Working on reading comprehension
Comprehension | Reading Rockets
Comprehension is the understanding and interpretation of what is read. To be able to accurately understand written material, children need to be able to (1) decode what they read; (2) make connections between what they read and what they already know; and (3) think deeply about what they have read.
One big part of comprehension is having a sufficient vocabulary, or knowing the meanings of enough words. Readers who have strong comprehension are able to draw conclusions about what they read – what is important, what is a fact, what caused an event to happen, which characters are funny. Thus comprehension involves combining reading with thinking and reasoning.
Target the Problem: Comprehension
What the problem looks like
A kid's perspective: What this feels like to me
Children will usually express their frustration and difficulties in a general way, with statements like "I hate reading!" or "This is stupid!". But if they could, this is how kids might describe how comprehension difficulties in particular affect their reading:
- It takes me so long to read something. It's hard to follow along with everything going on.
- I didn't really get what that book was about.
- Why did that character do that? I just don't get it!
- I'm not sure what the most important parts of the book were.
- I couldn't really create an image in my head of what was going on.
A parent's perspective: What I see at home
Here are some clues for parents that a child may have problems with comprehension:
- She's not able to summarize a passage or a book.
- He might be able to tell you what happened in a story, but can't explain why events went the way they did.
- She can't explain what a character's thoughts or feelings might have been.
- He doesn't link events in a book to similar events from another book or from real life.
A teacher's perspective: What I see in the classroom
Here are some clues for teachers that a student may have problems with comprehension:
- He seems to focus on the "wrong" aspect of a passage; for example, he concentrates so much on the details that the main idea is lost.
- She can tell the outcome of a story, but cannot explain why things turned out that way.
- He does not go behind what is presented in a book to think about what might happen next or why characters took the action they did.
- She brings up irrelevant information when trying to relate a passage to something in her own life.
- He seems to have a weak vocabulary.
- She cannot tell the clear, logical sequence of events in a story.
- He does not pick out the key facts from informational text.
- He cannot give you a "picture" of what's going on in a written passage; for example, what the characters look like or details of where the story takes place.
How to help
With the help of parents and teachers, kids can learn strategies to cope with comprehension problems that affect his or her reading. Below are some tips and specific things to do.
What kids can do to help themselves
- Use outlines, maps, and notes when you read.
- Make flash cards of key terms you might want to remember.
- Read stories or passages in short sections and make sure you know what happened before you continue reading.
- Ask yourself, "Does this make sense?" If it doesn't, reread the part that didn't make sense.
- Read with a buddy. Stop every page or so and take turns summarizing what you've read.
- Ask a parent or teacher to preview a book with you before you read it on your own.
- As you read, try to form mental pictures or images that match the story.
What parents can do to help at home
- Hold a conversation and discuss what your child has read. Ask your child probing questions about the book and connect the events to his or her own life. For example, say "I wonder why that girl did that?" or "How do you think he felt? Why?" and "So, what lesson can we learn here?".
- Help your child make connections between what he or she reads and similar experiences he has felt, saw in a movie, or read in another book.
- Help your child monitor his or her understanding. Teach her to continually ask herself whether she understands what she's reading.
- Help your child go back to the text to support his or her answers.
- Discuss the meanings of unknown words, both those he reads and those he hears.
- Read material in short sections, making sure your child understands each step of the way.
- Discuss what your child has learned from reading informational text such as a science or social studies book.
What teachers can do to help at school
- As students read, ask them open-ended questions such as "Why did things happen that way?" or "What is the author trying to do here?" and "Why is this somewhat confusing?".
- Teach students the structure of different types of reading material. For instance, narrative texts usually have a problem, a highpoint of action, and a resolution to the problem. Informational texts may describe, compare and contrast, or present a sequence of events.
- Discuss the meaning of words as you go through the text. Target a few words for deeper teaching, really probing what those words mean and how they can be used.
- Teach note-taking skills and summarizing strategies.
- Use graphic organizers that help students break information down and keep tack of what they read.
- Encourage students to use and revisit targeted vocabulary words.
- Teach students to monitor their own understanding. Show them how, for example, to ask themselves "What's unclear here?" or "What information am I missing?" and "What else should the author be telling me?".
- Teach children how to make predictions and how to summarize.
More information
Find out more about comprehension issues with these resources from Reading Rockets, The Access Center, and LD OnLine:
Other recommended links:
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5 Ways to Support Students Who Struggle With Reading Comprehension
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Literacy
These strategies can help students who are able to decode well but have difficulty understanding what they read—and they’re beneficial for all students.
By Nina Parrish
February 3, 2020
monkeybusinessimages / iStock
When we think of reading issues, we often imagine children who struggle to decode the letters in text and turn them into spoken language. This type of struggling reader has a very difficult time figuring out what many of the words are and has poor phonological (speech-sound) skills. However, there are also many students who sound like they’re reading beautifully but have difficulty with understanding vocabulary and figurative language, inferencing, verbal reasoning, grammatical development, and oral expression.
As children get older, if they are decoding text well we assume they are reading well. Once a person learns to decode, reading comprehension becomes more about language comprehension and focus. At this transition, starting around third grade, teachers may begin to notice some students who decode text fluently but are not understanding.
Since this type of struggling reader is less noticeable than ones who have difficulty decoding, they often slip under the radar until they begin to fail standardized state comprehension tests.
Even then, their issues may go undetected for a long time, resulting in middle and high school students who sound like they’re reading but understand nothing that they have read.
These struggling readers should be targeted for remediation—the earlier the better. However, remediation consisting of practice passages and questions may be ineffective as it focuses too narrowly on text-based skills.
Supporting Students Who Struggle With Comprehension
Here are five strategies to try out with students who read fluently but struggle to comprehend what they’re reading.
1. Target overall comprehension of language: Recent research reveals that reading comprehension difficulties may stem from an underlying oral language weakness that exists from early childhood, before reading is even taught. It turns out that students who have poor reading comprehension also often understand fewer spoken words and less of what they hear, and have worse spoken grammar. So, to address reading comprehension deficits effectively, educators may have to use an approach that teaches vocabulary, thinking skills, and comprehension first in spoken language and then in reading and written language.
2. Teach vocabulary: Because students with poor comprehension often have poor vocabulary skills and understand less of what they hear, it’s helpful to teach the meanings of new words through the use of multisensory strategies like graphic organizers, pictures, and mnemonics. Improving their overall language skills increases the likelihood that they will understand the words they encounter in written text. Since it is impossible to know every word one might encounter, students should be taught about the different types of context clues and how to use them to determine the meaning of unknown words.
3. Teach thinking strategies: Once students have the vocabulary to be able to make it through a text, they often struggle with the complex thinking or sustained attention required to keep up with all of the important details and to access information that is implied but not directly stated. Teachers can instruct students on cognitive strategies they can use.
Many common text reading strategies—such as annotation, SQ3R, and the KWL chart—make use of these thinking strategies, including:
- Discussing or activating prior knowledge,
- Developing questions while reading,
- Connecting what they are reading to another text, something they have seen, or something they have experienced,
- Visualizing or picturing what they are reading,
- Making predictions about what will come next in the text,
- Looking back for keywords and rereading in order to clarify or answer questions, and
- Thinking aloud to model the strategies and thought processes needed for comprehension.
Students can learn and then use the strategies that work best for them depending on the text they’re reading. Pulling deeper meaning out of text through the use of thinking strategies can be beneficial not just to reading comprehension but also to writing.
4. Have students practice reciprocal teaching: Once taught, cognitive strategies can be consistently practiced and implemented through the use of reciprocal teaching, which encourages students to take a leadership role in their learning and begin to think about their thought process while listening or reading.
Teachers can use reciprocal teaching during class discussions, with text that is read aloud, and later with text that is read in groups. The students should rotate between the following roles:
- Questioner, who poses questions about parts of the lesson, discussion, or text that are unclear or confusing, or to help make connections with previously learned material.
- Summarizer, who sums up each important point or detail from the lesson, discussion, or text.
- Clarifier, who tries to address the Questioner’s issues and make sure that parts they found confusing are clear to others.
- Predictor, who makes a prediction about what will happen next based on what was presented, discussed, or read,
5. Directly teach comprehension skills: Students should be directly taught comprehension skills such as sequencing, story structure using the plot mountain, how to make an inference and draw a conclusion, and the different types of figurative language.
Students should have the opportunity to first use the skills with text that they hear the teacher read aloud, and then later with text that they read independently at their own level.
The comprehension skills and strategies listed above can be used with the whole class, as they closely align with reading and language arts standards for elementary and middle school students. Teachers can help students select reading material with vocabulary that matches their current ability levels so that within a classroom, students are reading text and working on vocabulary at levels that are accessible for each of them.
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🎓 Methods and techniques for working on understanding read words, sentences and texts - presentation on Slide-Share.
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Methods and techniques for working on reading comprehension of words, sentences and texts (prevention and elimination of semantic dyslexia) Teacher speech therapist 1st qualification category MOU secondary school No. 4, Nadym Ionova S. Yu.
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Slide 2: Reading is the interconnection and interdependence of the work of analyzers
Speech and auditory analyzer general motor analyzer Visual analyzer Speech motor analyzer
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Slide 3: Dyslexia is a violation of the reading process, due to the immaturity (impairment) of higher mental functions and the functioning of the analyzers involved in the reading process
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Slide 4: Symptoms of Dyslexia ● Slow reading of syllables or letters.
● Guessing reading (mistakes in the form of substitutions or permutations, omissions of letters) ● Violation of understanding the meaning of what was read Slide image
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Slide 5: Causes of dyslexia ● Underdevelopment (violation) of the functions of certain areas of the cerebral cortex. ● Heredity (mutation of the DCDC 2 gene on the 6th chromosome) ● Lack of listening and independent reading skills in preschool and early school age. ● Brain injury
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Slide 6: Semantic dyslexia (mechanical reading) manifests itself in impaired understanding of the words, sentences and text read when reading technically correct (by syllable or whole words)
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Slide 7: Impaired reading comprehension is due to two factors
Difficulties sound-syllabic synthesis.
Fuzziness, non-differentiation of ideas about syntactic links within a sentence.
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Slide 8: Methods for eliminating semantic dyslexia
3 destinations correctional and developmental work Development sound-syllabic synthesis. Development of the grammatical structure of speech, clarification of syntactic links between words in a sentence. Expansion and clarification of vocabulary.
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Slide 9: The development of sound-syllabic synthesis
Pronounce a word presented in the form of sequentially pronounced sounds (d, o, m; k, a, w, a; s, y, m, k, a; w, k, o, l, a). 2. Play the word spoken by syllables (ku - ry, ba - bush - ka, ba - ra - ban, mu - zy - kant). 3. Compose a word from syllables given in disorder (shin, ka, ma; zhi, na, pru; boo, ar, zy).
4. Play the sentence, pronounced in syllables (De - ti ig - ra - yut in the yard - re. De - voch - ka so - bi - ra - flowers - you.).
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Slide 10: Development of the grammatical structure of speech, clarification of syntactic links between words in sentence
Make a sentence based on the key words given randomly. (Suggested words should be in the initial form.) pear, b grandmother, granddaughter, giving 2. Determine the correctness of the sentences. a). Leaves fell from the trees in autumn. Leaves have fallen from the trees in autumn. The boy hid behind a tree. The boy hid behind a tree. b). The mouse caught the cat. The cat caught the mouse. They eat soup with a spoon. Soup is eaten with a spoon. The street is illuminated by a lantern. The lantern is illuminated by the street. The sea is washed by the shore. The coast is washed by the sea. The tree grows in front of the house.
The house grows in front of the street. The earth is illuminated by the sun. The sun is illuminated by the earth.
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Game exercise "Collect an offer" Look at the image of the circles with arrows. How do they differ from each other? Find words that match first (second ...) circle and make suggestions. Write it down. underline "main words" (subject and predicate). Draw a diagram for every offer. (For example:.)
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Slide 12: Expansion, clarification and systematization of the dictionary
Selection of synonyms for the read word (diligent - diligent). Selection of antonyms for the read word (high - low). Explanation of the meanings of the words read (What does grimy mean? What does eyes mean? What does viet mean?). Expansion of the scope of the general concept.
For example: “To run is to move quickly. What other words do you know that denote the movement of people or animals?; Chest of drawers is a piece of furniture. What other pieces of furniture do you know? Inventing several verbs to read the noun word. For example: what does rain do? dripping, drizzling, walking, making noise, pouring, etc. Selection of definitions for the read noun (what day can it be? - sunny, windy, cloudy, etc.)
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Slide 13: Clarifying reading comprehension of words, sentences and text
Read the word and show the corresponding picture. sled butterfly frog snowflake 2. Read the words and answer the questions? For example, children read the words: branch, bowl, ice rink, socks, board. Questions: - What name of clothes did you come across? - What name of the dish did you read? Which of the following items can be written on? What word is associated with a tree? What word refers to the winter season?
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Slide 14: Clarifying reading comprehension of words, sentences and text
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Find in the read sentence a word that answers the question who? what? what is he doing? where? where? which? etc. 4. Read the sentence and show the corresponding picture. Grandma put the flowers in a vase. Flowers grew in the garden. A girl is planting flowers in a flower bed. There is a lamp on the desk. There is a bright light in the classroom. The teacher's desk is illuminated by the table lamp.
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Slide 15: Clarifying reading comprehension of words, sentences and text
5. Read the sentence and answer the question on its content. Goats were grazing in the meadow. (Who was grazing in the meadow? What were the goats doing in the meadow? Where were the goats grazing?) The snake crawls in a zigzag. (Who crawls in a zigzag? What does a snake do? How does a snake crawl?) Sparrows fluffed up like balls. (Who fluffed up? How did the sparrows fluff up? What did the sparrows do? The guys dive and sunbathe on the river.
(Who dives and sunbathe on the river? Where do the guys dive and sunbathe? What do the guys do?
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Slide 16: Clarifying reading comprehension of words, sentences and text
6. Arrange a series of plot pictures in accordance with the text you read. (After reading the text, find an error in the sequence scene pictures) Sparrow and kittens. Once a sparrow sat down to rest on a stump. Two kittens were walking nearby in search of food. Suddenly, the kittens noticed a bird. stupid kids wanted to catch a sparrow. They became quiet sneak up on the stump from different sides. Approaching the bird, the kittens jumped high. At this time, the sparrow fluttered and flew away, and the kittens strongly bumped foreheads. From surprise and pain, the kittens bounced off each other. friend and ran away. The sparrow returned to the stump. Silly kittens failed to eat a bird!
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Slide 17: Clarifying reading comprehension of words, sentences and text
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Select a sentence from the text, corresponding to the scene. 8. After reading the text, find an extra picture in a series of plot pictures.
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Slide 18: Techniques that improve the quality of understanding of the text
"Making assumptions, hypotheses." After reading the title of the text, students, based on personal life experience, observations, make assumptions about what the text will be about. And as you read, hypotheses are tested. 2. "Reference words". When reading, supporting (key) words are underlined for better memorization and semantic understanding of the content of the text. Then, using these keywords, the content of the text is retold as accurately as possible. 3. "Putting questions." Students read the text and ask as many questions as they can. Then some read out the questions, while others answer them as fully as possible.
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Slide 19: Techniques to improve the quality of understanding of the text
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"Heuristic questions". It is supposed to search for information about any event or object under study in the process of answering key questions. The key questions are: who? what? when? why? where? how? as? why? The answers to these questions help to understand the content of the reading. 5. "Marking (highlighting) text" Students are encouraged to read the text to subdivide the information contained in it as follows: Option 1 (1-2 cells): with a yellow marker, highlight the material they are familiar with, and with a red marker - a new, unknown one. Option 2 (3-4 cells): tick off what they already know; minus sign - what is unknown; exclamation point - what is interesting to them; a question mark is put if they have a desire to learn more about something.
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Slide 20: Techniques that improve the quality of understanding of the text
6. "Snowball". For better memorization and understanding of the text, as well as improving the quality of reading technique, students are invited to read the text in the following sequence: first they read the 1st sentence, then 1 + 2 sentences, then 1 + 2 + 3, etc.
7. "Restoring the text." Students, in groups, are invited to read parts of the cut educational text and collectively (using the assault attack method) restore its sequence. Then the result of the work is compared with the sample. 8. "Alternating reading with comprehension." After the student has read a paragraph, it is important to stop and comprehend what has been read. If necessary, you can mark important information in any way (for example, underline). Similar work is carried out after reading each paragraph.
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Last slide of the presentation: Methods and techniques for working on reading comprehension of words, sentences and texts
Thank you for your attention!
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How can I improve my ability to understand what I read?
06.02.14
Strategies for autistics, parents and educators to overcome reading difficulties
Source: Autism After 16
There may be several reasons for this.
It is possible that a person puts so much effort into voicing words (out loud or to himself) that they lose their meaning. In other cases, the topic is so uninteresting that it is difficult to focus on the information in the text. Many children and adults with autism spectrum disorders have severe reading comprehension difficulties, even if they have no problems with reading as such. This can make it very difficult to study at school even for children without intellectual disabilities, especially in high school, when the requirements for reading and understanding large amounts of text increase significantly, and texts become more complex. The following are strategies for improving text comprehension that adults with autism spectrum disorders and parents and educators of children with ASD can use.
Metacognition - thinking about how we think - is the basis for improving understanding while reading. In other words, to improve text comprehension, we must consciously stop while reading and analyze our opinions, perceptions, and thoughts related to what we have read.
For example:
Before reading
- Determine the purpose for the upcoming reading. Think in advance about what you should find in the text while reading.
Look at the title of the text and try to figure out what the text might be about.
Skim through the entire text without reading carefully, paying attention to headings and subheadings, bold words and illustrations. Think about what this text might be about.
- Try to remember what you already know about the topic, the author, or this story.
While reading
- Reflect on what you have read after each paragraph or chapter.
Consider whether you agree with ideas, characters, or facts.
- If you do not understand the meaning of some sentences or paragraphs, write down what you do not understand.
- Write down unfamiliar words to find out their meaning after reading.
After reading
- Think about what you learned while reading.
- Write your own questions for the author.
Think about how what you read relates to your own life.
- Formulate a summary of what you have read.
- Review your notes and try to find answers to your questions through repeated reading, searching the Internet, or talking to another person.
Talk about what you read
Discussing what you read with another person provides another source of information instead of rereading the text. This is especially useful if you don't really enjoy reading. While talking about what you read, you will be able to ask questions that you have, this will allow you to learn more about the point of view of other people and will provide you with the opportunity to put into words what you have read, which will help you remember and understand the text better.
Practice reading as often as possible
The best way to improve reading comprehension is to read as much as possible. It doesn't matter what the person is reading.
The more you read, the better your comprehension skills will be. Here the “Matthew effect” takes place, when “he who has will be given and will be multiplied, and what he has will be taken away from the one who does not have.” Students who enjoy reading read a lot and often, and their reading skills improve. Those who do not enjoy reading devote little time to it, as a result, their skills lag more and more behind their peers. That is why our first priority is to motivate children to read. If they enjoy reading comics, sports articles, or online magazines, then encourage them to do so as often as possible.
Take the children to the library as often as possible and let them look at any books they want. Do not try to force on children what you think they should read. We want them to read—as much as possible. And that's all. If they liked a book by a certain author, then find all the books by that author so they can pick something. If the children are interested in a topic, then find them reading material according to their interest.
Reading Motivation
The first task for the unmotivated reader is to find reading material that is directly related to what interests him outside of reading. For example, if a child enjoys watching movies, they may enjoy reading movie reviews online or in movie magazines. You may think that this is not a "real" reading, but it is not at all the case. Many people believe that the only way to develop reading skills is with books. In fact, this is not necessary at all, especially in our age of the Internet.
Also, if children read often about things they are interested in, it will help them become better readers in general, especially if they practice reading comprehension skills in parallel. After the motivation to read begins to form, you can begin to practice reading less interesting materials. That said, if the strategies to improve comprehension have already been practiced on interesting texts, it will be easier to use them while reading on boring topics.
Strategies for improving reading comprehension
Start with the strategies that seem most attractive and try them one at a time.
Don't try to master every single strategy, sometimes less is more. In other words, it's best to master a few strategies to perfection, rather than practicing all the strategies without exception, which can make it unclear what to use right now. Strategies for improving reading comprehension include:
- Conversational reading: Ask questions, argue, clarify, summarize, and predict as you read.
- Stickers: Use stickers to write down words you don't understand, or write exclamation marks on them to mark sentences you like, and question marks to mark phrases or paragraphs you don't understand.
- Reading in pairs: Reading aloud with another person one paragraph at a time. Discuss what you have read with each other after each paragraph.
- Thinking out loud: As you read aloud in pairs, voice out any thoughts, questions, or misunderstandings that come to mind. For example, if a character or event reminded you of something, stop and talk about that personal association.
This technique helps to remember what has been read in the future.
- Re-reading: Read the text again, trying to find answers to the questions that have arisen.
- Text connections: As you read, determine how this text relates to you, to other texts, and to the world in general. In connection with yourself, you need to think about how the read relates to you personally. In World Links, you can link text to what you already know. Finally, in text links, you can link what you've read to what you've read about before.
- The Three Bears Principle: When choosing a book from a library or bookstore, think about whether it is too simple or too complex. Too simple means that the reader will easily understand all the words or have already read this book many times. Too complex means that there are more than five unfamiliar words on one page or the meaning of the first page is not clear. If the book is just right, then this is a new book, where the reader may not know some of the words on the page, but in general understands what is at stake.
- Dividing the text into parts: Read only a few paragraphs or sentences at a time. Think about what you read using reading strategies before continuing.
- Visualization: While reading, always try to visualize how the characters and the scenes described look like.
- Blogs: Check if there is any blog or forum on the Internet where this topic or book is discussed online, read what other people think about it and try to write your own opinion.
- Journaling: As you read, write down your thoughts in a special diary.
- Graphic organization: Make a chart indicating the degree of your understanding before, during and after reading.
Progressive Implementation Model
If you are a parent or educator, you can use the Progressive Implementation Model to help a student with autism learn strategies for reading comprehension. First, demonstrate to the student how you yourself read using this strategy.
Then use this strategy together, under your guidance. Then ask the student to apply this strategy again (in a different situation) on their own.
Make sure you discuss reading with the student and whether the strategy is helping or not. You may need to model this strategy for the student many times, or practice it many times together until it becomes a natural part of the reading process and the student can apply it completely on his own.
Availability of books to read
If reading skills are too low, use books on topics that are interesting to the student, but with very low reading requirements. As a rule, they have a lot of illustrations and little text. It can be children's encyclopedias and reference books. They keep the reader motivated, their topics are age-appropriate, and the reading isn't too difficult.
You should also pay attention to the following books:
- Books with many photographs and illustrations, which will greatly facilitate understanding.
- Books with fairly large letters.
- Books with a small amount of text on one page so that the amount of text on the page does not cause stress.
- Books that have titles, subtitles, clear definitions of words in the glossary. These books are the easiest to understand.
Relationship between reading and writing
You may wonder why it is so common to write things down when working on reading comprehension. The reason is that this is another way to better understand and assimilate the material read. For example, if someone finds it difficult to speak verbally about what they have read, then keeping a diary, blogging, or graphing can help analyze what they read and update the information in memory, but without verbal dialogue.
Closing Thoughts
The goal of all reading is to understand the text, so it is hoped that these strategies and ideas will enable you to improve your reading skills or help your child or student reach that goal.
