List of reading comprehension strategies

Strategies for Reading Comprehension :: Read Naturally, Inc.

Comprehension: The Goal of Reading

Comprehension, or extracting meaning from what you read, is the ultimate goal of reading. Experienced readers take this for granted and may not appreciate the reading comprehension skills required. The process of comprehension is both interactive and strategic. Rather than passively reading text, readers must analyze it, internalize it and make it their own.

In order to read with comprehension, developing readers must be able to read with some proficiency and then receive explicit instruction in reading comprehension strategies (Tierney, 1982).

​ Strategies for reading comprehension in Read Naturally programs

​General Strategies for Reading Comprehension

The process of comprehending text begins before children can read, when someone reads a picture book to them. They listen to the words, see the pictures in the book, and may start to associate the words on the page with the words they are hearing and the ideas they represent.

In order to learn comprehension strategies, students need modeling, practice, and feedback. The key comprehension strategies are described below.

Using Prior Knowledge/Previewing

When students preview text, they tap into what they already know that will help them to understand the text they are about to read. This provides a framework for any new information they read.

Predicting

When students make predictions about the text they are about to read, it sets up expectations based on their prior knowledge about similar topics. As they read, they may mentally revise their prediction as they gain more information.

Identifying the Main Idea and Summarization

Identifying the main idea and summarizing requires that students determine what is important and then put it in their own words. Implicit in this process is trying to understand the author’s purpose in writing the text.

Questioning

Asking and answering questions about text is another strategy that helps students focus on the meaning of text. Teachers can help by modeling both the process of asking good questions and strategies for finding the answers in the text.

Making Inferences

In order to make inferences about something that is not explicitly stated in the text, students must learn to draw on prior knowledge and recognize clues in the text itself.

Visualizing

Studies have shown that students who visualize while reading have better recall than those who do not (Pressley, 1977). Readers can take advantage of illustrations that are embedded in the text or create their own mental images or drawings when reading text without illustrations.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Narrative Text

Narrative text tells a story, either a true story or a fictional story. There are a number of strategies that will help students understand narrative text.

Story Maps

Teachers can have students diagram the story grammar of the text to raise their awareness of the elements the author uses to construct the story. Story grammar includes:

• Setting: When and where the story takes place (which can change over the course of the story).
• Characters: The people or animals in the story, including the protagonist (main character), whose motivations and actions drive the story.
• Plot: The story line, which typically includes one or more problems or conflicts that the protagonist must address and ultimately resolve.
• Theme: The overriding lesson or main idea that the author wants readers to glean from the story. It could be explicitly stated as in Aesop’s Fables or inferred by the reader (more common).

​ Printable story map (blank)

Retelling

Asking students to retell a story in their own words forces them to analyze the content to determine what is important. Teachers can encourage students to go beyond literally recounting the story to drawing their own conclusions about it.

Prediction

Teachers can ask readers to make a prediction about a story based on the title and any other clues that are available, such as illustrations. Teachers can later ask students to find text that supports or contradicts their predictions.

Answering Comprehension Questions

Asking students different types of questions requires that they find the answers in different ways, for example, by finding literal answers in the text itself or by drawing on prior knowledge and then inferring answers based on clues in the text.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension: Expository Text

Expository text explains facts and concepts in order to inform, persuade, or explain.

The Structure of Expository Text

Expository text is typically structured with visual cues such as headings and subheadings that provide clear cues as to the structure of the information. The first sentence in a paragraph is also typically a topic sentence that clearly states what the paragraph is about.

Expository text also often uses one of five common text structures as an organizing principle:

• Cause and effect
• Problem and solution
• Compare and contrast
• Description
• Time order (sequence of events, actions, or steps)

Teaching these structures can help students recognize relationships between ideas and the overall intent of the text.

Main Idea/Summarization

A summary briefly captures the main idea of the text and the key details that support the main idea. Students must understand the text in order to write a good summary that is more than a repetition of the text itself.

​K-W-L

There are three steps in the K-W-L process (Ogle, 1986):

1. What I Know: Before students read the text, ask them as a group to identify what they already know about the topic. Students write this list in the “K” column of their K-W-L forms.
2. What I Want to Know: Ask students to write questions about what they want to learn from reading the text in the “W” column of their K-W-L forms. For example, students may wonder if some of the “facts” offered in the “K” column are true.
3. What I Learned: As they read the text, students should look for answers to the questions listed in the “W” column and write their answers in the “L” column along with anything else they learn.

After all of the students have read the text, the teacher leads a discussion of the questions and answers.

 Printable K-W-L chart (blank)

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers provide visual representations of the concepts in expository text. Representing ideas and relationships graphically can help students understand and remember them. Examples of graphic organizers are:

Tree diagrams that represent categories and hierarchies

Tables that compare and contrast data

Time-driven diagrams that represent the order of events

Flowcharts that represent the steps of a process​

​

Teaching students how to develop and construct graphic organizers will require some modeling, guidance, and feedback. Teachers should demonstrate the process with examples first before students practice doing it on their own with teacher guidance and eventually work independently.

Strategies for Reading Comprehension in Read Naturally Programs

Several Read Naturally programs include strategies that support comprehension:

Bibliography

Honig, B. , L. Diamond, and L. Gutlohn. (2013). Teaching reading sourcebook, 2nd ed. Novato, CA: Arena Press.

Ogle, D. M. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository text. The Reading Teacher 38(6), pp. 564–570.

Pressley, M. (1977). Imagery and children’s learning: Putting the picture in developmental perspective. Review of Educational Research 47, pp. 586–622.

Tierney, R. J. (1982). Essential considerations for developing basic reading comprehension skills. School Psychology Review 11(3), pp. 299–305.

Seven Strategies to Teach Students Text Comprehension

1. Monitoring comprehension

Students who are good at monitoring their comprehension know when they understand what they read and when they do not. They have strategies to "fix" problems in their understanding as the problems arise. Research shows that instruction, even in the early grades, can help students become better at monitoring their comprehension.

Comprehension monitoring instruction teaches students to:

• Be aware of what they do understand
• Identify what they do not understand
• Use appropriate strategies to resolve problems in comprehension

2. Metacognition

Metacognition can be defined as "thinking about thinking." Good readers use metacognitive strategies to think about and have control over their reading. Before reading, they might clarify their purpose for reading and preview the text. During reading, they might monitor their understanding, adjusting their reading speed to fit the difficulty of the text and "fixing" any comprehension problems they have. After reading, they check their understanding of what they read.

Students may use several comprehension monitoring strategies:

• Identify where the difficulty occurs

  "I don't understand the second paragraph on page 76."

• Identify what the difficulty is

  "I don't get what the author means when she says, 'Arriving in America was a milestone in my grandmother's life. '"

• Restate the difficult sentence or passage in their own words

  "Oh, so the author means that coming to America was a very important event in her grandmother's life."

• Look back through the text

  "The author talked about Mr. McBride in Chapter 2, but I don't remember much about him. Maybe if I reread that chapter, I can figure out why he's acting this way now."

• Look forward in the text for information that might help them to resolve the difficulty

  "The text says, 'The groundwater may form a stream or pond or create a wetland. People can also bring groundwater to the surface.' Hmm, I don't understand how people can do that… Oh, the next section is called 'Wells.' I'll read this section to see if it tells how they do it."

3. Graphic and semantic organizers

Graphic organizers illustrate concepts and relationships between concepts in a text or using diagrams. Graphic organizers are known by different names, such as maps, webs, graphs, charts, frames, or clusters.

Regardless of the label, graphic organizers can help readers focus on concepts and how they are related to other concepts. Graphic organizers help students read and understand textbooks and picture books.

Graphic organizers can:

• Help students focus on text structure differences between fiction and nonfiction as they read
• Provide students with tools they can use to examine and show relationships in a text
• Help students write well-organized summaries of a text

Here are some examples of graphic organizers:

4. Answering questions

Questions can be effective because they:

• Give students a purpose for reading
• Focus students' attention on what they are to learn
• Help students to think actively as they read
• Encourage students to monitor their comprehension
• Help students to review content and relate what they have learned to what they already know

The Question-Answer Relationship strategy (QAR) encourages students to learn how to answer questions better. Students are asked to indicate whether the information they used to answer questions about the text was textually explicit information (information that was directly stated in the text), textually implicit information (information that was implied in the text), or information entirely from the student's own background knowledge.

There are four different types of questions:

• "Right There"

  Questions found right in the text that ask students to find the one right answer located in one place as a word or a sentence in the passage.

  Example: Who is Frog's friend? Answer: Toad

• "Think and Search"

  Questions based on the recall of facts that can be found directly in the text. Answers are typically found in more than one place, thus requiring students to "think" and "search" through the passage to find the answer.

  Example: Why was Frog sad? Answer: His friend was leaving.

• "Author and You"

  Questions require students to use what they already know, with what they have learned from reading the text. Students must understand the text and relate it to their prior knowledge before answering the question.

  Example: How do think Frog felt when he found Toad? Answer: I think that Frog felt happy because he had not seen Toad in a long time. I feel happy when I get to see my friend who lives far away.

• "On Your Own"

  Questions are answered based on a student's prior knowledge and experiences. Reading the text may not be helpful to them when answering this type of question.

  Example: How would you feel if your best friend moved away? Answer: I would feel very sad if my best friend moved away because I would miss her.

5. Generating questions

By generating questions, students become aware of whether they can answer the questions and if they understand what they are reading. Students learn to ask themselves questions that require them to combine information from different segments of text. For example, students can be taught to ask main idea questions that relate to important information in a text.

6. Recognizing story structure

In story structure instruction, students learn to identify the categories of content (characters, setting, events, problem, resolution). Often, students learn to recognize story structure through the use of story maps. Instruction in story structure improves students' comprehension.

7. Summarizing

Summarizing requires students to determine what is important in what they are reading and to put it into their own words. Instruction in summarizing helps students:

• Identify or generate main ideas
• Connect the main or central ideas
• Eliminate unnecessary information
• Remember what they read

Effective comprehension strategy instruction is explicit

Research shows that explicit teaching techniques are particularly effective for comprehension strategy instruction. In explicit instruction, teachers tell readers why and when they should use strategies, what strategies to use, and how to apply them. The steps of explicit instruction typically include direct explanation, teacher modeling ("thinking aloud"), guided practice, and application.

• Direct explanation

  The teacher explains to students why the strategy helps comprehension and when to apply the strategy.

• Modeling

  The teacher models, or demonstrates, how to apply the strategy, usually by "thinking aloud" while reading the text that the students are using.

• Guided practice

  The teacher guides and assists students as they learn how and when to apply the strategy.

• Application

  The teacher helps students practice the strategy until they can apply it independently.

Effective comprehension strategy instruction can be accomplished through cooperative learning, which involves students working together as partners or in small groups on clearly defined tasks. Cooperative learning instruction has been used successfully to teach comprehension strategies. Students work together to understand texts, helping each other learn and apply comprehension strategies. Teachers help students learn to work in groups. Teachers also provide modeling of the comprehension strategies.

7 Easy Ways to Improve Your Reading Comprehension • BUOM

June 9, 2021

This article has been endorsed by an Indeed Career Consultant.

Comprehension is an important aspect of reading. When you read, try to understand and extract the meaning for a better understanding of what you are reading. By learning and implementing reading strategies and changing the way you read, you can improve your reading comprehension and make reading easier and more enjoyable.

In this article, we look at what reading comprehension is and the best strategies you can use to improve your reading skills. nine0003

What is reading comprehension?

Reading comprehension is the ability to comprehend or understand what you are reading. This is the intentional and active part of reading that happens before, during, and after you read something. By being able to understand what you read, you can make sense of the text and better understand what the author is trying to convey.

There are two components of reading comprehension: text comprehension and vocabulary knowledge. Vocabulary knowledge is the ability to understand the language being used, while text comprehension uses that language to develop an understanding of the text's meaning. nine0003

Why is reading comprehension important?

Reading comprehension is important for several reasons and can provide many benefits. The ability to read effectively can improve both your personal and professional life and increase your overall reading enjoyment. Knowing how to understand text can help improve your knowledge in certain areas and help you pick up new skills and information more quickly.

Additional benefits of good reading comprehension skills include:

• Ability to understand, analyze and respond to documents and written communication in the workplace

• Improved your ability to write clearly and effectively newspapers.

• Increased ability to focus on reading for extended periods of time.

• The best pleasure and motivation for reading

Related: The Value of Expanding Your Business Vocabulary

7 Reading Strategies You Can Use to Improve Your Comprehension Skills

There are several reading strategies you can start using today to improve your reading comprehension skills. The more you practice, the better you will understand what you read. Below are seven simple strategies you can use to work on your comprehension skills:

1. Improve your vocabulary.

2. Make up questions about the text you are reading.

3. Use context clues.

4. Find the main idea.

5. Write a summary of what you read.

6. Break the reading into smaller parts.

7. Walk yourself.

Related: The Complete Guide to Strategic Planning

1.

Knowing what the words you read means can improve your ability to understand the meaning of the text. To expand your vocabulary, you can:

• Take the online vocabulary test to assess your current level of vocabulary understanding.

• Use flashcards to test yourself for words you don't know once or twice a week.

• Be sure to use the newly learned words in oral and written communication. nine0003

• Read as much as you can to improve your ability to guess the meaning of a word in a particular context.

• Make a list of unfamiliar words as you read and look them up in a dictionary.

Read more: 10 easy ways to improve your vocabulary

2. Make up questions about the text you are reading

By asking questions about what you are reading, you can improve your reading comprehension by allowing you to immerse yourself in the text. It can also expand your general understanding of what you are reading, allowing you to explore themes, motifs, and other components of the text that you might not otherwise know about. The following are examples of questions you could ask as you read:

• Why did the author start the book from this point?

• What is the relationship between these two characters?

• What do we know about the main character up to this point in the book?

• Are there any themes that keep popping up throughout the book? If yes, what do they mean?

The more specific your questions, the more likely you are to understand the text and its meaning.

3. Use context prompts

Using context clues is a great way to understand what you're reading, even if you don't know all the vocabulary involved. Context clues can be found in the words and sentences surrounding a word you are unfamiliar with. To use context clues, you can focus on key phrases or ideas in a sentence and infer the main idea of ​​a sentence or paragraph based on that information. You can also search for nearby words that are synonyms or antonyms for a word you don't know. nine0003

4. Look for the main idea

Determining the main idea of ​​a paragraph or article can help you determine the importance of the article. Understanding why what you read is important will help you better understand what the author is trying to convey. When reading, pause every few paragraphs and see if you can decipher the main idea. Then try to state the main idea in your own words for even greater understanding.

5. Write a summary of what you read

A great way to expand your reading knowledge is to write a summary. Summing up requires you to decide what is important in the text and then express it in your own words. Summing up allows you to determine if you really understand what you read and remember what you read better in the long run.

6. Break your reading into smaller parts

If you are reading a longer or more complex text, consider breaking it up into smaller parts. For example, you can read two paragraphs at a time and then pause to quickly summarize what you just read in your mind. Sharing what you read will help you feel less overwhelmed and give you a better chance of really understanding the information in the text. nine0003

7. Keep up the pace

Tempoing yourself is also an effective way to work on your reading comprehension skills, allowing you to set realistic goals for your reading practice and habits. This is especially true for books or other literature that you find difficult. Set yourself a goal that you know you can achieve every day. For example, instead of saying that you want to read the entire book in two days, say that you will read three chapters a night. This allows you to achieve your goals and also gives you enough time to process what you read between each session. nine0003

Tips for getting the most out of your reading comprehension practice

Reading is a fundamental part of everyday life. The more you include and prioritize reading and comprehension of what you read, the better your overall reading comprehension will become. These tips will help you make the most of your time as you practice your reading skills.

Eliminate distractions

When you are distracted, your ability to understand what you read is impaired. When reading—even if it's just an email—eliminate distractions and focus solely on the text. This will help you learn to pay attention to what you are reading and will let you know if you understand what you are reading. nine0003

Read a book below your reading level

Starting with books below your reading level, you will be able to develop and build on a basic level of reading comprehension. Instead of starting with books or other text that you find difficult, read what is comfortable for you and what you can easily understand. You can take an online test to determine your current reading level.

Reread the text to make sure you understand it

If you finish a sentence or paragraph and find that you don't understand what it is trying to convey, take the time to reread it until you understand. Try reading more slowly a second time and look up definitions for any words you don't know the meaning of. nine0003

Read aloud

Reading aloud incorporates both visual and auditory learning into your reading comprehension practice. It also makes you slow down and gives you more time to process what you are reading.

Effective strategies for working with text in the classroom at school

The ultimate goal of teaching Russian is practical literacy and language competence. The basis of the content of literature as an academic subject is reading and textual study of works of art. nine0003

Combining the activities of schoolchildren in developing practical skills of literate writing and speech development allows working with text as the main didactic unit.

Every teacher dreams that all students come to the lesson prepared: they have completely read this or that work or paragraph. And not just read, but understood the meaning of the text read. During the final certification, the graduate must also understand the meaning of the read text. Whether it is a task to the text or the text itself. nine0003

Teachers working in grades 9 and 11 know that most mistakes are made due to misunderstanding of what is read, as well as when reading the assignment itself.

Teaching a child to read “correctly”, “effectively”, “productively” is an important task for a teacher. That is why the technology of productive reading (PRT), developed by Professor N. Svetlovskaya, acquires a leading role and contributes to the achievement of the results that are mentioned in the new standards. nine0003

The technology is universal and can be used in lessons of any cycle.

It is aimed at the formation of all universal educational activities: cognitive, communicative, regulatory, personal.

The technology of productive reading differs sharply from the traditional technology of transferring ready-made knowledge to a student. The teacher organizes the children's research work in such a way that they themselves "think" about solving the key problem of the lesson and can themselves explain how to act in new conditions. The teacher becomes a partner, a mentor, an observer. nine0003

The developed technology includes three stages of working with text, a three-stage process.

The goal of is the development of anticipation (the ability to guess, predict the content of the text). Task - to develop motivation for reading the text

1. Strategy "Forecast by headline".

Task: think about what can be discussed in the story of K.G. Paustovsky "Warm bread", in the work of P.P. Bazhov "Mistress of the Copper Mountain", etc. nine0003

– Try to predict the content by the first line of the story…Remember the name of the story….Does the content of the story match the title?

Give examples of such discrepancies.

Associative bush (circle, row). Today we will read and discuss the topic… What associations do you have about the stated topic?

2. Strategy "Brainstorm" ("Basket of ideas").

Task: answer the questions before reading the text (fairy tales "Warm Bread") - What do you know about K. G. Paustovsky? What do you think the story will be about? Who can be the main character? What event in the story can be described. nine0003

3. Strategy "Image of the text".

Task: check your assumptions. Based on the words taken from the text, try to make a short plot story. The title of the story is given.

4. Strategy "Battery of questions".

Task: make up questions to the text according to the title, according to the illustrations.

5. Glossary strategy.

Task: look at the list of words and mark those that can be related to the text. When you finish reading the text, go back to these words and look at their meaning and the use of words used in the text. nine0003

6. Strategy "We compete with the writer."

Task: try to predict the content of the book by looking at the illustrations. One student offers his version, the rest complete it.

7. Strategy "True and False Statements".

8. Strategy I know, I want to know, I found out.

Stage 2 - the stage of text activity.

The purpose of is to understand the text and create its reader's interpretation, summarizing part of the read text, asking questions of a general nature, making assumptions about the further development of the plot and the role of characters in the composition of the text, etc.). nine0003

The main task of is to ensure the full perception of the text. The main strategies at the stage of text activity are dialogue with the author, commented reading.

1. Strategy "Reading in a circle". The text is read in turn (each "circle member" reads a paragraph). After this, a stop follows: everyone asks questions to the read passage. If the question cannot be answered (it does not correspond to the text), then the question is considered incorrect. * All correct questions can be recorded. nine0003

2. Silent reading with questions strategy.

3. Strategy “Reading to yourself with notes. (Insert)" . Marginal notes: + - knew; - - new; ? - interesting; V is unclear. Others are possible: B - question; O - answer; Z - I know; N - new; And - interesting; X - I want to know; C - ask; U to clarify.

4. Strategy "Reading with stops". Reading the text with stops, during which tasks are given in the form of questions: some are aimed at checking understanding, others - at predicting the content of the next passage. nine0003

5. "Pose a problem - offer a solution" strategy. Remember what problems the heroes of the work face (the problem is formulated and written down in an oval). Next, the children can name several problems, students are divided into groups and offer all kinds of solutions to problems.

6. Strategy "Creating a question plan". The student carries out a semantic grouping of the text, highlights the strong points, divides the text into semantic parts and titles each part with a key question……. nine0003

Stage 3 - the stage of post-text (post-text) activity.

The purpose of is to correct the reader's interpretation in accordance with the author's meaning.

The main task of is to provide in-depth perception and understanding of the text, raise a question to the text as a whole, followed by a conversation, the result of which should be an understanding of the author's meaning. Re-addressing the title, illustrations, performing creative tasks.

2. Question tree strategy Crown – what? where? when? Barrel - why? How? Could you? Roots - how to relate the text to life? With current events? What is the author trying to show?

3. Strategy "Bloom's Cube" (Benjamin Bloom is a famous American teacher, author of many pedagogical strategies = technician).

The beginnings of questions are written on the sides of the cube: “Why?”, “Explain”, “Name”, “Suggest”, “Think up”, “Share”. The teacher or student rolls the die. nine0003

It is necessary to formulate a question to the educational material according to the face on which the cube fell.

The “Name” question is aimed at the level of reproduction, i.e. the simple reproduction of knowledge.

Question "Why" - the student in this case must find cause-and-effect relationships, describe the processes occurring with a certain object or phenomenon.

“Explain ” question – student uses concepts and principles in new situations.

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