., & Roberts, E. M. (2003). Filling the Great Void: Why We Should Bring Nonfiction into the Early-Grade Classroom. American Educator.