Comprehension
Teach students strategies to construct meaning and understand the books they read.
Teach students strategies to construct meaning and understand the books they read.
Understanding is built through conversation. Every talk about a story — before, during, and after reading — is a form of comprehension instruction.
Before: “What do you think this story will be about?” During: “Why do you think the character did that?” After: “What was your favorite part? What happened first, next, last? What would you do if you were in that situation?”
Model your own thinking: “Hmm, I’m confused — I’d better reread that page.” Children learn that good readers check themselves.
Your child’s listening comprehension runs years ahead of their reading comprehension. If you read chapter books aloud you will continue building the knowledge and vocabulary they will need later on as they read independently.
“This reminds me of when we…” Background knowledge is half of comprehension, and family experiences are part of where it comes from. You can teach students “text-to-self” connections (“This character cares about the environment, just like you do!”), “text-to-world” connections (“Harry Potter tells the story of good versus evil as Harry battles Voldemort. There are good vs. evil stories in real life. Can you think of any?”), and “text-to-text” connections (“This book reminds me of one we read last month. Remember, the main character in __________ was also struggling to face a bully too. Remember how he handled it?”).
Reading comprehension is the process of understanding and constructing meaning from a text. Comprehension is sometimes called a "construction process" because it involves the reader, the text, and all the elements of the reading process working together to create a mental representation of a text. A 2002 study by the RAND Reading Study Group demonstrated that a number of factors can affect reading comprehension, including: the text (What is the reader reading? Informational text, fiction, etc.), the context (Why is the reader reading or what might impact their reading? For a test, for pleasure, timed conditions, etc.), the reader (What things impact the reader's experience/performance? Background knowledge, enjoyment of reading, etc.), and the task (Is there a specific task the reader is working to achieve? Finding an answer, reading for deeper meaning, identifying a main idea, etc.).
Strong readers think through texts, deciphering meaning as they go. For this reason, young readers need direct and explicit instruction in comprehension strategies to apply before, during and after their reading. Comprehension strategies can be described as mental actions or processes to use while reading in order to increase understanding. The teacher's role in this process should be to help connect the reader and the text, while supporting the reader in "constructing meaning." Teachers can best accomplish this process through gradual release of responsibility (modeling a comprehension strategy, engaging in guided practice, providing feedback, and progressing to independent application).
Research outlines the importance of employing Structured Literacy Principles to teach reading comprehension in a systematic, structured, cumulative, explicit and diagnostic fashion.
Research is clear that literacy is taught best when instruction follows the four Structured Literacy Principles. Here is what each one looks like for comprehension.
Instruction follows a logical order, begins with the easiest concepts, and progresses to more difficult concepts (EX: Teachers start with comprehension at the word level and progress to sentence level and progress to single paragraph, multi-paragraph, text structures, comprehension strategies; Teachers start with easier concepts first such as identifying characters, setting, plot and progress to harder concepts like themes or inferences).
Each step must be based on concepts previously learned and continual review until mastery must be a part of practice. Systematic, sequential and cumulative learning enhance explicit instruction (EX: Even if a student demonstrates mastery of a comprehension strategy one day, a teacher may practice the strategy over a number of weeks to ensure mastery prior to introducing the next comprehension strategy).
Teachers use approaches such as gradual release of responsibility models (I Do, We Do, You Do) where the teacher models and students have multiple opportunities to practice with support and independently (EX: A teacher may model how to make an inference based on text clues. Then, students will get an opportunity to practice making inferences as a class with the teacher guiding and providing corrective feedback as needed. Finally, students may work independently to make inferences at their desk after reading an informational text followed by the class reviewing the inferences together to ensure accuracy).
Teacher assesses where students are, progress monitors as frequently as possible, diagnoses where skill gaps exist, and adapts instruction as needed (EX: To start the year, a teacher administers a comprehension test to see if students can do a wide range of comprehension tasks from basic recall to making inferences. Based on overall classroom data, the teacher decides where to start comprehension instruction and which strategies to prioritize teaching and introduces them from the easiest pattern to the hardest pattern. In addition, the teacher may use individual student data to plan which sounds to practice one-on-one or in small groups based on student needs.).
Findings below are drawn from What Works Clearinghouse educator practice guides published by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.
The What Works Clearinghouse report (2010), "Improving Reading Comprehension in Kindergarten through Third Grade" (pg. 16-22) "indicates strong evidence" for "teaching students how to use reading comprehension strategies." Specific types of strategies such as activating prior knowledge, questioning, visualization, monitoring/clarifying/fix-up, inference, and retelling were identified.
Download this IES practice guide (PDF)
The What Works Clearinghouse (2008), "Improving Adolescent Literacy: Effective Classroom and Intervention Practices" (pg. 22-26) indicates "strong evidence" for "providing direct and explicit comprehension strategy instruction." This study identified specific steps to teach comprehension strategies including: 1) Carefully select the text to use to teach the strategy, 2) Show students how to apply the strategy to multiple texts, 2) Ensure the text is appropriate for the reading level of the students, 3) Use direct and explicit instruction to teach students how to use the strategies (outline strategies, outline how they are important, model how to use while "thinking aloud" in a text, provide guided practice applying, and provide independent practice using the strategies).
Download this IES practice guide (PDF)
What Works Clearinghouse (2022), "Providing reading intervention for students in grades 4-9: Educator's practice guide" (PG. 27-74) indicates "strong evidence" for "routinely using a set of comprehension-building practices to help students make sense of a text." This study identifies strategies like building world and word knowledge so they can make meaning of text, providing opportunities for students to ask/answer questions as they read a text, teaching students a routine to identify the gist of a text, and teaching students to monitor their comprehension while they read.
Download this IES practice guide (PDF)
Teaching students using direct instruction in comprehension strategies was also one of the practices identified by the National Reading Panel (NRP) study as well.
Teachers must guide students to look for meaning (Sweet & Snow, 2003) and "grapple with ideas in a text" (Beck & McKeown, 2006) until the students achieve understanding. In order to build towards this practice, teachers must train students to attend to what they read at the word, phrase, sentence, paragraph, and text level. In addition, teachers must model strategies that encourage students to think deeply and connect new learning to their background knowledge, as well as provide guided practice and opportunities to apply strategies independently. An important factor in comprehension is a reader's existing knowledge on a topic. For this reason, a teacher must also strive to help students unlock or activate their prior knowledge on a topic to better comprehend a text. Comprehension strategies are "routines and procedures readers use to help them make sense out of texts." Of course, these routines should be explicitly and directly taught by teachers and can range from questioning to summarizing, finding the main idea, making inferences, using graphic organizers, visualizing, answering questions, reciprocal teaching, etc. The National Reading Panel identified six solidly research-tested comprehension strategies (and one additional strategy with evidence of improved comprehension): 1) Monitoring one's own comprehension, 2) Using graphic and semantic organizers, 3) Generating questions, 4) Using mental imagery, 5) Summarizing, 6) Answering questions, and 7) Working collaboratively with a peer on a comprehension task.
Comprehension Instruction should target the following components:
Each skill is outlined below, with sample activities to target each skill. A more comprehensive list of sample activities is available via the "reading comprehension" tab on the literacy portal.
The National Reading Panel identified vocabulary instruction as a core method for improving reading comprehension. Vocabulary activities will be covered in greater detail during the Evidence-Based Vocabulary Strategies document, but some vocabulary activities that will aid reading comprehension are included here.
Pre-Teach a Small Set of Vocabulary: Select a short informational text to read with your students (3-5 paragraph expository text). Review the text in advance, identifying words that students might not know. Select 2-4 key words that are important to understanding the passage. Introduce the words to the students in advance, providing a student-friendly definition for each word. Read the passage aloud with the students, stopping to recheck their understanding of how each vocabulary word is used in the context of the passage. Encourage the students to work together with a peer to come up with their own unique sentence using each one of the vocabulary words. Alternatively, ask students to complete a Blank Frayer Model to reinforce a word. You can find a completed Frayer model here.
Four Corners Vocabulary: Students will divide pieces of paper into four segments. They will write the word in one corner, the definition of the word in another, a sentence using the word in another, and a picture that represents the meaning of the word in the fourth corner (Ex: if the word were "loathe" they may write "to hate" as their definition, "I loathe broccoli." as their sentence, and a picture of a stalk of broccoli as their image to remember the word's meaning).
Provide a brief 3–5-minute introduction on the topic before reading to help students develop knowledge that might help them understand what they are reading. This can be done by asking students to read an easier, brief passage before presenting the higher-level text on the topic. For example, students can be provided with easier-to-read informational descriptions and illustrations of the history of the Harlem Renaissance before reading a young-adult novel on the same topic. Another way to prepare students for reading about a topic is to present a short 2–4-minute video clip, podcast, or brief informational lecture with illustrations. For each resource, provide a purpose, such as asking students to look for two things they learned about the topic. from the video or podcast that they will share with the group or with a partner when the video or podcast ends. The teacher can summarize the most important ideas that were shared and clarify misunderstandings.
Teach and explicitly model how to find clues in the surrounding sentences to help students determine the meanings of words they do not understand. Demonstrate three steps for determining the meaning of unknown words using surrounding sentences. First, mark the word the students do not understand. Second, have the students reread the sentence with the unknown word and look for clues in that sentence to figure out the word's meaning. Third, if the sentence with the unknown word does not provide enough information, have students reread the sentences before or after and look for clues to figure out the word's meaning. Be sure to tell students that sometimes they will read the sentence or the sentences around the word and still have difficulty figuring out the meaning of the word. If the surrounding sentences do not provide enough information to determine the meaning, students can ask for help or look up the word.
Knowing the meaning of prefixes and suffixes will help students understand the meaning of these multisyllabic words. Teach the meanings of prefixes and suffixes, especially those that students will encounter in the text. If the intervention curriculum does not have a sequence for teaching prefixes and suffixes, start by teaching commonly used prefixes (e.g., un-, re-, dis-) and suffixes (e.g., -s, -es, -ed). If students know the common prefixes and suffixes, move on to less frequently used prefixes (e.g., trans-, under-, anti-) and suffixes (-ial, -eous, -ence) or on to ones that are more difficult. Review "Resource 3A.1 and Resource 3A.2" from the third What Works Clearinghouse study for a list of the meanings of frequently occurring prefixes and suffixes.
Students need to be familiar with the syntax of the English language to properly comprehend sentences. You can increase student awareness of and experience with sentences through a series of activities:
Match components of a complete sentence: Say, "Today we will make complete sentences by combining a subject (who or what a sentence is about) with its matching predicate (what the subject is feeling, thinking or doing). Ex: Template (blank)
| Who or What? | Action (Doing, Thinking, or Feeling? | | :-: | :-: | | The timid cat | ran up the tree to safety. | | The brown and white dog | hides under the couch. | | The furry squirrel | chews excitedly on his new bone. |
You can find a full activity here for teaching sentence structure.
Build simple sentences: Give students a sentence builder chart with at least one category filled in. Guide students to fill in the remaining components by asking basic questions: "Who survived? Where did he survive?"
| Who or What? | Action? | Where? | When? | How? | | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | :-: | | The penguin | survived | in the icebox | during the day | by cooling off. | | The elves | danced | on the table | at night | with silent feet. |
Completing Advanced Sentences, Creating Sentences from Word Bank, and Sequencing Sentences: Once students can build basic sentences, try working with more detailed sentences. Students can start by completing portions of advanced sentences, creating sentences from a word bank, and eventually sequencing a sentence when the words are mixed up. Find a summary of each activity here.
Visualizing Sentences: The visualization sequence outlined here starts with describing a picture and moves to visualizing/describing something familiar, visualizing a descriptive sentence, visualizing a descriptive text, and serving as the "visualizer" in a reciprocal teaching routine.
Once students develop sentence-level comprehension skills, they will need to learn components of quality paragraph or multi-paragraph writing. Move through the below steps to build paragraph awareness:
Main Idea Activity Sequence: The sequence of main idea activities located here gradually introduces young students to the concept of main ideas. The sequence starts with a topic sort, brainstorming details, sorting main ideas and details, picking the main idea, verbalizing the main idea, and writing a main idea / supporting details.
Coding Paragraphs: In order to understand and know how to write paragraphs, students need to understand paragraph structure. This paragraph coding activity helps guide students through the process of identifying key components of paragraphs (topic sentence, supporting details, concluding sentence, transition words or phrases).
Paragraph Shrinking: Once students have mastered the concept of main ideas using the above main idea sequence, they can regularly do "paragraph shrinking" with a partner. Teach them steps to take to identify the main idea. For example, they may use a three-step process like: 1) Ask yourself the most important who or what in the paragraph, 2) Ask yourself the most important thing about the who/what in the paragraph, 3) Say/write a main idea in ten words or less that includes the most important who/what and most important thing about who/what. Encourage students to read paragraph or multi-paragraph essays together, stopping after reading to "shrink" the paragraph. Once students are familiar with paragraph shrinking you can move on to getting the gist of an entire text.
Paragraph Sequencing: Write the sentences of a short paragraph (4-6 sentences) on notecards or strips of paper. Encourage students to work in teams to read each sentence and sequence them in a cohesive order. The teacher can circulate around the room and ask students to defend why they grouped the sentences in the order that they did.
Different genres have specific characteristics. If students understand the specific characteristics of different texts and know what to look for, they can increase their overall comprehension of the text. Teachers need to make students aware of how each of the below text types function, and how to approach each one:
Additionally, teachers can continue reinforcing other text level strategies that enhance comprehension such as:
Narrative Story Mapping: Teach students about the key elements of a story (setting, plot, problem/solution, climax, etc.). Introduce them to a graphic organizer such as a story map or story structure chart and practice applying it to a story you've read recently. Encourage students to get into the habit of completing one of these charts to organize each story read in class. To make the process more kinesthetic/tactile, you can put out a floor map with the story elements. Students walk by each item on the map while describing the details of each element as it relates to the story.
Informational Text Organizer: Teach students the characteristics and components of expository text (generally provides information, features a topic and key ideas, conveys an author's point of view, encourages a reader to think of the significance of the information in the context of their life and the world). Assign students to read an informational text with a partner, working together to fill out an Informational Text Organizer
Anticipation Guide: Anticipation guides are a prereading strategy intended to improve students' comprehension by allowing them to use their background knowledge, make predictions or state opinions, analyze their rationale for their prediction or opinion, and assess the accuracy of their prediction or opinion. Teachers generally select a text, come up with anticipation questions they want the students to respond to relative to the text, give a brief introduction to the text that will be read, then engage the students in completing the anticipation guide, and facilitate discussion of the guide via strategies such as turn-and-talk. The anticipation guides handout outlines two different forms of completed and blank anticipation guides that can be used prior to reading texts.
Author's Purpose: In addition to learning about different texts and genres, students must also learn that authors generally write for a purpose. By understanding the different purposes for writing, students can learn to better comprehend a text based on the author's purpose. The author's purpose and author's purpose chart helps outline the different reasons authors write and also provides a regular format for students to assess the author's purpose for different texts.
Building on their paragraph shrinking tools, teach students specific steps for identifying the gist of a text. 1. Identify and mark the most important person (referred to as the who), place, or thing (referred to as the what) in a section of text. 2. Mark and then list the important information about the most important person, place, or thing. 3. Synthesize or piece together the important information to formulate a gist statement. 4. Write the gist statement in your own words. 5. Check that the gist statement includes all the important information in a short, complete sentence that makes sense.
As students increase their vocabulary knowledge and enhance their knowledge of how sentences, paragraphs, and texts work, they will also benefit from learning metacognitive strategies that will benefit them as they approach texts. The seven primarily metacognitive strategies outlined by the National Reading Panel are:
Strategic Questioning: Open-ended questioning and discussion involves longer, more elaborate answers than closed "yes or no" questions about literal events. High-leverage questions are those that require students to refer to the text and develop inferences rather than solely relying on personal experience. Strategic questioning allows teachers to guide students in the right direction by drawing their attention toward key events/understandings in a text. Examples of transferable questions that help students make inferences are:
Narrative:
Informational:
Annotating Texts: Annotating means writing comments or marking pages as you read. Annotating can help students remember key information, ask questions they might have, underline tricky vocabulary words to figure out, identify key themes, or find evidence. Like any comprehension strategy, it must be explicitly taught, modeled, and practiced to become a routine practice. A guide on annotating can be used to teach students how to annotate and remind them of what they should write. A sample text excerpt along with annotating guidelines can also be found here.
Reciprocal Teaching: Reciprocal teaching is an instructional strategy whereby students become the teacher during reading sessions, particularly in a small group format such as guided reading. Students must be gradually trained how to complete each of these roles prior to doing them independently. The teacher should introduce each role, modeling through thinking aloud and providing plenty of examples. Practice each role separately over a series of days, giving students a chance to practice each role prior to regularly assigning all roles for students to act as teachers. The reciprocal teaching cards can be given to students as prompts to remind them what their role includes.
Before, During, After Questions: Getting students into a routine of considering key questions before, during, and after reading is a good way to get them to internalize how they should interpret texts. These cards can be used in whole group (place them in a pocket chart and pull some to discuss before reading, during reading, or after reading), small group such as guided reading (give one to each student and stop to have them answer before, during, or after reading), and cooperative learning (pair students up with a partner to discuss a couple of questions before, during, or after reading).
The video library has clips of real K–3 classrooms modelling every one of these practices, and the printables library carries materials for the same skills.
Seven evidence-based literacy practices for kindergarten through third grade — the research, the teaching sequence, and the materials, free for teachers and families.