Does not comprehend what he/she reads

Choosing Research-Validated Strategies for Comprehension Instruction

The NRP identified 16 categories of comprehension instruction, 7 of which appear to have a strong scientific basis for concluding that they improve comprehension in typical readers:

1. Comprehension monitoring, in which readers learn how to be aware of their level of understanding as they read.
2. Cooperative learning, in which students work together in pairs or small groups as they learn reading strategies.
3. Graphic and semantic organizers (including story maps) that help students make graphic representations of the material they are reading in order to bolster comprehension.
4. Question answering, in which teachers ask questions and students receive immediate feedback about their responses.
5. Question generation, in which students ask themselves questions to clarify understanding.
6. Story structure, in which students learn how to use the structure of the text to help them recall content to answer questions about what they have read.
7. Summarization, to encapsulate and remember important ideas from the text.
8. Reciprocal Teaching is an instructional model designed to teach metacognitive strategies (a) generating questions about the text prior to reading; (b) summarizing portions of the text; (c) predicting what will happen next; and (d) clarifying and evaluating after reading the text.
9. Transactional Strategies Instruction is designed to provide students with direct instruction in a number of comprehension strategies and are encouraged to talk about and choose a strategy for understanding as they read. Teachers model their own thinking aloud and encourage students to do this for each other.
10. Book Clubs are student-led discussions in a heterogeneous, small group setting within the classroom in which students share their ideals about what they have read.
11. Questioning the Author is a comprehension approach that is based on ideas about constructing one’s own learning when presented with new material.
12. Comprehension through Imagery, for example Visualizing and Verbalizing for Language Comprehension and Thinking developed by Lindamood-Bell or The Visual Imagery Strategy developed at the University of Kansas Center for Research on Learning.

Most Effective Teaching Methods and Instruction Components for Reading Comprehension

• Directed response/questioning-The teacher asks questions, encourages students to ask questions, teacher-student dialogue.
• Control difficulty of processing demands of task-The teacher provides assistance as needed, gives simplified demonstration, sequences steps from easy to difficult and presents in that order, allows student to control level of difficulty, keeps activities short.
• Elaboration-Activities provide students with additional information and explanation about skills/steps, use redundant text or repetition within text.
• Modeling of steps by teacher-The teacher demonstrates the steps students are to follow.
• Group Instruction-Instruction or interaction between teacher and students occurs in small groups with 6 or fewer students.
• Strategy Cues-The teacher reminds students to use strategies or steps, explains steps or procedures, uses a think-aloud model, identifies benefits of strategy use.

Commercially Available Programs (with potentially positive effects; see What Works Clearinghouse web site)

• Early Intervention in Reading (www.earlyinterventionreading.com)
• Failure Free Reading (www.failurefreereading.com)
• Start Making a Reader Today (www.getsmartoregion.org)