What makes up comprehension

The research suggests that explicitly teaching a combination of strategies to bolster comprehension is the most successful approach. When students pick up an inconsistency in the text they are reading often the result of misreading a word or sentence they need to know there are steps they can take to address this.

Collaborative learning occurs when students work together in pairs or in small groups on structured activities — often with specific roles. The value of graphic and semantic organisers is that they provide a visual representation of knowledge.

This can be particularly valuable for students with poor working memory or with learning disabilities. Three important uses have been identified:. Graphic organisers have been used for multiple purposes, including: generating lists of character traits; improving vocabulary; identifying relationships in expository texts; activating background knowledge; setting a purpose for reading; and, helping students to see the text structure. An important finding by the NRP in relation to the use of semantic and graphic organisers was the recognition of their capacity to activate prior knowledge.

One strategy: K-W-L was identified as being particularly useful. Students need to analyse the types of questions being asked, and consider both the text and their prior knowledge, in order to successfully formulate answers to questions being asked including self-generated questions.

Essentially through strategies like the QAR program, students learn to identify different types of questions and also develop different strategies to answer the questions being asked. This allows students to discriminate between those questions that can be answered by referring back to the text literal and inferential and those that require skills in higher-level thinking critical analysis, interpretation, generalisation and extension of ideas from text.

Students need practice in answering a range of question types and to understand the difference between them. Used in isolation, it was found to have the strongest impact of the top seven strategies identified.

Self-questioning has been found to distinguish good readers from poor readers in that good readers ask themselves questions before, during and after reading, whereas poor readers often fail to self-question. Many of the texts introduced in the primary school setting are stories, the structure of which tend to follow a predictable format involving characters, setting, problem, goal, action, and outcome or resolution of the problem.

When students are taught about story structure, they become more capable of retelling stories within a logical framework. They also show improvements in asking and answering who, what, when, where, why, and how questions. For those students who struggle to recall the classic story structure, including those with working memory problems, additional strategies can be introduced Marzola, For example:. Students with poor reading skills or who have learning disabilities often struggle to summarise text successfully.

A strategy developed by a team at the University of Kansas to assist students experiencing difficulties with summarising is known as the RAP Paraphrasing Strategy. It has three specific steps:. Essentially this is an instructional activity that involves a structured dialogue between the teacher and the students incorporating the strategies of: clarifying, question generating, summarising and predicting.

Initially the activities are highly scaffolded but as the students master the strategies, the input of the teacher is reduced. An ongoing project undertaken by the University of York UK entitled the Reading for Meaning Project: Evaluating interventions designed to support reading comprehension has set out to examine three approaches thought to improve reading comprehension in poorly performing children;.

The effectiveness of the interventions has been evaluated using the WIAT II Weschler Individual Achievement Test and compared to students in classes where the teaching approach had remained unchanged. The results indicated that all intervention groups improved significantly in comparison to the control groups and that these gains were maintained over time.

However, the Oral Language intervention group achieved the greatest gains beyond the intervention period. For more information about this research visit the Wiley online store. As indicated at the beginning of this article, comprehension is the goal of both reading and listening. The fact that many students struggle to develop adequate reading comprehension skills is of major concern, as is the lack of information available to teachers on evidence-based intervention.

It is hoped that this snapshot of some of the teaching strategies known to have an impact on student outcomes proves to be of value to teachers looking for effective comprehension strategies. At the same time, it is the most difficult and most important of the three. There are two elements that make up the process of reading comprehension: vocabulary knowledge and text comprehension.

In order to understand a text the reader must be able to comprehend the vocabulary used in the piece of writing. Children can draw on their prior knowledge of vocabulary, but they also need to continually be taught new words. The best vocabulary instruction occurs at the point of need. Parents and teachers should pre-teach new words that a child will encounter in a text or aid her in understanding unfamiliar words as she comes upon them in the writing. In addition to being able to understand each distinct word in a text, the child also has to be able to put them together to develop an overall conception of what it is trying to say.

This is text comprehension. Text comprehension is much more complex and varied that vocabulary knowledge. Readers use many different text comprehension strategies to develop reading comprehension. As you can see, reading comprehension is incredibly complex and multifaceted. Because of this, readers do not develop the ability to comprehend texts quickly, easily or independently.

Reading comprehension strategies must be taught over an extended period of time by parents and teachers who have knowledge and experience using them. It might seem that once a child learns to read in the elementary grades he is able to tackle any future text that comes his way. This is not true. Reading comprehension strategies must be refined, practiced and reinforced continually throughout life.

You can also build phonological awareness at home through activities like word games and reading to your child. Fluency speeds up the rate at which they can read and understand text. Sounding out or decoding every word can take a lot of effort.

Word recognition is the ability to recognize whole words instantly by sight, without sounding them out. Fluent readers read smoothly at a good pace. They group words together to help with meaning, and they use the proper tone in their voice when reading aloud. Reading fluency is essential for good reading comprehension.

What can help: Word recognition can be a big obstacle for struggling readers. Kids with dyslexia, for instance, may need to see it up to 40 times. Lots of kids struggle with reading fluency. As with other reading skills, kids need lots of specific instruction and practice to improve word recognition. The main way to help build fluency is through practice reading books.

Having a strong vocabulary is a key component of reading comprehension. Students can learn vocabulary through instruction. But they typically learn the meaning of words through everyday experience and also by reading.

What can help: The more words kids are exposed to, the richer their vocabulary becomes. Try to include new words and ideas. Telling jokes and playing word games is a fun way to build this skill. Reading together every day also helps improve vocabulary.

When reading aloud, stop at new words and define them. But also encourage your child to read alone. Even without hearing a definition of a new word, your child can use context to help figure it out. Teachers can help, too. They can carefully choose interesting words to teach and then give explicit instruction instruction that is specialized and direct. They can engage students in conversation.

And they can make learning vocabulary fun by playing word games in class. For more ideas, watch as an expert explains how to help struggling readers build their vocabulary. Understanding how sentences are built might seem like a writing skill.