Comprehension Cheat Sheet

Why is this skill important?

• Comprehension is the ultimate goal of reading. When students can understand the literal and inferential meaning of what they are reading, they are able to enjoy and engage with text.
• Comprehension is a culmination of many skills, including students’ ability to read words, their vocabulary knowledge, their background knowledge (including background knowledge about the text structure and topic), and their language skills.

How long and how often?

Comprehension lessons will take up to 30 minutes and should be done daily, if possible.

How to Explicitly Teach this Skill

To build comprehension while reading books to or with students, as in a read-aloud or guided reading lesson, start with a before/during/after reading procedure.

Step 1: Activate students’ interest and background knowledge by asking them about the story or informational text you are about to read. Some questions include:

• What do you know about this story/topic?
• What do you want to know?
• What do you think this will be about?
• What do you think will happen in this story?

Then, set a purpose for reading: Today we are going to read ….

Note: If the text has a particular structure (e.g., cause and effect) consider quickly teaching students about what they can expect when reading that type of text.

Step 2: During reading, help students

1) monitor their understanding by having them summarize along the way,

2) ask questions that focus students’ attention on main ideas and important details,

3) help students make inferences,

4) encourage students to return to any predictions they made to assess whether or not their prediction was correct or incorrect.

Step 3: After reading, ask students to retell the story or important parts of the text, and engage students in a culminating response to the text. This may be a discussion or writing opportunity.

Retelling: An important component of understanding stories is being able to retell them. During a simple retelling, a student can:

1) identify and retell the beginning, middle, and end of the story focusing only on the most important aspects,

2) describe the setting,

3) identify the problem and its solution.

To teach this, first, read a story and model how you retell. Then, have students practice retelling as a group and with partners.

Graphic Organizers: Graphic organizers can help children organize their thinking.

Here is a compilation of a variety of graphic organizers for K-2: http://www.penfield.edu/webpages/ltownsend/graphic.cfm?subpage=1188149.

When using a graphic organizer, explain to students how to use it; model using it with a few different texts, then provide students with practice completing it with feedback and then on their own. The goal is that the graphic organizers help students organize their thinking and focus on the most important aspects of text to help them understand. Over time, students may create their own graphic organizers to support their understanding of new text they read.

KWL Charts for Informational Text: KWL (Know, Want to Learn, Learned) charts are one way to help students build comprehension of informational text. Create three columns on chart paper:

Before reading a text, preview the topic, title, and any illustrations or images. Ask students to talk about what they already know about that topic and help them organize their ideas into categories.

The purpose of this is to activate students’ background knowledge, which will help them understand the text. Then, have students identify what they want to learn in the second column. Have students write down specific questions before reading.

Then, read the text with a focus on those questions. After reading, have students complete the What I Learned column with information that they learned related to the questions they asked, and additional information they found interesting.

Suggested Connections

• “Active reading” in the classroom setting, or shared reading, is an effective way to model comprehension strategies while using high quality books.

Here is an overview of how to do shared reading: http://www.readingrockets.org/content/pdfs/SharedReading.pdf

• Vocabulary: Preview and pre-teach important vocabulary words before reading a new text with students. This will support their comprehension.

Prep & Materials

In addition to preparing the book and any graphic organizers that you will use, make sure to read through the text before you read it and know 1) the words you will teach, 2) the questions you will ask, and 3) the conclusions or new understandings that you want students to reach.

Considerations/ Differentiation

Young readers will need support to transfer the skills they practice in a whole group setting to independent reading. Provide lots of practice, feedback, and support as students practice skills on their own.

Resources

Explanation of comprehension instruction and more strategies: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/strategies-promote-comprehension