Reading Comprehension (Part 1 of 2)
At some point in our teaching careers we have all come across those students who after reading a page in a book or passage of text look up at you with a blank expression or cannot explain what they have just read. They might give random, guessed answers to questions about the text or frantically scan the pages in search of them. Many of these students may totally misinterpret the entire story and be unable to retell it.
Most of us would say that they have problems with reading comprehension and that would be correct. But what is reading comprehension and how can we improve our students’ understanding of what they are reading?
In this two-part blog series we will unpack these questions and provide practical classroom activities you can use with your students to help improve their reading comprehension.
What is reading comprehension?
It is widely agreed between reading experts that reading comprehension is an active process which involves constructing understanding as reading takes place. Snow, 2002, describes it as “the process of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning through interaction and involvement with written language”.
Reading comprehension is an active process between the reader’s mind and the information in the text. A good reader extracts and builds meaning as they are reading and these meanings are a combination of what the text says and what is already in the reader’s mind. Each reader brings their own background knowledge, preconceptions, attitudes, understandings and experiences to the text they are reading.
Research in the field of cognitive science has provided an insight into understanding that good reading comprehension relies on many covert or hidden mental activities. (Anderson & Pearson, 1984; Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978)
The Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer,1986) states that reading comprehension is the product of word recognition and language comprehension, if one part of the equation is zero then reading comprehension will not occur.
Foundational skills of reading (word recognition skills) are necessary but not sufficient for students to read with understanding. Comprehension of spoken and written language must occur as well. Teachers of younger students who are still learning to read text accurately and fluently can address language comprehension through oral language.
Over time the relationship between the major domains of the Simple View of Reading changes. By the time students are in Year 3/4 the language comprehension starts to become more and more important for reading success. Development of language comprehension through oral language, direct teaching and text reading lays the foundations for reading comprehension.
“The results do make it clear that language comprehension becomes the dominant process in reading comprehension when the reader has acquired enough facility in word identification to comprehend in written language text which would normally be comprehended in spoken language.” (Vellutino, Tunmer, Jaccard, & Chen, 2007)
The Reading Rope
Hollis Scarborough created the Reading Rope to illustrate the development of skilled reading which expands on the Simple View of Reading. It is the language comprehension strands which are necessary for extracting and constructing meaning from text. All the strands of the rope are necessary and are tightly woven together; however, if one strand or area is not fully developed then the development of skilled reading is at risk.
Components of reading comprehension
The following skills and processes are involved in building a good mental model and for reading comprehension to occur.
Inference
Good readers who make inferences mentally tie the parts of a text together as they read. They are essentially constructing a mental model as they go along. Difficulties with inference making and inference development are likely influenced by both vocabulary and background knowledge relating to the topic of the text.
Vocabulary
The individual words in a text are the foundations for comprehension of sentences and texts as a whole. Vocabulary knowledge constantly builds across our lifetime and the language of books is far richer than conversation. Books are an incredibly rich resource for vocabulary learning.
Background knowledge
This concept refers to everything stored in long-term memory from direct and indirect experience. It can be acquired through instruction, experience, reading or using other media. New knowledge builds faster when something is already known about a topic. Students with good background knowledge comprehend texts better, which then builds their knowledge further.
Grammar and cohesive ties
It is essential that students develop a certain level of syntactic skill throughout the primary years. The syntax of texts becomes more complex than everyday spoken language.
Connectives are words and phrases that signal the way clauses and sentences are related and allow them to be integrated. Poor comprehenders may be less familiar with the meanings of some connectors and how sentences are structured.
Text structure (genre)
Knowledge of different genres and how they are organised affects comprehension. Different text types have recognisable structures and good readers can anticipate the form in which new information is going to be presented. Text genres are useful as the reader will quickly know what to expect, and where to look for certain types of information.
Comprehension monitoring
This refers to the ability of a reader to think actively about how well they are understanding what they are reading. If a reader is monitoring their understanding then they will know when comprehension has failed. If they have the relevant strategies and skills they can then address their lack of understanding.
Paying attention strategies (comprehension strategies)
Tim Shanahan, 2023, explains in his blog that strategies require the reader to slow down and think about the text more than if they just read it. He explains that strategies arm readers with purposeful actions they can take before, during, and after reading. Basically, they get readers to think about the ideas more than once and facilitate learning from text. They guide student attention to the main ideas in the text.
In Part 2 of this blog we will unpack a variety of practical activities to support the teaching of these components.
Johnna Alborn
Deputy Principal/Literacy Facilitator
References:
The Reading Comprehension Blueprint – Helping Students Make Meaning from Text; Nancy Lewis Hennessy, 2021
Effective Instruction in Reading and Spelling; edited by Kevin Wheldall, Robyn Wheldall and Jennifer Buckingham, 2023
LETRS; Volume 2, Louisa C Moats, Carol A Tolman, 2019
Shanahan on Literacy Blog; Knowledge or comprehension strategies what should we teach? July 2023