Comprehension
Reading comprehension is the ability to read text, process it and understand its meaning. An individual's ability to comprehend text is influenced by their traits and skills, one of which is the ability to make inferences. If word recognition is difficult, students use too much of their processing capacity to read individual words, which interferes with their ability to comprehend what is read. There are a number of approaches to improve reading comprehension, including improving one's vocabulary and reading strategies.
Reading comprehension involves two levels of processing, shallow (low-level) processing and deep (high-level) processing. Deep processing involves semantic processing, which happens when we encode the meaning of a word and relate it to similar words. Shallow processing involves structural and phonemic recognition, the processing of sentence and word structure and their associated sounds.
Reading comprehension involves two levels of processing, shallow (low-level) processing and deep (high-level) processing. Deep processing involves semantic processing, which happens when we encode the meaning of a word and relate it to similar words. Shallow processing involves structural and phonemic recognition, the processing of sentence and word structure and their associated sounds.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reading_comprehension
To gain some valuable tips for reading comprehension for all ages, check out this video from the Grace Online Library.
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:
ELL students will still need a lot of vocabulary development and teaching of comprehension strategies even if they:
Classroom strategies: Steps for explicitly teaching comprehension skillsThe following steps are useful for all students. However, these need to be complemented with the additional steps below to ensure comprehension for ELLs.
For Building ELL ComprehensionTeach students how to use these tools for informational or expository reading:
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
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.
Classroom strategies: Steps for explicitly teaching comprehension skillsThe 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.
- 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?
For Building ELL ComprehensionTeach students how to use these tools for informational or expository reading:
- Titles
- Headings
- Bold print
- Captions
- Side bars
- Maps
- Graphs
- Pictures
- Bullets
- Retell what you read, but keep it short.
- Include only important information.
- Leave out less important details.
- Use key words from the text.
From: http://www.colorincolorado.org/article/reading-comprehension-skills-english-language-learners
For a list of reading worksheets, click on the button that says Worksheets.
For a great paired-reading comprehension lesson, click on the button that says Lesson. This website has a lot of other great lessons and units as well, so it is not very limited.
For some fun games for your children to try at home, click on the button that says Games.
For a great paired-reading comprehension lesson, click on the button that says Lesson. This website has a lot of other great lessons and units as well, so it is not very limited.
For some fun games for your children to try at home, click on the button that says Games.