in varied ways about the elements they encounter. (p. 479)
Research indicates that skilled readers perform the comprehension-related actions listed in table 1.6 before, during, and after reading.
Comprehension strategies are “goal-oriented processes that readers and writers use to construct meaning” (Conley, 2017, p. 407). Research has shown that educators can teach comprehension strategies and that such instruction has positive effects on reading comprehension (Dole, Duffy, Roehler, & Pearson, 1991; Gambrell & Bales, 1986; Haller, Child, & Walberg, 1988; Mahdavi & Tensfeldt, 2013; Palincsar & Brown, 1984; Pressley, 2002, 2006; Pressley et al., 1992; Trabasso & Bouchard, 2002). Ian A. G. Wilkinson and Eun Hye Son (2011) elaborate:
There is now no doubt that instruction in small repertoires of comprehension strategies, when implemented well, produces robust effects on measures of comprehension, including standardized tests (e.g., Anderson, 1992; Brown et al., 1996; Collins, 1991)…. There are at least two alternative explanations for the effect of teaching strategies. One alternative explanation is that teaching strategies promote students’ active engagement with text. Kintsch and Kintsch (2005) noted that a feature of all strategies is that they promote the active construction of meaning during reading, and the linking of the text with reader’s prior knowledge and experience (see also Willingham, 2007). Another alternative explanation is that strategies are vehicles that enable students to engage in dialogue about text. (pp. 364–365)
Table 1.6: Comprehension-Related Actions
| Before Reading | • Know why they are reading and set goals for reading. • Know how they will use the knowledge gained from reading. • Know many word meanings (vocabulary). • Know a lot about the world (prior knowledge). • Preview a text to determine its genre and structure. • Skim a text to determine which parts to process before reading closely. |
| During Reading | • Recognize words on the page automatically. • Read text fluently. • Look for important information (in words or pictures) and pay more attention to it. • Try to relate important points to one another. • Use what they already know (prior knowledge) to make predictions. • Relate new content to prior knowledge. • Use strategies such as predicting, imaging, questioning, summarizing, clarifying, inferring, and connecting to prior knowledge to construct meaning and interpret the text. • Remember information from a text using strategies such as reviewing, summarizing, paraphrasing, and questioning. • Monitor their understanding and the alignment of their understanding to their reading goal or goals. • Revise their prior knowledge and interpretation of a text as they read. • Rate the quality of a text and its usefulness for accomplishing the purpose for reading. • Interact with the text on both personal and intellectual levels as they read. • Engage in an internal dialogue or responsive conversation with the author of the text. • Evaluate the author’s purposes, intentions, and goals based on assumptions, worldviews, and beliefs that are overt or covert in a text. |
| When Comprehension Breaks Down | • Become even more active. • Adjust reading speed and level of concentration depending on the purpose and importance of reading. • Change comprehension strategies. • Puzzle out unfamiliar words, phrases, or concepts, especially when they seem important to interpreting the text. • Reread or use other strategies to try to regain a hold on the text (such as reviewing, questioning, summarizing, evaluating, or considering alternative interpretations). |
| After Reading | • Continue to build and reflect on their understanding of the text. • Assess how a text has affected or will affect their knowledge, attitudes, and behavior. |
| General | • Have a repertoire of comprehension strategies and know when and how to use them and combine them. • Have a repertoire of metacognitive strategies to monitor their reading processes. • Employ different processes in different ways, and to different degrees, depending on why they are reading and what they are reading, both with respect to disciplinary context and genre. |
Sources: Cho & Afflerbach, 2017; Purcell-Gates et al., 2016; Wharton-McDonald & Erickson, 2017.
Visit go.SolutionTree.com/instruction for a free reproducible version of this table.
The most effective comprehension instruction is explicit and utilizes a gradual release of responsibility model (see Purcell-Gates et al., 2016, for supporting research).
Comprehension instruction should begin before students have developed automatic word recognition. That is, it should start as soon as they begin school, even before they can read text independently. Duke and Carlisle (2011) state that “we should be concerned about the development of reading comprehension from very early on, long before children can read text themselves” (p. 217). Paratore and colleagues (2011) advise that “curricula intended to guide both parents and teachers in their interactions with young children must be as relentlessly focused on developing vocabulary and language knowledge as they are on developing code knowledge” (p. 123). As we show in figure 1.1 (page 17), comprehension instruction before students have reached the full alphabetic phase will largely focus on developing students’ listening comprehension. Duke and Carlisle (2011) explain that developing comprehension skills through listening and then asking students to transfer those skills to their reading make sense because both listening and reading comprehension focus on making meaning from language:
Comprehension refers to the listener or reader’s understanding of the message expressed by the speaker or writer…. In this respect, listening comprehension and reading comprehension are not different—both are focused on accessing the meaning of a message communicated by someone else. (p. 199)
Once students can use phonological recoding to read texts themselves, they can apply their existing listening comprehension strategies and skills to text they read themselves.
As students mature in their comprehension abilities and read more difficult texts, research shows that listening comprehension actually becomes less important because it is less effective as texts increase in complexity. Again, Duke and Carlisle (2011) explain:
In the years when students are first learning to read, they typically can comprehend more challenging passages when listening than when reading, because of limitations in their word recognition. By the middle school years, the pattern is often reversed: students’ performance on challenging passages is better by reading than by listening. This is because readers can pace themselves, reread sentences, and carry out other strategic activities to construct their understanding of the text. Such activities are not possible when listening to passages of the kind that are typically used in written texts. (p. 202)
Also, as students mature in their reading comprehension skills, they are increasingly expected to read texts in order to learn from them, especially in the content areas of social studies, science, and mathematics. Teachers can facilitate such disciplinary reading by making certain that students understand the norms of the discipline in which they are reading and the specific strategies that experts in those disciplines typically use. For an analysis of disciplinary reading and recommendations regarding strategies to use with social studies, science, and mathematics texts, please see appendix C (page 177).
Summary
