List reading comprehension skills

Reading Comprehension Skills for English Language Learners

English language learners (ELLs) often have problems mastering science, math, or social studies concepts because they cannot comprehend the textbooks for these subjects. ELLs at all levels of English proficiency, and literacy, will benefit from explicit instruction of comprehension skills along with other skills.

Examples of comprehension skills that can be taught and applied to all reading situations include:

Summarizing
Sequencing
Inferencing
Comparing and contrasting

Drawing conclusions
Self-questioning
Problem-solving
Relating background knowledge
Distinguishing between fact and opinion
Finding the main idea, important facts, and supporting details

These skills are particularly important for comprehending what is generally known as information reading or expository reading.

Related Resources

For more information, see our related articles and classroom videos:

Reading Comprehension Strategies for English Language Learners
Reading 101 for English Language Learners
Classroom Video Library: ELL Instruction

Why reading comprehension skills are particularly important for ELLs

ELL students will still need a lot of vocabulary development and teaching of comprehension strategies even if they:

have been mainstreamed after some bilingual instruction;
are being pulled out for English as a Second Language or Sheltered English instruction; and/or
have been assessed as English proficient but you know that they still need additional help with language, reading, and writing.

Here is a way of thinking about the support your ELLs will need:

Classroom strategies: Steps for explicitly teaching comprehension skills

The following steps are useful for all students. However, these need to be complemented with the additional steps below to ensure comprehension for ELLs.

Introduce the comprehension strategy or skill (see above list) through examples. Discuss how, when, where, and why the strategy or skills are used. For example: contrast main idea with details, fact with opinion, good summaries with poor summaries.
Have students volunteer additional examples to contrast and discuss.
Label, define, model, and explain the strategy or skill. For example, after listing four facts about a healthy diet and four opinions about what is good to eat, label one list as facts and the other list as opinions.
Give students opportunities to practice using the strategy with a peer as they apply it to a short, simple paragraph from a science text or any expository text.
Debrief with the whole class to ask students to share how they applied the strategy or skill.

Additional steps for ELLs

Identify vocabulary words that you think might be difficult for students to understand when they read the text. Write ELL-friendly definitions for each - that is, simple, brief definitions ELLs can easily understand.
Model think-alouds. For example: verbalize a confusing point or show how you use a strategy to comprehend something. "This sounds very confusing to me. I better read this sentence again."
Demonstrate fix-up strategies. For example: I need to think about this. Let me rethink what was happening. Maybe I'll reread this. I'll read ahead for a moment.
Partner ELLs with more dominant English speakers and ask each student to take a turn reading and thinking aloud with short passages.
After working with partners successfully, ask ELLs to practice independently by using a checklist such as the following. Be sure to explain all the terms and model each.
While I was reading, how did I do?

Skill I used	Not very much	A little bit	Much of the time	All of the time
Blending
Chunking
Finding meaning of new word
Making mind movies as I read
Rereading
Reading ahead

Celebrate each ELLs' progress with recognition notes, praise, and/or class applause.

For advanced ELLs

When students' English proficiency and basic reading skills have increased, you can teach the following steps not just to ELLs, but to all students – because everyone will benefit.

In pairs, have students survey the text and use an idea map to record the main idea and details.
Ask partners to read the text.
Have partners restate the main idea and supporting details. At this point, they can add to their idea map or make necessary corrections.

Then ask students to reread the text and either develop their own questions (pretending to prepare a test for their partner) or write a short summary of what they just read.
After that, have partners check each other's work.
Finally, partners can share their questions or summaries with other teams.

Other ideas

For building ELL comprehension

Teach students how to use these tools for informational or expository reading:

Titles
Headings
Bold print
Captions
Side bars
Maps
Graphs
Pictures
Bullets

Ask students to use the following strategies to summarize (orally or in writing):

Retell what you read, but keep it short.
Include only important information.
Leave out less important details.
Use key words from the text.

Questioning ELLs after reading

After the ELLs and/or whole class have completed the reading comprehension activities above, you can anchor or test their comprehension with carefully crafted questions, taking care to use simple sentences and key vocabulary from the text they just read.

These questions can be at the:

Literal level (Why do the leaves turn red and yellow in the fall?)
Interpretive level (Why do you think it needs water?)
Applied level (How much water are you going to give it? Why?)

References

Calderón, M. & L. Minaya-Rowe (2004). Expediting Comprehension for English Language Learners (ExC-ELL): Teachers Manual. Baltimore, MD: Center for Data-Driven Reform in Education, Johns Hopkins University.

Calderón, M. & L. Minaya-Rowe (in press). Teaching Reading, Oral Language and Content to English Language Learners - How ELLs Keep Pace With Mainstream Students. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Echevarria, J., Vogt, M. E., & Short, D. J. (2000). Making content comprehensible for English language learners: The SIOP model. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.

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6 Reading Comprehension Skills | Understood

Some people think of the act of reading as a straightforward task that’s easy to master. In reality, reading is a complex process that draws on many different skills. Together, these skills lead to the ultimate goal of reading: reading comprehension, or understanding what’s been read.

Reading comprehension can be challenging for lots of reasons. Whatever the cause, knowing the skills involved, and which ones your child struggles with, can help you get the right support.

Here are six essential skills needed for , and tips on what can help kids improve this skill.

1. Decoding

Decoding is a vital step in the reading process. Kids use this skill to sound out words they’ve heard before but haven’t seen written out. The ability to do that is the foundation for other reading skills.

Decoding relies on an early language skill called phonemic awareness. (This skill is part of an even broader skill called phonological awareness.) Phonemic awareness lets kids hear individual sounds in words (known as phonemes). It also allows them to “play” with sounds at the word and syllable level.

Decoding also relies on connecting individual sounds to letters. For instance, to read the word sun, kids must know that the letter s makes the /s/ sound. Grasping the connection between a letter (or group of letters) and the sounds they typically make is an important step toward “sounding out” words.

What can help: Most kids pick up the broad skill of phonological awareness naturally, by being exposed to books, songs, and rhymes. But some kids don’t. In fact, one of the early signs of reading difficulties is trouble with rhyming, counting syllables, or identifying the first sound in a word.

The best way to help kids with these skills is through specific instruction and practice. Kids have to be taught how to identify and work with sounds. You can also build phonological awareness at home through activities like word games and reading to your child.

2. Fluency

To read fluently, kids need to instantly recognize words, including words they can’t sound out. Fluency speeds up the rate at which they can read and understand text. It’s also important when kids encounter irregular words, like of and the, which can’t be sounded out.

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.

When kids can read quickly and without making too many errors, they are “fluent” readers.

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. Average readers need to see a word four to 14 times before it becomes a “sight word” they automatically recognize. 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. It’s important to pick out books that are at the right level of difficulty for kids.

3. Vocabulary

To understand what you’re reading, you need to understand most of the words in the text. 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. You can help build your child’s vocabulary by having frequent conversations on a variety of topics. 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.

4. Sentence construction and cohesion

Understanding how sentences are built might seem like a writing skill. So might connecting ideas within and between sentences, which is called cohesion. But these skills are important for reading comprehension as well.

Knowing how ideas link up at the sentence level helps kids get meaning from passages and entire texts. It also leads to something called coherence, or the ability to connect ideas to other ideas in an overall piece of writing.

What can help: Explicit instruction can teach kids the basics of sentence construction. For example, teachers can work with students on connecting two or more thoughts, through both writing and reading.

5. Reasoning and background knowledge

Most readers relate what they’ve read to what they know. So it’s important for kids to have background or prior knowledge about the world when they read. They also need to be able to “read between the lines” and pull out meaning even when it’s not literally spelled out.

Take this example: A child is reading a story about a poor family in the 1930s. Having knowledge about the Great Depression can provide insight into what’s happening in the story. The child can use that background knowledge to make inferences and draw conclusions.

What can help: Your child can build knowledge through reading, conversations, movies and TV shows, and art. Life experience and hands-on activities also build knowledge.

Expose your child to as much as possible, and talk about what you’ve learned from experiences you’ve had together and separately. Help your child make connections between new knowledge and existing knowledge. And ask open-ended questions that require thinking and explanations.

You can also read a teacher tip on using animated videos to help your child make inferences.

6. Working memory and attention

These two skills are both part of a group of abilities known as executive function. They’re different but closely related.

When kids read, attention allows them to take in information from the text. Working memory allows them to hold on to that information and use it to gain meaning and build knowledge from what they’re reading.

The ability to self-monitor while reading is also tied to that. Kids need to be able to recognize when they don’t understand something. Then they need to stop, go back, and re-read to clear up any confusion they may have.

What can help: There are many ways you can help improve your child’s working memory. Skillbuilders don’t have to feel like work, either. There are a number of games and everyday activities that can build working memory without kids even knowing it.

To help increase your child’s attention, look for reading material that’s interesting or motivating. For example, some kids may like graphic novels. Encourage your child to stop and re-read when something isn’t clear. And demonstrate how you “think aloud” when you read to make sure what you’re reading makes sense.

Key takeaways

Decoding, fluency, and vocabulary skills are key to reading comprehension.
Being able to connect ideas within and between sentences helps kids understand the whole text.
Reading aloud and talking about experiences can help kids build reading skills.

6 Key Skills for Reading Comprehension

For some people, reading is like a walk in the park on a warm summer day, an enjoyable activity that is easy to master. In fact, reading is a complex process that involves many different skills. Together, these skills lead to the ultimate goal of learning to read: comprehensive reading comprehension.

Text comprehension can be difficult for children for many reasons, but regardless of them, knowing what underdeveloped skills this is due to, you will be able to provide your child with the best help.

Let's take a look at the six reading comprehension skills and how you can help your child develop them.