LibGuides: Foundations of Literacy Digital Reference Tool: Comprehension

Overview of Reading Comprehension

The whole point of reading is comprehension! Readers must understand and be able to use what they have read.

Thinking back to Scarborough's Reading Rope - the GOAL is skilled, fluent reading. If any of the components of language comprehension or word recognition are lacking, reading comprehension will suffer.

Comprehension is an active skill. Good readers can read a text, analyze it, and make sense of the information. Then, they are able to make it their own and combine it with what they already know.

If you're new to learning about comprehension, Reading Rockets provides a free, self-paced tutorial to strengthen your knowledge.

Narrative and Expository Text Structures
Learn the difference between narrative and expository text structures and how they are taught.

Big Ideas About Reading Comprehension from the National Reading Panel

According to NRP findings:

Readers “derive meaning from text when they engage in intentional, problem solving thinking processes.”
NRP data revealed 7 instructional strategies that improve comprehension
- Comprehension monitoring
- Cooperative learning
- Question answering
- Question generating
- Story structure
- Graphic and semantic organizers
- Summarization
Teaching students to use comprehension strategies in combination improves standardized test scores.

Best Practices for Reading Comprehension

Strategies to Teach:

Asking/Answering Questions
- Higher order
- Lower order
Recognizing Text Structures
- Description
- Compare/Contrast
- Cause/Effect
- Sequence
- Problem/Solution
QARs (Question-Answer Relationships)
- Right There
- Think & Search
- Author & Me
- On My Own
Making Inferences
Making Connections
- Text to Self
- Text to Text
- Text to World
Visualizing
Monitoring Comprehension

Making Inferences
This video explains how to combine clues found in the text with prior knowledge to make inferences or “read between the lines.” The video can be used in the elementary school classroom to teach students to make inferences.

QARs (Question-Answer Relationships)

Assessing Comprehension
Quick overview of 4 basic comprehension assessment types, with pros/cons of each. (True/False, multiple choice, Cloze tasks, and open-ended questions)
CORE Reading Maze Comprehension Test
"A maze reading assessment is a task that measures how well students understand text they read silently. The maze task differs from traditional comprehension in that it is based completely on the text. After the first sentence, every seventh word in the passage is replaced with the correct word and two distracters. Students choose the word from among the three choices that fits best with the rest of the passage."
** Grade level expectations for grades 2-8 are provided on page 153!
Maze (DIBELS)
This Maze assessment is timed for 3 minutes.
Choose your grade level, then download the appropriate packet. It will be a zipped file which includes student passages for the assessment and a separate document with instructions/scoring key. Progress monitoring materials are also available in a separate zipped file.
** Second and third grade benchmarks can be found at the end of this document:
https://hermitagesd.net/wp-content/docs/schools/aes/aes_dibels_reading_assessment.pdf

QAR (Question-Answer Relationships)
In this video, the teacher introduces 5th grade students to the comprehension strategy, Question Answer Relationships (QAR). The teacher guides students through the process of deciding what the relationship is.
2nd Grade Lesson using Story Maps
"Following a whole-class read-aloud of The Hen and the Apple Tree, the teacher completes a story map with input from students to help them identify the moral of the story (beginning at 12:07)."

Additional Resources

Five From Five's Comprehension Menu
Information on different features of comprehension, including making inferences, background knowledge, text structures, comprehension monitoring, etc. Also includes information on assessing comprehension and helping students who struggle.