6 Types of reading comprehension


  1. Lexical comprehension means that the teacher will explain new words after the text have been read to the learners. A wide variety of different words can be used to ask learners questions about such as:

  • Funny or serious?

  • The teacher can also give the learners synonyms of the words so that the learners can understand the content of the text better.


  1. Literal comprehension will help the learners understand the text better and make sense of the text. This type of comprehension will help the learners to identify the main concepts of the text. The reader uses clues to supply meaning to the text. This type of comprehension it is the most basic comprehension in teaching reading in the Foundation Phase. Learners can use the reading technique such as skimming to locate information more efficiently.

  • What is the main theme of the story?

  • What happened at the beginning, middle and end of the text?


  1. Interpretive comprehension means asking questions such as what if , why and how.The reader must be able to read between the lines of the text.This type of comprehension can include:

  • Figurative language.

  • The mood of the text.

  • And giving different opinions about the author's point of view.

  • How do you think the text will end?

  • What is the theme of the text?

  1. Applied comprehension means that the teacher can apply the text to a real -life experience eg. school environment. This type of comprehension uses the information gathered from the text to form new ideas.This will help the learners to link his/her own experience to the text and assess the quality, values of the text and generalizations based on the text.

  • Type of questions that can be used in this type of comprehension such as :

What is your opinion based on the text?

What do you think about the text in your personal opinion?

Do you agree with the text or disagree with the text?

What is the best possible outcome to this problem based on the text?

  1. Affective comprehension means that learners understand how a plot in the story works, how the characters fit into the story and also can include emotions.The teacher can also show learners social scripts to make sure that the learners understand the development of the plot.The teacher can ask learners questions such as:

  • What is the attitude of the learner after the teacher have read the text?

  • What emotions do learners have after the teacher have read the text?

  1. Effective comprehension means that it will help learners to do things on their own. Metacognitive learners are able to effectively use a wide variety of comprehension techniques to make sure that the learners understand the text.The teacher can assist the learner by being persistent , intensive, explicit so that the learners can become good readers and that the learners can become aware of text organisation.