Studies show that...
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Students with greater prior knowledge comprehend and remember more.
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Merely having prior knowledge is not enough to improve comprehension; the knowledge must be activated, implying a strong metacognitive dimension to its use.
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Young readers and poor readers often do not activate their prior knowledge.
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Good readers use their prior knowledge to determine the importance of information in the text.
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Good readers use their prior knowledge to draw inferences from and elaborate on text.
(What Research Has To Say About Reading Instruction, 2nd Ed. Samuels & Farstup, 1992)
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Comprehension
Reading is the "process of constructing meaning from written texts" that depends on "the background of the reader, the purpose of the reading, and the context inwhich reading occurs" (Anderson et al., 1985, p.7).
Comprehension is the reason for reading. Reading means reading with understanding. When readers struggle to comprehend or understand what they are reading, the purpose of reading is lost. Good readers are both purposeful and active as they read. When they are actively engage in the reading process, they make connections between what they already know and scaffold it with the new learning they got from the text reading.
Text comprehension can be improved by effective and explicit instruction that helps readers develop strategies for comprehension. Comprehension strategies are conscious plans to make sense of the text being read (Put Reading First). Thoughtful readers use existing knowledge to makes sense of texts (Pearson et al,1992).
Comprehension includes generating and testing hypotheses, questioning, summarizing, and critical reading across genres and content areas (Palinscar & Brown, 1984; Pearson, Harvey, & Goudvis, 2005).
Students need to develop strategies in comprehending both narrative and informational texts. Effective comprehension instruction involves teaching skills and strategies that help readers become purposeful, active, and strategic comprehenders who interacts with the text and each other and are given opportunities to respond and be co-creators of the meaning-making process.
It is important to remember that authentic reading leads to engaged reading and engaged reading results in improved reading which then leads to more authentic reading (Rasinski et al, 2010). |
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Engaging learners to read involves offering them a variety of reading materials at their own independent level. Delightful texts and books that have print features support comprehension. Books with text structure that the reader can access and understand also helps develop comprehension among readers. One key to helping learners read is to think about the way the child will understand text by selecting texts with language that is accessible keeping in mind that as readers move to higher level of texts, the language used becomes more complex. Support learners by teaching them strategies to use illustrations and other text features to support meaning-making.
The ultimate goal for students is to empower them to orchestrate learned strategies and skills to reach the goal of comprehension. Knowledge of good reading behaviors can guide teachers in planning for targeted instruction that leads students to better comprehension. |
STRATEGIC ACTIVITIES INVOLVED IN COMPREHENDING TEXT
Thinking Withing The Text ~ Thinking Beyond the Text ~ Thinking About the Text
Solving Words Prediction Analyzing
Monitoring & Correcting Making Connections Critiquing
Searching for Information Inferring
Summarizing Synthesizing
Maintaining Fluency
Adjusting |
Strategies for Developing Comprehension with
Narrative Text & Informational Text
Supporting Comprehension Before Reading
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Jackdaws
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Related Readings
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Prevoke
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Story Mapping
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Word Sorts
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Brainstorming
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Anticipation Guides
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K-W-L Charts |
Supporting Comprehension During Reading
- Save the Last Word for Me
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Supporting Comprehension After Reading
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Herringbone
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Discussion Web
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Response Activities |
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According to Put Reading First: The Research Building Blocks for Teaching Children to Read, there are six strategies that appear to have a firm scientific basis for improving text comprehension:
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Monitoring Comprehension which teaches students to be aware of what they do understand, identify what they do not understand, and use appropriate "fix-up" strategies to resolve problems in comprehension.
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Using Graphic and Semantic Organizers which help studentst to focus on text structure as they read and provide students with tools they can use to examine and visually interpret relationships in a text which aids them in writing well-organized summaries of what was read.
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Answering Questions to guide and monitors students' learning.
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Generating Questions which teaches students to ask their own questions to improve their active processing of text and ultimately their comprehension.
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Recognizing Story Structure which refers to the instruction that allows students to use the way the content and events of a story are organized help students' comprehension and recall of events or important details in the text.
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Summarizing which helps students identify or generate main ideas, connect main ideas or central ideas, eliminate unnecessary information, and to remember what they read. |
Classroom Instructional Methods that Support Text Comprehension
Guided Reading is a small group teaching method that give students the opportunity to read a leveled text selected by a teacher from a variety of genre to help students expand their reading abilities.
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Interactive Read-Aloud is a whole-class instruction method that engages students to interact and use metacognitive and comprehension strategies inviting discussion before, during, and after reading. Teacher uses selected texts and illustrated picture books in a variety of genres to demonstrate skills and strategies that students will eventually use independently in their reading. |
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Literature Discussion or Book Clubs is another small group instruction method where students talk with each other about texts, basing discussion on texts they have heard read aloud or read themselves. Students prepare, discuss, and often summarize or evaluated the discussion using student-selected texts or easy chapter books with issues and characters that engage readers. |
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Independent Reading is a whole class minilesson and sharing teaching method that involves students independently and individually reading books. This mode of teaching facilitates rereading of several shorter books. |
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Links to videos on Guided Reading, Interactive Read Aloud, & Literature Discussion
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Guided Reading
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Interactive Read Aloud
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Literature Discussion | |
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Related Articles for Comprehension
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Students with Learning Differences |
Students with learning differences need a type of instruction that help them overcome learning difficulties. Students with learning differences (LD) have difficulties with reading comprehension that are the result of broadly based language problems and not limited to simple difficulties with word recognition (Gersten & Baker, 2009).
Response to Intervention (RTI)
RTI is a method of leveled teaching which aims to provide targeted instruction to students who need explicit, direct, and strategic instruction. This type of instruction is Tiered--whole group, small group, and one-on-one instruction is given to students according to their needs.
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Related Articles for Learning Differences Comprehension Instruction
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English Language Learners & Bilingual Learners |
The diversity found in today's school system and the challenges that it brings in providing for the unique needs of English Language Learners (ELLs) paved the way for research that seek to empower teachers with tools and skills to help ELLs. Most ELLs spend the entire instructional day in mainstream classrooms in which the majority of students speak English and the mode of learning is in English (Harper & Jong, 2004). For this reason, teachers should be able to provide instruction that support linguistic scaffolding and provide the structure for collaborative process that ELLs need to be able to attend not only to the content of reading but also to the process of using reading strategies in English. This is a complicated task that both teachers and ELLs have to work on.
English Language Learners need sheltered imbedded support for English language learning in reading, writing, listening, and speaking (Gersten, Baker, Shanahan, Linan-Thompson, Collins, & Scarcella, 2007; Heath, 1983; Moje, 2006). It is important that teachers understand that ELLs bring with them background knowledge that is integral to their culture and first language. Teachers can use these information as tools for engagement by using text that is sensitive to ELLs' cultural background. Lack of background knowledge, weak vocabulary knowledge, and lack of relevant experiences are hallmarks of ELLs. Using what they know in their own language and culture allows them to activate prior knowledge and scaffold new learning more effectively.
What can teachers do to support ELLs?
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Teachers need to examine the linguistic and cultural assumptions underlying the activities and instructional choices they make.
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Attempt to learn more about ways that other cultures structure their children's educational experiences and use that as tools for learning.
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Know ELLs important linguistic and cultural characteristics.
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Provide ELLs with a rich language environment centered on conversation that creates opportunities for discussion and asking questions.
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Select texts that reflect the diversity in language and culture and is embedded with the academic language ELLs need to learn.
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Use Shared Reading and Reader's Theater which provide a reason to read something over and over giving them the opportunity to think about the meaning of the text | |
Classroom Practices that Support Learning for ELLs |
Sheltered Instruction (SIOP Model)
An instruction model developed to faciliate learning for English Language Learners in the content areas.
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ELL Instruction / Dual Language Instruction
A literacy program where literacy and content instruction is taught in two languages. |
New Literacies
An approach to learning using new form of literacy that complements the developments of technology and its use in education. |
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Related Articles for ELL Comprehension Instruction
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Teaching gifted learners does not get much attention in most schools because much emphasis is given to meeting the needs of struggling learners. However, there is a way to ensure that gifted learners' need for meaningful instruction can be addressed in the mainstream classroom.
Differentiated Instruction applies an approach to teaching and learning that gives students multiple options for taking in information and making sense of ideas. Differentiated instruction is a teaching theory based on the premise that instructional approaches should vary and be adapted in relation to individual and diverse students in classrooms (Tomlinson, 2001)
Tips to Differentiate Instruction for Gifted Learners
~Use a good diagnostic assessment to screen gifted students~ ~Make independent reading an important part of your teaching~ ~Teach gifted students to be analytical readers~
BODIES OF RESEARCH BEHIND DIFFERENTIATED INSTRUCTION
Brain Research Learning Styles & Authentic Assessment Multiple Intelligence
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Related Articles for Gifted Learner Comprehension Instruction
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Book Overview
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Making Content Comprehensible is like no other book available! Presenting an empirically validated model of sheltered instruction. This resource includes new research, findings, and studies on the Sheltered Instruction Observation Protocol (SIOP) model, which provides school administrators, teachers, teacher candidates, and field experience supervisors with a tool for observing and quantifying a teacher's implementation of quality sheltered instruction.Making Content Comprehensiblepresents a coherent, specific, field-tested model of sheltered instruction that specifies the features of a high quality sheltered lessons that teaches content material to English |
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