Learning objectives
By the end of this lesson, you should be able to:
- Define reading comprehension
- Describe factors that promote reading comprehension
- Explain levels of reading comprehension
Reading comprehension is the ability to process a text, understand the meaning of the text, and integrate it with what is already known to the reader. The fundamental skills that are required for efficient reading comprehension include:
- Knowing the meaning of different words.
- The ability to understand the meaning of a word in a discourse context.
- The ability to follow the passage organization and to identify references and antecedents in it.
- The ability to come up with inferences from a passage concerning its contents.
- The ability to identify the passage’s main thought.
- The ability to answer any question that is answered in the passage.
- The ability to identify the propositional structures or literary devices that have been used in the passage.
- The ability to determine the tone of the passage.
- The situational mood, spatial and temporal reference points, intentional and casual inflections and many more.
The ability of an individual to comprehend a text is influenced by their abilities and skills to process information. In case the recognition of words is difficult, students spend a lot of their processing capacity for reading individual words. This in turn interferes with the ability that they have to comprehend what they read.
There exist a number of reading strategies that improve reading comprehension as well as inferences, including even improving the vocabulary, critical text analysis and practicing deep reading.
Comprehension skills are learnt by people through instruction and education, others learn by direct experiences. Proficient reading is dependent on the ability of effortlessly and quickly recognizing words. It can also be determined by the cognitive development of an individual, that is (the thought’s construction processes).
There exist specific characteristics determining the success of an individual’s comprehension of a text. They include prior knowledge concerning the subject, the ability to make inferences from monitoring comprehension and methodical questioning like “Is it important to read this?”, and well-developed language.
Comprehension strategy instructions often involves starting by helping the students by imitation and social learning, where tutors explain model both bottom-up and top-down, genre styles and familiarize the students with a complexity of text comprehension. The second stage after the contiguity stage involves the gradual release of responsibility where the students are given individual responsibility to use the strategies that they have learnt independently. The last stage involves guiding the students towards a self-regulated learning state having more and more practice as well as assessment.
Reading comprehension refers to the understanding level of a message or a text. This understanding arises from an interaction between the written words and the manner in which they trigger knowledge outside a text. Comprehension can also be said to be a creative, multifaceted process that is dependent on 4 language skills, they are: phonology, pragmatics, semantics and syntax. The seven essential skills in the reading of comprehension are: decoding, vocabulary, fluency, sentence, cohesion and construction, background knowledge and reasoning and attention and working memory.
Levels of reading comprehension
There are two levels of processing that are involved in the reading comprehension, they are the shallow (low-level) processing as well as the deep (high-level) processing. The deep processing involves semantic processing while the shallow processing involves phonemic and structural recognition.
Reading strategies
There are different strategies that are applied to teach reading. Strategies are important as they determine the level of reading comprehension. Reading strategies differ depending on the challenges such as: long sentences, new concepts, unfamiliar vocabulary, and complex sentences. Attempting to handle all these challenges in a single attempt can be difficult. Therefore, there is a need for creating reading comprehension strategies. You should note that the strategies discussed below should fit the level of the learner, age, aptitude, and ability. Some of the strategies employed by teachers include: reading aloud, more reading exercises, and group work. Let us look at more reading strategies:
- Reciprocal teaching. This strategy was developed in the 1980s and it teaches students how to predict, clarify and summarize contents of a text. The application of strategies like summarizing after every paragraph read has proven to be an effective strategy for building the comprehension of students. The idea behind this strategy is that students tend to develop stronger comprehension skills on their own provided the teacher gives them specific mental tools for unpacking text.
- Instructional conversations. This is also referred to as comprehension through discussion. They help create higher level of thinking opportunities for students through promotion of aesthetic and critical thinking of the text. Research has shown that class discussions improve the ability of students to generate new ideas and questions.
- Text factors. When some factors of text are understood, it becomes easier for a student to comprehend text. An example of these factors is the genre of the text, like historical fiction, poetry or biographies. Different genres have different characteristics of text structure. Once these characteristics are understood, it becomes easier for the reader to comprehend.
- Non-verbal imagery. This involves media that makes use of schemata to make connections with the text and stir the imagination of the reader. Some major examples include: images, emoji and emoticons. Some of these features may also elicit humor which might be good for comprehension and remembrance.
- Visualization. This involves creating a mental image while reading a text. This can be promoted by asking sensory questions. Readers can practice visualization through what they hear, smell, taste or feel.
- Partner reading. This strategy involves reading pairs. It involves one student reading aloud to another student then asking questions. This strategy is important as it provides a fluent reading model and helps students to learn decoding skills by giving feedback. It also gives a chance for the teacher to observe the comprehension level of different students and give individual remediation.
Comprehension strategies
Research has shown that highly proficient readers make use of certain strategies to comprehend text. These strategies can also be applied by less proficient readers to improve their comprehension. These strategies include:
- Making inferences. This involves connecting different parts of a text that are not linked directly to come up with a reasonable conclusion.
- Planning and monitoring. This involves practices like previewing text, for example, through the table of contents or outline. This triggers the mental awareness of the reader and may help a reader set the goals for reading.
- Asking questions. This is a good way to seek clarification in areas not comprehended and it also enhances the comprehension of a text as a whole.
- Determining importance. Pinpointing ideas and messages in a text that a reader considers important is also good for comprehension. Summarizing the important ideas helps promote comprehension of text.
- Visualizing. Readers can form visual and mental images after reading a text. The ability to connect visually with text is a strategy that promotes reading comprehension.
- Making connections. This is a cognitive approach which involves making a personal connection like personal experience and previously read texts, with the content of a text to establish a deeper understanding of the text.
Summary
We've learnt that:
- Reading comprehension is the ability to process and understand the meaning of a text.
- The ability to read comprehension is determined by the ability to process information.
- Strategies like critical analysis, visualizing, and asking questions can improve reading comprehension.
- There are two levels of processing in reading comprehension: shallow and deep.
