Reading Comprehension Strategies for Students
Why can I never seem to recall the information I’ve read literally two seconds after I’ve read it? This is an example of poor comprehension and is an important area of focus for many of today’s literacy teachers. Having such a prevalent place in today’s school curriculum, literacy has almost become more popular than Twilight or One Direction; OR maybe more popular than both put together!
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| Gibsy12. (2013, August 6). "Twilight (One Direction)" [Online Image]. Retrieved from https://www.wattpad.com/story/7430879-twilight-onedirection |
OK, maybe literacy isn’t THAT popular; however, on page 12 of the Ontario Language Curriculum, reading and understanding a variety of literary texts and being able to use strategies to create meaning from those texts is number 1 in the reading strand’s four overall expectations. Thus, it goes without saying that remembering and comprehending what has been read is paramount to literacy education. This can be seen in today’s schools as teachers are putting more time into guided reading. In particular, teachers are beginning to focus on keeping month-to-month statistical reports that measure each student’s reading progress. A video that I found on the Curriculum Services Canada website highlights the benefits of guided reading and how this approach is incredibly effective. Essentially, it ensures that no student is left behind.
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| Newingham, B. (2012, December 4). "Guided Reading" [Online Image]. Retrieved from http://hil.troy.k12.mi.us/staff/bnewingham/myweb3/ |
When a teacher is present, students are able to ask questions to help them make connections and to comprehend the information. The only problem with guided reading is that it doesn’t take into account what happens when students are reading by themselves. Students need to learn how to read effectively and this means that inside of their educational ‘tool box’ they need a set of comprehension strategies that they can use to get the most out of their individual reading time.
Comprehension strategies allow students to become better learners and to independently make sense of the information that they're reading. By helping students to clearly organize their ideas, these strategies also allow for a greater retention of information. This kind of properly organized and retained information is much easier to recall and students can often remember more details regarding the text. 6 comprehension strategies that can help students to read more effectively are: predicting, inferring, connecting, visualizing, summarizing, and questioning.
Comprehension strategies allow students to become better learners and to independently make sense of the information that they're reading. By helping students to clearly organize their ideas, these strategies also allow for a greater retention of information. This kind of properly organized and retained information is much easier to recall and students can often remember more details regarding the text. 6 comprehension strategies that can help students to read more effectively are: predicting, inferring, connecting, visualizing, summarizing, and questioning.
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| Mohamad, I. (2015, October 2). "Comprehension Strategies" [Online image]. Retrieved from http://www.teachingskills.org/en/6-effective-comperhension-strategies/ |
Each strategy helps students to form their inner conversation voice and to think deeper than the normal surface level reflections.
Predicting helps students make assumptions about what might happen in the text by looking at such elements as the title, text, or images. Moving a little deeper than predicting is inferring.
Inferring allows students to use information already found in their schema to help fill in the gaps and to draw conclusions. These conclusions help students to connect their previously developed schemas with new information found in the text.
Connecting teaches them to relate the text’s information with themselves, other texts, and the world around them. This connection promotes the visualization of their past experiences.
Visualizing is essential to comprehending information. Students learn to create mental images of the characters, settings, and events that occur in the text. This allows students to get a better understanding of the text’s main ideas and leads them to the next strategy of summarizing.
Summarizing teaches students to organize the entire text into it’s simplest form. It forces students to remove the extra verbiage and extraneous examples, leaving them with the bare essentials; however, in my experience, this strategy always proves to be the most difficult. Throughout this entire process students constantly need to be asking questions.
Questioning needs to take place before, during, and after the reading of a text. This helps students to better understand the meaning of the text and the author. The most important part about questioning is to be honest. Students need to answer their questions honestly so that they know whether or not they need to reread the text to get a better understanding of the content.
Another fantastic reading comprehension sheet that outlines the six strategies just mentioned above can be found here. This sheet was adopted from the work of Beale, Keene, and Dovani and was published by Scholastic. This sheet is intended for grades 6-8 and covers the number 1 overall expectation mentioned earlier in this blog regarding the reading strand of the Ontario Language Curriculum.
Predicting helps students make assumptions about what might happen in the text by looking at such elements as the title, text, or images. Moving a little deeper than predicting is inferring.
Inferring allows students to use information already found in their schema to help fill in the gaps and to draw conclusions. These conclusions help students to connect their previously developed schemas with new information found in the text.
Connecting teaches them to relate the text’s information with themselves, other texts, and the world around them. This connection promotes the visualization of their past experiences.
Visualizing is essential to comprehending information. Students learn to create mental images of the characters, settings, and events that occur in the text. This allows students to get a better understanding of the text’s main ideas and leads them to the next strategy of summarizing.
Summarizing teaches students to organize the entire text into it’s simplest form. It forces students to remove the extra verbiage and extraneous examples, leaving them with the bare essentials; however, in my experience, this strategy always proves to be the most difficult. Throughout this entire process students constantly need to be asking questions.
Questioning needs to take place before, during, and after the reading of a text. This helps students to better understand the meaning of the text and the author. The most important part about questioning is to be honest. Students need to answer their questions honestly so that they know whether or not they need to reread the text to get a better understanding of the content.
Another fantastic reading comprehension sheet that outlines the six strategies just mentioned above can be found here. This sheet was adopted from the work of Beale, Keene, and Dovani and was published by Scholastic. This sheet is intended for grades 6-8 and covers the number 1 overall expectation mentioned earlier in this blog regarding the reading strand of the Ontario Language Curriculum.
Another very useful comprehension sheet found on Jen Bradshaw’s blog called Teacher Karma, is intended for grades 4-6 and involves students asking questions that will help them to develop all six strategies mentioned above.
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| Bradshaw, J. (2015, October 15). "Metacognition Think Sheet" [Online Image]. Retrieved from |
And, because we know that every student - no matter how old they get (I’m 27) - loves a great game to help them learn new information, here is an excellent comprehension game found on Miss B’s blog called Adventures with Miss B. Much like the think sheet on Jen Bradshaw’s blog, this comprehension game also promotes each strategy listed above. The best part, is that this game disguises learning with a fun filled socially interactive activity that promotes community.
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| Miss Beavis. (2014, May 12). "Comprehension Dice Game" [Online Image]. Retrieved from https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Reading-Comprehension-dice-Game-grades-K-2-1247651 |
Thank you so much for taking the time to read this educational blog regarding reading comprehension strategies. I hope that you found this information to be useful for whatever purpose that brought you to this page. Now, the only couple of questions that you need to ask yourself are: did I actually retain the information presented? And if so, what were the three most important ideas? And have I been making connections? And how does this information connect to my previously developed schema? And.............. oh COME on! I'm just kidding, I know you comprehend it!
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