Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension is defined as "the understanding and interpretation of what is read" (Comprehension, n.d.). In order to accuratel comprehend what they are reading, students need to be able to "decode what they read," "make connections between what they read and what they know," and "think deeply about what they have read" (Comprehension, n.d.). In order to assist students in this often challenging process, various strategies can be utilized in order to help them develop reading comprehension skills. These strategies can be utilized with a variety of reading levels, and they can be changed in order to meet the needs of diverse learners. As always, educators know their students and their individuals needs; therefore, this expertise should be combined with the presented strategies to create coherent and effective lessons.

Annotation

Students should be exposed to an annotation strategy that is consistent and offers them support in what they are reading. Fisher and Frey (2014) offers support for teachers by providing them with a method to help students properly annotate a text. In order to do this, it is reccommended that students have a consistent method that is utilized across content areas, which allows them to better understand the process and purpose (Fisher & Frey, 2014).

underlining key, central, or main ideas
circling phrases or words that are confusing or unclear
writing margin notes in your own words

Repeated Readings

In order to build stronger comprehension skills, students should be given the opportunity and encouragement to read through a given text multiple times. When reading through a difficult text multiple times, students are able to better understand the deeper meanings and make connections to past and future learning (Fisher & Frey, 2014). With multiple reads, students are able to better understand the text more efficiently than they would on the initial cold read.

Visual Imagery

Students of all levels have different strengths and weaknesses in reading comprehension and displaying this knowledge to teachers. In order to combat this problem, educators need to develop creative ways to engage their learners and ample opportunities to display knowledge. When utilizing background knowledge in combination with what is being read in the text, students are able to create mental images to display their understanding of the text (Visual Imagery, n.d.). This can be done in a variety of ways:

students can listen to a read aloud version of the text and draw what they hear
students can read the text multiple times and construct an image to display their understanding
students can work together in groups to construct an image to display portions of a longer text that will be later combined with other groups to tell a cohesive story

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