Making Sense of Text

"Learning to read is not an end in itself. It is a skill that opens doors and provides opportunities throughout one’s lifetime." -Cain

Comprehension enables the reader to...

1. Acquire & apply new knowledge

2. Experience fictional words

3. Communicate successfully

4. Attain academic success.

The three strands of comprehension are:

Local coherence: achieved by integrating the meanings of successive clauses & sentences

Global coherence: establishing how ideas fit together as a whole

Situation model: a representation of a situation described by the text (as opposed to a description of the text itself)

“Text comprehension is a dynamic and interactive process involving several sources of information and knowledge.” -Cain

Integration and Inference - requires requisite knowledge

Comprehension Monitoring - noting inconsistencies in a given text, rereading to resolve comprehension failure, etc...

Structure - understanding the framework of a writing and using the framework to note important information

Working Memory - simultaneously processing & storing information

Text Processing & Memory - spotting inconsistencies separated by several lines of text

1. Verbal Ability

2. Vocabulary

3. Phonological Processing

“Children who fail to understand adequately what they read may lack the motivation to read in their leisure time. As a result, they will get less practice in word reading and comprehension than their peers and have fewer opportunities to acquire new vocabulary and knowledge." - Cain