Being able to comprehend what you read is one of the most important pieces of learning how to read. If you don't understand what you have read, you will not enjoy a story, connect a story to your own life, or be able to read to learn.

"Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. Student who easily comprehend what they just read are more likely to enjoy reading. They are also more effective reading, which helps them academically and in their personal life." Nebraska Reads

Comprehension Strategies

There are 6 comprehension strategies that teachers model for students:

Previewing the Text and Using Background Knowledge

Our brains are like file cabinets. When we see something familiar, our brains pull up a file on everything we already know about the topic. This helps us understand the story better or get our brains ready to learn! Previewing the text opens the file cabinet (our schema) of what we already know and helps us understand what we are going to read.

Predicting

Readers use information from the text along with their background knowledge to make predictions as they read. Their background knowledge helps them make predictions and revise their predictions as they read.

Identifying the Main Idea and Summarizing

Identifying the main idea and summarizing happens when students determine what is important and then state it in their own words. Graphic organizers can help students with this process. Story elements (characters, setting, events, problem and solution) should be told as part of the process. During this process the child should also determine the author’s purpose in writing the text. Did the author write the story to entertain, persuade, or to help the reader learn something - inform? Graphic organizers can also help students with text structure differences between fiction and non-fiction text.

Questioning

Asking and answering questions about text helps readers engage with the text. When readers stop and ask questions it helps them think about the ideas in the text. It helps students concentrate on the meaning of text. Questioning also helps readers focus on the text....when they are thinking about their thinking, this is called metacognition. It is possible to read and not think while you are reading, because you are thinking about something else, or you have read too many words and you don't know their meaning. You are reading, but you are not comprehending.

Readingrockets.org describes the Question-Answer Relationship strategy (QAR) which encourages students to learn how to answer questions better. Students are asked to indicate whether the information they used to answer questions about the text was textually explicit information (information that was directly stated in the text), textually implicit information (information that was implied in the text), or information entirely from the student's own background knowledge.

There are four different types of questions:

  • "Right There"
    • Questions found right in the text that ask students to find the one right answer located in one place as a word or a sentence in the passage.
    • Example: Who is Frog's friend? Answer: Toad
  • "Think and Search"
    • Questions based on the recall of facts that can be found directly in the text. Answers are typically found in more than one place, thus requiring students to "think" and "search" through the passage to find the answer.
    • Example: Why was Frog sad? Answer: His friend was leaving.
  • "Author and You"
    • Questions require students to use what they already know, with what they have learned from reading the text. Students must understand the text and relate it to their prior knowledge before answering the question.
    • Example: How do think Frog felt when he found Toad? Answer: I think that Frog felt happy because he had not seen Toad in a long time. I feel happy when I get to see my friend who lives far away.
  • "On Your Own"
    • Questions are answered based on a student's prior knowledge and experiences. Reading the text may not be helpful to them when answering this type of question.
    • Example: How would you feel if your best friend moved away? Answer: I would feel very sad if my best friend moved away because I would miss her.

----Reading Rockets.org

Making Inferences

An inference is an assumption that the reader can make about something that is not explicitly stated in the text. An inference happens when students "read between the lines." Students have to draw on their background knowledge and the clues the author gives to make an inference. Making inferences tends to be one of the hardest strategies for students to master.

Visualizing

When students visualize, they create mental images in their heads of what the setting looks like or what the characters look like in the story. Visualizing helps students recall important information (Pressley, 1977). Students can use the illustrations given, or create their own mental images if there are no illustrations. Adults visualize a great deal when they are reading. This is usually why when you see a movie based on a book, the movie is never as good! Usually, the movie is not how you pictured the story in your head, because characters and settings will look different.

Graphic Organizers for Teaching Comprehension Skills

Venn Diagram

Use to compare and contrast two topics or stories.

Chain of Events

Used to order the sequence of events or steps in a story.

KWLChartFREEBIE.pdf

KWL Chart

There are three steps in the K-W-L process (Ogle, 1986):

  1. What I Know: Before students read the text, ask them as a group to identify what they already know about the topic. Students write this list in the “K” column of their K-W-L forms.
  2. What I Want to Know: Ask students to write questions about what they want to learn from reading the text in the “W” column of their K-W-L forms. For example, students may wonder if some of the “facts” offered in the “K” column are true.
  3. What I Learned: As they read the text, students should look for answers to the questions listed in the “W” column and write their answers in the “L” column along with anything else they learn.

After all of the students have read the text, the teacher leads a discussion of the questions and answers.

For a complete list of free graphic organizers, visit:


Bibliography

Ogle, D. M. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active reading of expository text. The Reading Teacher 38(6), pp. 564–570.

Pressley, M. (1977). Imagery and children’s learning: Putting the picture in developmental perspective. Review of Educational Research 47, pp. 586–622.

Read-At-Home Plan for Student Success, Nebraska Department of Education.