Comprehension refers to the understanding and interpretation of what is read and is a process that takes place before, during and after reading to make meaning.  Effective approaches to teaching comprehension involve explicitly teaching strategies, building engagement and motivation, building one’s own awareness of one’s thinking, also known as metacognition and most significantly, it also requiring that readers are able to decode and read with fluency.

The simple view of reading (Hoover & Gough, 1990) is a theoretical understanding of comprehension as a product of being able to decode words and having the language comprehension needed to comprehend text.  If students are weak in either or both of their decoding skills and their ability to understand language, this results in poor reading comprehension.  This model addresses the importance of teaching foundational skills in reading, such as phonics, but also providing the opportunities for oral language, background knowledge, vocabulary, language structure, literacy knowledge and verbal reasoning that is part of language comprehension.

Comprehension Assessment:

Comprehension Sample Activities:

  • Paragraph Shrinking
  • Story mapping or graphic organizers
  • Comprehension monitoring (e.g., 2 column note-taking, summarizing)
  • Reciprocal Teaching
  • Question-Answer-Relationship (QAR)
  • Proficient Reader Strategies from NOVEL Approach:
    • Purpose
    • Visualization
    • Background Knowledge
    • Connections
    • Monitoring Comprehension
    • Determining What is
      Important
    • Inferences
    • Synthesizing and Evaluating
  • Literature Circles (see resources below)

Comprehension Resources:

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