Reading comprehension
Encyclopedia
Reading comprehension is defined as the level of understanding of a text
. This understanding comes from the interaction between the words that are written and how they trigger knowledge outside the text. .
Proficient reading depends on the ability to recognize words quickly and effortlessly. If word recognition is difficult, students use too much of their processing capacity to read individual word
s, which interferes with their ability to comprehend what is read.
Many educators in the USA
believe that students need to learn to analyze text (comprehend it) even before they can read it on their own, and comprehension
instruction generally begins in pre-Kindergarten or Kindergarten. But other US educators consider this reading approach to be completely backward for very young children, arguing that the children must learn how to decode the words in a story through phonics
before they can analyze the story itself.
During the last century comprehension lessons usually comprised students answering teachers' questions, writing responses to questions on their own, or both. The whole group version of this practice also often included "Round-robin
reading", wherein teachers called on individual students to read a portion of the text (and sometimes following a set order). In the last quarter of the 20th century, evidence accumulated that the read-test methods assessed comprehension more than they taught it. The associated practice of "round robin" reading has also been questioned and eliminated by many educators.
Instead of using the prior read-test method, research studies have concluded that there are much more effective ways to teach comprehension. Much work has been done in the area of teaching novice readers a bank of "reading strategies," or tools to interpret and analyze text. There is not a definitive set of strategies, but common ones include summarizing what you have read, monitoring your reading to make sure it is still making sense, and analyzing the structure of the text (e.g., the use of headings in science text). Some programs teach students how to self monitor whether they are understanding and provide students with tools for fixing comprehension problems.}
Instruction in comprehension strategy use often involves the gradual release of responsibility, wherein teachers initially explain and model strategies. Over time, they give students more and more responsibility for using the strategies until they can use them independently. This technique is generally associated with the idea of self-regulation
and reflects social cognitive theory
, originally conceptualized by Albert Bandura
.
knowledge, (2) reading comprehension instruction based upon reading fictional books instead of literary books, and (3) practices were critical to effective reading comprehension teaching.
One strategy for reading comprehension is the technique called SQ3R
. This stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review. In order to get an understanding of the text, you should survey the chapters. This consists of quickly looking at the title, headings and any subheadings. Look at any end of chapter questions as well. While surveying, you ask questions about the topics you have scanned, such as, "What did my teacher say about this chapter?"
The next thing is to begin reading. In a chapter book, you would read the majority of the words. In a textbook, just read quickly for the key words. There are words seen in the chapter questions, teacher made questions and in the titles or subtitles of the chapter.
After reading a portion or section of the book, recite what you have read out loud. By orally summarizing what you just read it helps to cement the content in your memory.
The last technique is top review what you have read again. By writing down key facts from the chapter and reviewing it, you will better understand the information.
The idea of focusing intensely on a few words was popularized by Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan in their book for teachers called Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (2002). They argued that words occur in three "tiers," the lowest (tier 1) being common words such as eat and fish, the top (tier 3) being very content-specific words such as photosynthesis and geopolitical. The tier 2 words were what they considered general academic vocabulary, words with many uses in academic contexts, such as analyze and frequent. Beck et al. suggested that teachers focus on tier 2 words and that they should teach fewer of these words with greater intensity. They suggested that teachers offer multiple examples and develop activities to help students practice these words in increasingly independent ways.
The method of focusing of broad instruction on many words was developed by Andrew Biemiller. He argued, contra Beck et al., that more words would benefit students more, even if the instruction was short and teacher-directed. He suggested that teachers teach a large number of words before reading a book to students, by merely giving short definitions, such as synonyms, and then pointing out the words and their meaning while reading the book to students (Biemiller & Boote, 2006). The method contrasts with the Beck et al. approach by emphasizing quantity versus quality. There is no evidence to suggest the primacy of either approach.
The final vocabulary technique, strategies for learning new words, can be further subdivided into instruction on using context and instruction on using morphemes, or meaningful units within words to learn their meaning. Morphemic instruction has been shown to produce positive outcomes for students reading and vocabulary knowledge, but context has proved unreliable as a strategy and it is no longer considered a useful strategy to teach students. This conclusion does not disqualify the value in "learning" morphemic analysis" - prefixes, suffixes and roots - but rather suggests that it be imparted incidentally and in context. Accordingly, there are methods designed to achieve this, such as Incidental Morpheme Analysis (Manzo, Manzo, Thomas, 2004, p. 163-4).
There are a wide range of reading strategies suggested by reading programs and educators. The National Reading Panel identified positive effects only for a subset, particularly summarizing, asking questions, answering questions, comprehension monitoring, graphic organizers, and cooperative learning. The Panel also emphasized that a combination of strategies, as used in Reciprocal Teaching, can be effective.
Today, most reading comprehension programs teach students explicit reading strategies using teacher direct instruction with additional student practice.
Comprehension through discussion involves lessons that are "instructional conversations" that create higher-level thinking opportunities for students. The purpose of the discussions are to promote critical and aesthetic thinking about text and encourage full classroom involvement. According to Vivian Thayer, class discussions help students to generate ideas and new questions. (Goldenberg, p. 317)
There are specific comprehension strategies that some teachers are now using in the classroom. A great resource for elementary teachers on these specific comprehension strategies is to go to the "Into the Book" website http://reading.ecb.org. There you will find songs, book lists, posters, and activities to teach these specific strategies.
First, teach students about prior knowledge. On one of the posters from the Into the Book website, it explains that "Prior knowledge is using what you already know to help understand something new." To help students comprehend and learn from a specific reading material, they can access their prior knowledge on a subject to help them relate to the subject that they are learning at the moment.
Making a connection is when a student can relate a passage to an experience, another book, or other facts about the world. Making connections will help students understand what the author's purpose is and what the story is about. You can use connections with any fiction or non-fiction text that you read.
Questioning is another strategy that will greatly benefit a student. Dr. Neil Postman has said, "All our knowledge results from questions, which is another way of saying that question-asking is our most important intellectual tool" (Response to Intervention). There are several types of questions that a teacher should focus on: remembering; testing understanding; application or solving; invite synthesis or creating; and evaluation and judging. Teachers should model these types of questions through "think-alouds" before, during, and after reading a text.
Visualization is when a student can create a picture or movie in their mind while reading text. Use terms like "mental image
" and asking sensory questions will help students become better visualizers. Another way of looking at visualization, is to think about bringing words to life.
Into the Book's website explains that inferring means to "figure out what it really means from clues in the text." Inferring is difficult for students. For the younger students, one suggestion is to have your class become book detectives. Explain that detectives use what they already know along with using clues from the book to help "solve" the mystery.
Summarizing is a comprehension strategy that also needs to be taught. Summarizing is not telling what is important about the text. A summary might include the answers to who, what, where, when, why, and how. You can not have students summarize any text that you are using the classroom.
Evaluation is about making judgments on what you read and then explaining why you made those judgments (Into the Book). Some activities to help with evaluating can be as easy as having a small group book talk or having students rate a book. Evaluating non-fiction texts can be done by using a criteria checklist (i.e. table of contents, index, titles, headings, etc.) to help students rate a text.
Synthesizing is putting the pieces together to see them in a new way (Into the Book). Students will take what they already know about a subject along with their reflections from the book to create their own interpretation and ideas about a certain text.
Putting all of these "tools" together will give your students a toolbox of strategies to help them with reading comprehension. For more reading activities, you can check out these websites:
Reading different types of texts requires the use of different reading strategies and approaches. Making reading an active, observable process can be very beneficial to struggling readers. A good reader interacts with the text in order to develop an understanding of the information before them. Some good reader strategies are predicting, connecting, inferring, summarizing, analyzing and critiquing. There are many resources and activities educators and instructors of reading can use to help with reading strategies in specific content areas and disciplines. Some examples are graphic organizers, talking to the text, anticipation guides, double entry journals, interactive reading and note taking guides, chunking, and summarizing.
is a technique available to teachers to aid students in learning how to un-read
and reading comprehension. It is also difficult for students that are new.
Philosopher Jacques Derrida
, whose texts are considered difficult even by fellow scholars, explained that "In order to unfold what is implicit in so many discourses, one would have each time to make a pedagogical outlay that is just not reasonable to expect from every book. Here the responsibility has to be shared out, mediated; the reading has to do its work and the work has to make its reader."
Text
Text may refer to:* the representation of written language* Text , a concept in literary theory* "Text" , a 2010 song by Mann* TEXT, a Swedish band formed by 3/4 ex-Refused Members...
. This understanding comes from the interaction between the words that are written and how they trigger knowledge outside the text. .
Proficient reading depends on the ability to recognize words quickly and effortlessly. If word recognition is difficult, students use too much of their processing capacity to read individual word
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
s, which interferes with their ability to comprehend what is read.
Many educators in the USA
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
believe that students need to learn to analyze text (comprehend it) even before they can read it on their own, and comprehension
Understanding
Understanding is a psychological process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message whereby one is able to think about it and use concepts to deal adequately with that object....
instruction generally begins in pre-Kindergarten or Kindergarten. But other US educators consider this reading approach to be completely backward for very young children, arguing that the children must learn how to decode the words in a story through phonics
Phonics
Phonics refers to a method for teaching speakers of English to read and write that language. Phonics involves teaching how to connect the sounds of spoken English with letters or groups of letters and teaching them to blend the sounds of letters together to produce approximate pronunciations...
before they can analyze the story itself.
During the last century comprehension lessons usually comprised students answering teachers' questions, writing responses to questions on their own, or both. The whole group version of this practice also often included "Round-robin
Round-robin
The term round-robin was originally used to describe a document signed by multiple parties in a circle to make it more difficult to determine the order in which it was signed, thus preventing a ringleader from being identified...
reading", wherein teachers called on individual students to read a portion of the text (and sometimes following a set order). In the last quarter of the 20th century, evidence accumulated that the read-test methods assessed comprehension more than they taught it. The associated practice of "round robin" reading has also been questioned and eliminated by many educators.
Instead of using the prior read-test method, research studies have concluded that there are much more effective ways to teach comprehension. Much work has been done in the area of teaching novice readers a bank of "reading strategies," or tools to interpret and analyze text. There is not a definitive set of strategies, but common ones include summarizing what you have read, monitoring your reading to make sure it is still making sense, and analyzing the structure of the text (e.g., the use of headings in science text). Some programs teach students how to self monitor whether they are understanding and provide students with tools for fixing comprehension problems.}
Instruction in comprehension strategy use often involves the gradual release of responsibility, wherein teachers initially explain and model strategies. Over time, they give students more and more responsibility for using the strategies until they can use them independently. This technique is generally associated with the idea of self-regulation
Self-regulated learning
The term self-regulated can be used to describe learning that is guided by metacognition , strategic action , and motivation to learn...
and reflects social cognitive theory
Social cognitive theory
Social cognitive theory, used in psychology, education, and communication, posits that portions of an individual's knowledge acquisition can be directly related to observing others within the context of social interactions, experiences, and outside media influences.-History:Social cognitive theory...
, originally conceptualized by Albert Bandura
Albert Bandura
Albert Bandura is a psychologist and the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University...
.
Teaching reading comprehension
reading comprehension. They concluded that (1) vocabularyVocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...
knowledge, (2) reading comprehension instruction based upon reading fictional books instead of literary books, and (3) practices were critical to effective reading comprehension teaching.
One strategy for reading comprehension is the technique called SQ3R
SQ3R
SQ3R or SQRRR is a reading comprehension method named for its five steps: survey, question, read, recite, and review. The method was introduced by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his 1946 book Effective Study.....
. This stands for Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review. In order to get an understanding of the text, you should survey the chapters. This consists of quickly looking at the title, headings and any subheadings. Look at any end of chapter questions as well. While surveying, you ask questions about the topics you have scanned, such as, "What did my teacher say about this chapter?"
The next thing is to begin reading. In a chapter book, you would read the majority of the words. In a textbook, just read quickly for the key words. There are words seen in the chapter questions, teacher made questions and in the titles or subtitles of the chapter.
After reading a portion or section of the book, recite what you have read out loud. By orally summarizing what you just read it helps to cement the content in your memory.
The last technique is top review what you have read again. By writing down key facts from the chapter and reviewing it, you will better understand the information.
Vocabulary
Several theories of vocabulary instruction exist, namely, one focused on intensive instruction of a few high value words, one focused on broad instruction of many useful words, and a third focused on strategies for learning new words.The idea of focusing intensely on a few words was popularized by Isabel Beck, Margaret McKeown, and Linda Kucan in their book for teachers called Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction (2002). They argued that words occur in three "tiers," the lowest (tier 1) being common words such as eat and fish, the top (tier 3) being very content-specific words such as photosynthesis and geopolitical. The tier 2 words were what they considered general academic vocabulary, words with many uses in academic contexts, such as analyze and frequent. Beck et al. suggested that teachers focus on tier 2 words and that they should teach fewer of these words with greater intensity. They suggested that teachers offer multiple examples and develop activities to help students practice these words in increasingly independent ways.
The method of focusing of broad instruction on many words was developed by Andrew Biemiller. He argued, contra Beck et al., that more words would benefit students more, even if the instruction was short and teacher-directed. He suggested that teachers teach a large number of words before reading a book to students, by merely giving short definitions, such as synonyms, and then pointing out the words and their meaning while reading the book to students (Biemiller & Boote, 2006). The method contrasts with the Beck et al. approach by emphasizing quantity versus quality. There is no evidence to suggest the primacy of either approach.
The final vocabulary technique, strategies for learning new words, can be further subdivided into instruction on using context and instruction on using morphemes, or meaningful units within words to learn their meaning. Morphemic instruction has been shown to produce positive outcomes for students reading and vocabulary knowledge, but context has proved unreliable as a strategy and it is no longer considered a useful strategy to teach students. This conclusion does not disqualify the value in "learning" morphemic analysis" - prefixes, suffixes and roots - but rather suggests that it be imparted incidentally and in context. Accordingly, there are methods designed to achieve this, such as Incidental Morpheme Analysis (Manzo, Manzo, Thomas, 2004, p. 163-4).
Reading strategies
Before the 1980s, little comprehension instruction occurred in the United States (National Reading Panel, 2000). Palinscar and Brown (1984) developed a technique called reciprocal teaching that taught students to predict, summarize, clarify, and ask questions for sections of a text. The technique had positive outcomes. Since then, the use of strategies like summarizing after each paragraph have come to be seen as effective strategies for building students' comprehension. The idea is that students will develop stronger reading comprehension skills on their own if the teacher gives them explicit mental tools for unpacking text (Pressley, 2006).There are a wide range of reading strategies suggested by reading programs and educators. The National Reading Panel identified positive effects only for a subset, particularly summarizing, asking questions, answering questions, comprehension monitoring, graphic organizers, and cooperative learning. The Panel also emphasized that a combination of strategies, as used in Reciprocal Teaching, can be effective.
Today, most reading comprehension programs teach students explicit reading strategies using teacher direct instruction with additional student practice.
Comprehension through discussion involves lessons that are "instructional conversations" that create higher-level thinking opportunities for students. The purpose of the discussions are to promote critical and aesthetic thinking about text and encourage full classroom involvement. According to Vivian Thayer, class discussions help students to generate ideas and new questions. (Goldenberg, p. 317)
There are specific comprehension strategies that some teachers are now using in the classroom. A great resource for elementary teachers on these specific comprehension strategies is to go to the "Into the Book" website http://reading.ecb.org. There you will find songs, book lists, posters, and activities to teach these specific strategies.
First, teach students about prior knowledge. On one of the posters from the Into the Book website, it explains that "Prior knowledge is using what you already know to help understand something new." To help students comprehend and learn from a specific reading material, they can access their prior knowledge on a subject to help them relate to the subject that they are learning at the moment.
Making a connection is when a student can relate a passage to an experience, another book, or other facts about the world. Making connections will help students understand what the author's purpose is and what the story is about. You can use connections with any fiction or non-fiction text that you read.
Questioning is another strategy that will greatly benefit a student. Dr. Neil Postman has said, "All our knowledge results from questions, which is another way of saying that question-asking is our most important intellectual tool" (Response to Intervention). There are several types of questions that a teacher should focus on: remembering; testing understanding; application or solving; invite synthesis or creating; and evaluation and judging. Teachers should model these types of questions through "think-alouds" before, during, and after reading a text.
Visualization is when a student can create a picture or movie in their mind while reading text. Use terms like "mental image
Mental image
A mental image is an experience that, on most occasions, significantly resembles the experience of perceiving some object, event, or scene, but occurs when the relevant object, event, or scene is not actually present to the senses...
" and asking sensory questions will help students become better visualizers. Another way of looking at visualization, is to think about bringing words to life.
Into the Book's website explains that inferring means to "figure out what it really means from clues in the text." Inferring is difficult for students. For the younger students, one suggestion is to have your class become book detectives. Explain that detectives use what they already know along with using clues from the book to help "solve" the mystery.
Summarizing is a comprehension strategy that also needs to be taught. Summarizing is not telling what is important about the text. A summary might include the answers to who, what, where, when, why, and how. You can not have students summarize any text that you are using the classroom.
Evaluation is about making judgments on what you read and then explaining why you made those judgments (Into the Book). Some activities to help with evaluating can be as easy as having a small group book talk or having students rate a book. Evaluating non-fiction texts can be done by using a criteria checklist (i.e. table of contents, index, titles, headings, etc.) to help students rate a text.
Synthesizing is putting the pieces together to see them in a new way (Into the Book). Students will take what they already know about a subject along with their reflections from the book to create their own interpretation and ideas about a certain text.
Putting all of these "tools" together will give your students a toolbox of strategies to help them with reading comprehension. For more reading activities, you can check out these websites:
Reading different types of texts requires the use of different reading strategies and approaches. Making reading an active, observable process can be very beneficial to struggling readers. A good reader interacts with the text in order to develop an understanding of the information before them. Some good reader strategies are predicting, connecting, inferring, summarizing, analyzing and critiquing. There are many resources and activities educators and instructors of reading can use to help with reading strategies in specific content areas and disciplines. Some examples are graphic organizers, talking to the text, anticipation guides, double entry journals, interactive reading and note taking guides, chunking, and summarizing.
Professional development for students and small children
The National Reading Panel noted that comprehension strategy instruction is difficult for many teachers, particularly because they were not taught this way and because it is a very cognitively demanding task. They suggested that professional development can increase teachers' willingness to use reading strategies but admitted that much remains to be done in this area. The directed listening and thinking activityDirected listening and thinking activity
The directed listening and thinking activity is a strategy that was first identified by Stauffer . It is used with early childhood students or students who are not yet successful independent readers. Teachers use this strategy to establish a purpose for reading with their students...
is a technique available to teachers to aid students in learning how to un-read
Literacy
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material.Literacy represents the lifelong, intellectual process of gaining meaning from print...
and reading comprehension. It is also difficult for students that are new.
Reading difficult texts
Some texts, like in philosophy, literature or scientific research, may appear more difficult to read because of the prior knowledge they assume; they may assume the tradition from which they come, or assume having read a text which the author is criticizing or parodizing. Such knowledge is assumed rather than restated, for economic reasons, for saving time and space.Philosopher Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida
Jacques Derrida was a French philosopher, born in French Algeria. He developed the critical theory known as deconstruction and his work has been labeled as post-structuralism and associated with postmodern philosophy...
, whose texts are considered difficult even by fellow scholars, explained that "In order to unfold what is implicit in so many discourses, one would have each time to make a pedagogical outlay that is just not reasonable to expect from every book. Here the responsibility has to be shared out, mediated; the reading has to do its work and the work has to make its reader."
See also
- ReadabilityReadabilityReadability is the ease in which text can be read and understood. Various factors to measure readability have been used, such as "speed of perception," "perceptibility at a distance," "perceptibility in peripheral vision," "visibility," "the reflex blink technique," "rate of work" , "eye...
- Directed listening and thinking activityDirected listening and thinking activityThe directed listening and thinking activity is a strategy that was first identified by Stauffer . It is used with early childhood students or students who are not yet successful independent readers. Teachers use this strategy to establish a purpose for reading with their students...
- Reading comprehension for special needsReading comprehension for special needsReading comprehension for special needs is a modified way of reading to accommodate the specific needs of a child who may suffer from a language impairment...
External links
- Test your English Reading Comprehension Skills
- Vocabulary Instruction and Reading comprehension - From the ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading English and Communication.