knowing meaning of words, ability to understand meaning of a word from discourse context, ability to follow organization of passage and to identify antecedents and references in it, ability to draw inferences from a passage about its contents, ability to identify the main thought of a passage, ability to answer questions answered in a passage, ability to recognize the literary devices or propositional structures used in a passage and determine its tone, to understand the situational mood (agents, objects, temporal and spatial reference points, casual and intentional inflections, etc.) conveyed for assertions, questioning, commanding, refraining etc. and finally ability to determine writer's purpose, intent and point of view, and draw inferences about the writer (discourse-semantics).[3][4]
An individual's ability to comprehend text is influenced by their skills and their ability to process information. If word recognition is difficult, students use too much of their processing capacity to read individualwords, which interferes with their ability to comprehend what is read. There are a number of reading strategies to improve reading comprehension and inferences, including improving one's vocabulary, critical text analysis (intertextuality, actual events vs. narration of events, etc.) and practicing deep reading.[5]
History
Initially most comprehension teaching was based on imparting selected techniques for each genre that when taken together would allow students to be strategic readers. However, from 1930s testing various methods never seemed to win support in empirical research. One such strategy for improving reading comprehension is the technique called SQ3R introduced by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his 1946 book Effective Study.[6]
Between 1969 and 2000, a number of "strategies" were devised for teaching students to employ self-guided methods for improving reading comprehension. In 1969 Anthony V. Manzo designed and found empirical support for the Re Quest, or Reciprocal Questioning Procedure in traditional teacher-centered approach due to its sharing of "cognitive secrets." It was the first method to convert fundamental theory such as social learning into teaching methods through the use of cognitive modeling between teachers and students.[7]
Since the turn of the 20th century, comprehension lessons usually consist of students answering teacher's questions or writing responses to questions of their own, or from prompts of the teacher.[8]This detached whole group version only helped students individually to respond to portions of the text (Content area reading), and improve their writing skills.[citation needed] In the last quarter of the 20th century, evidence accumulated that academic reading test methods were more successful in assessing rather than imparting comprehension or giving a realistic insight. Instead of using the prior response registering method, research studies have concluded that an effective way to teach comprehension is to teach novice readers a bank of "practical reading strategies" or tools to interpret and analyze various categories and styles of text.[9]
Overview
People learn comprehension skills through education or instruction and some learn by direct experiences.[10] Proficient reading depends on the ability to recognize words quickly and effortlessly.[11] It is also determined by an individual's cognitive development, which is "the construction of thought processes".
There are specific characteristics that determine how successfully an individual will comprehend text, including prior knowledge about the subject, well-developed language, and the ability to make inferences from methodical questioning & monitoring comprehension like: "Why is this important?" and "Do I need to read the entire text?" are examples of passage questioning.[12]
Instruction for comprehension strategy often involves initially aiding the students by social and imitation learning, wherein teachers explain genre styles and model both top-down and bottom-up strategies, and familiarize students with a required complexity of text comprehension.[13] After the contiguity interface, the second stage involves gradual release of responsibility wherein over time teachers give students individual responsibility for using the learned strategies independently with remedial instruction as required. The final stage involves leading the students to a self-regulated learning state with more and more practice and assessment.[citation needed] The teacher as reading instructor is a role model of a reader for students, demonstrating what it means to be an effective reader and the rewards of being one.[14]
Definition
Reading comprehension is the level of understanding of a text/message. This understanding comes from the interaction between the words that are written, and how they trigger knowledge outside the text/message.[15][16] Comprehension is a "creative, multifaceted process" dependent upon four language skills:phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.[17]There are 6 essential skills for reading comprehension: Decoding, Fluency, Vocabulary, Sentence Construction and Cohesion, Reasoning and background knowledge Working memory and attention
Reading comprehension levels
Reading comprehension involves two levels of processing, shallow (low-level) processing and deep (high-level) processing. Deep processing involves semantic processing, which happens when we encode the meaning of a word and relate it to similar words. Shallow processing involves structural and phonemic recognition, the processing of sentence and word structure, i.e. first-order logic, and their associated sounds. This theory was first identified by Fergus I. M. Craik and Robert S. Lockhart.[18]
Comprehension levels are observed through neuroimaging techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). fMRI's are used to determine the specific neural pathways of activation across two conditions, narrative-level comprehension and sentence-level comprehension. Images showed that there was less brain region activation during sentence-level comprehension, suggesting a shared reliance with comprehension pathways. The scans also showed an enhanced temporal activation during narrative levels tests indicating this approach activates situation and spatial processing.[19] In general, neuroimaging studies have found that reading involves three overlapping neural systems: networks active in visual, orthography-phonology (Angular gyrus), and semantic functions (Anterior temporal lobe with Broca's and Wernicke's area). However, these neural networks are not discrete, meaning these areas have several other functions as well. The Broca's area involved in executive functions helps the a reader to vary depth of reading comprehension and textual engagement in accordance with reading goals.[20][21]
Vocabulary
Reading comprehension and vocabulary are inextricably linked together. The ability to decode or identify and pronounce words is self-evidently important, but knowing what the words mean has a major and direct effect on knowing what any specific passage means whileskimming a reading material. It has been shown that students with a smaller vocabulary than other students comprehend less of what they read.[22] It has been suggested that to improve comprehension, improving word groups, complex vocabularies such as homonyms or words that have multiple meanings, and those with figurative meanings like idioms, similes, collocations and metaphors are a good practice.[23]
Andrew Biemiller argues that teachers should give out topic related words and phrases before reading a book to students, teaching includes topic related word groups, synonyms of words and their meaning with the context, and he further says to familiarize students with sentence structures in which these words commonly occur.[24]Biemiller says this intensive approach gives students opportunities to explore the topic beyond its discourse - freedom of conceptual expansion. However, there is no evidence to suggest the primacy of this approach.[25] Incidental Morphemic analysis of words - prefixes, suffixes and roots - is also considered to improve understanding of the vocabulary, though they are proved to be an unreliable strategy for improving comprehension and is no longer used to teach students.[26]
Reading strategies
There are a variety of strategies used to teach reading. Strategies vary according to the challenges like new concepts, unfamiliar vocabulary, long and complex sentences, etc. trying to deal with all of these challenges at the same time may be unrealistic. Then again strategies should fit to the ability, aptitude and age level of the learner. Some of the strategies teachers use are: reading aloud, group work, and more reading exercises.[27]
A U.S. Marine helps a student with reading comprehension as part of a Partnership in Education program sponsored by Park Street Elementary School and Navy/Marine Corps Reserve Center Atlanta. The program is a community out-reach program for sailors and Marines to visit the school and help students with class work.
Reciprocal teaching
In the 1980s Annemarie Sullivan Palincsar and Ann L. Brown developed a technique called reciprocal teaching that taught students to predict, summarize, clarify, and ask questions for sections of a text. The use of strategies like summarizing after each paragraph have come to be seen as effective strategies for building students' comprehension. The idea is that students will develop stronger reading comprehension skills on their own if the teacher gives them explicit mental tools for unpacking text.[9]
Instructional conversations
"Instructional conversations", or comprehension through discussion, create higher-level thinking opportunities for students by promotingcritical and aesthetic thinking about the text. According to Vivian Thayer, class discussions help students to generate ideas and new questions. (Goldenberg, p. 317). Dr. Neil Postman has said, "All our knowledge results from questions, which is another way of saying that question-asking is our most important intellectual tool"[citation needed](Response to Intervention). There are several types of questions that a teacher should focus on: remembering; testing understanding; application or solving; invite synthesis or creating; and evaluation and judging. Teachers should model these types of questions through "think-alouds" before, during, and after reading a text. When a student can relate a passage to an experience, another book, or other facts about the world, they are "making a connection." Making connections help students understand the author's purpose and fiction or non-fiction story.[28]
Text factors
There are factors, that once discerned, make it easier for the reader to understand the written text. One is the genre, like folktales, historical fiction, biographies or poetry. Each genre has its own characteristics for text structure, that once understood help the reader comprehend it. A story is composed of a plot, characters, setting, point of view, and theme. Informational books provide real world knowledge for students and have unique features such as: headings, maps, vocabulary, and an index. Poems are written in different forms and the most commonly used are: rhymed verse, haikus, free verse, and narratives. Poetry uses devices such as: alliteration, repetition, rhyme, metaphors, and similes. "When children are familiar with genres, organizational patterns, and text features in books they're reading, they're better able to create those text factors in their own writing." Another one is arranging the text per perceptual span and the text display favorable to the age level of the reader.[29]
Non-Verbal Imagery
Media that utilizes schema to make connections either planned or not, more commonly used within context such as: a passage, an experience, or one's imagination. Some notable examples are emojis, emoticons, cropped and uncropped images, and recently Imojis which are humorous, cropped images that are used to elicit humor and comprehension.[30]
Visualization
Visualization is a "mental image" created in a person's mind while reading text, which "brings words to life" and helps improve reading comprehension. Asking sensory questions will help students become better visualizers.[28] Students can practice visualizing by imagining what they "see, hear, smell, taste, or feel" when they are reading a page of a picture book aloud, but not yet shown the picture. They can share their visualizations, then check their level of detail against the illustrations.
Partner reading
Partner reading is a strategy created for pairs. The teacher chooses two appropriate books for the students to read. First they must read their own book. Once they have completed this, they are given the opportunity to write down their own comprehensive questions for their partner. The students swap books, read them out loud to one another and ask one another questions about the book they read.
This strategy:
- Provides a model of fluent reading and helps students learn decoding skills by offering positive feedback.[31]
- Provides direct opportunities for a teacher to circulate in the class, observe students, and offer individual remediation.[31]
Multiple reading strategies
There are a wide range of reading strategies suggested by reading programs and educators. Effective reading strategies may differ for second language learners, as opposed to native speakers.[32][33][34] TheNational Reading Panel identified positive effects only for a subset, particularly summarizing, asking questions, answering questions, comprehension monitoring, graphic organizers, and cooperative learning. The Panel also emphasized that a combination of strategies, as used in Reciprocal Teaching, can be effective.[28] The use of effective comprehension strategies that provide specific instructions for developing and retaining comprehension skills, with intermittent feedback, has been found to improve reading comprehension across all ages, specifically those affected by mental disabilities.[35]
Reading different types of texts requires the use of different reading strategies and approaches. Making reading an active, observable process can be very beneficial to struggling readers. A good reader interacts with the text in order to develop an understanding of the information before them. Some good reader strategies are predicting, connecting, inferring, summarizing, analyzing and critiquing. There are many resources and activities educators and instructors of reading can use to help with reading strategies in specific content areas and disciplines. Some examples are graphic organizers, talking to the text, anticipation guides, double entry journals, interactive reading and note taking guides, chunking, and summarizing.[citation needed]
The use of effective comprehension strategies is highly important when learning to improve reading comprehension. These strategies provide specific instructions for developing and retaining comprehension skills across all ages.[36] Applying methods to attain an overt phonemic awareness with intermittent practice has been found to improve reading in early ages, specifically those affected by mental disabilities.
Comprehension Strategies
Research studies on reading and comprehension have shown that highly proficient readers utilize a number of different strategies to comprehend various types of texts, strategies that can also be used by less proficient readers in order to improve their comprehension.
- Making Inferences: In everyday terms we refer to this as “reading between the lines”. It involves connecting various parts of texts that aren’t directly linked in order to form a sensible conclusion. A form of assumption, the reader speculates what connections lie within the texts.
- Planning and Monitoring: This strategy centers around the reader’s mental awareness and their ability to control their comprehension by way of awareness. By previewing text (via outlines, table of contents, etc.) one can establish a goal for reading-“what do I need to get out of this”? Readers use context clues and other evaluation strategies to clarify texts and ideas, and thus monitoring their level of understanding.
- Asking Questions: To solidify one’s understanding of passages of texts readers inquire and develop their own opinion of the author’s writing, character motivations, relationships, etc. This strategy involves allowing oneself to be completely objective in order to find various meanings within the text.
- Determining Importance: Pinpointing the important ideas and messages within the text. Readers are taught to identify direct and indirect ideas and to summarize the relevance of each.
- Visualizing: With this sensory-driven strategy readers form mental and visual images of the contents of text. Being able to connect visually allows for a better understanding with the text through emotional responses.
- Synthesizing: This method involves marrying multiple ideas from various texts in order to draw conclusions and make comparisons across different texts; with the reader’s goal being to understand how they all fit together.
- Making Connections: A cognitive approach also referred to as “reading beyond the lines”, which involves (A) finding a personal connection to reading, such as personal experience, previously read texts, etc. to help establish a deeper understanding of the context of the text, or (B) thinking about implications that have no immediate connection with the theme of the text.[37]
Assessment
There are informal and formal assessments to monitor an individual's comprehension ability and use of comprehension strategies.[38]Informal assessments are generally through observation and the use of tools, like story boards, word sorts, and interactive writing. Many teachers use Formative assessments to determine if a student has mastered content of the lesson. Formative assessments can be verbal as in a Think-Pair-Share or Partner Share. Formative Assessments can also be Ticket out the door or digital summarizers. Formal assessments are district or state assessments that evaluates all students on important skills and concepts. Summative assessments are typically assessments given at the end of a unit to measure a student's learning.
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