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Reading Comprehension
(Strategies & Skills)
Preface
Comprehension Strategies and Skills
In Daily Reading Comprehension, students learn and practice the following commonly tested comprehension strategies and skills, all proven to increase students’ abilities to read and understand a wide range of text types.
Strategies:
Make Connections
Students make connections to the text to aid their comprehension. Connections can be made to personal experiences or to things the students have seen or read.
This strategy helps students put what they are reading into context by helping them see the connections between the text and themselves, the world around them, and other things they have read or seen.
Visualization
Students make mental images of what they are reading. They learn to look for vivid language, including concrete nouns, active verbs, and strong adjectives.
Visualization allows readers to form mental images of what they are reading about. By visualizing, good readers can better remember the main ideas or events in a passage. Good readers use sensory words from the text to help them visualize and adjust their mental images as they read.
Organization
Students learn to find the organizational pattern of a text. This allows them to anticipate what they are reading and helps them focus on the author’s central message or important ideas.
By looking at how a passage or selection is organized, students can better understand the author’s intent, as well as predict what information is likely to appear later in the text. Texts are often organized sequentially, around main ideas and details, according to causes and effects, or by comparison and contrast.
Determine Important Information
Students learn to categorize information based on whether or not it supports an author’s central message or is important for a specific purpose.
When readers determine important information, they identify the type of text they are reading and then concentrate on finding the essential ideas, events, or details from that text. For nonfiction, determining the important information often means finding the main idea. For fiction, it means understanding essential plot points, themes, or character actions.
Ask Questions
Students learn to ask questions before reading to set a purpose for reading, during reading to identify when their comprehension breaks down, or after reading as a way to check their understanding of a passage.
By asking questions, readers can set a purpose for reading or make sure they understood what they have read. Good readers ask questions to involve themselves with the text and often ask questions before, during, and after they read.
Monitor Comprehension
Students learn to pay attention to their own reading process and notice when they are losing focus or when comprehension is breaking down. They then can employ another strategy to help them overcome their difficulty.
When students monitor their comprehension, they keep track of how well they understand the material and identify when their understanding breaks down. Related activities include asking questions, taking notes, and paraphrasing what has been read.
Skills:
Main Idea and Details
Students identify what a passage is mostly about and find important details that support the main idea.
Sequence
Students look for the order in which things happen or identify the steps in a process.
Cause and Effect
Students identify what happens (effect) and why it happens (cause).
Evaluate Evidence
Students study an author’s claims and the evidence that the author gives to support those claims.
Compare and Contrast
Students note how two or more people or things are alike and different.
Make Inferences
Students use their background knowledge and clues from the text to infer information.
Character and Setting
Students identify who or what a story is about and where and when the story takes place.
Theme
Students look for the moral or lesson in a fiction story or an author’s view about the world in nonfiction.
Author’s Purpose
Students determine why an author wrote a passage and whether the purpose is to entertain, to inform, to persuade, or to teach.
Prediction
Students use their background knowledge and clues from the text to figure out what will happen next.
Nonfiction Text Features
Students study features that are not part of the main body of text, including subheadings, captions, entry words, and titles.
Visual Information
Students study pictures, charts, graphs, and other forms of visual information.
source: Daily Reading Comprehension; Evan-Moor Educational Publishers;2010
Comprehension Strategies and Skills
In Daily Reading Comprehension, students learn and practice the following commonly tested comprehension strategies and skills, all proven to increase students’ abilities to read and understand a wide range of text types.
Strategies:
Make Connections
Students make connections to the text to aid their comprehension. Connections can be made to personal experiences or to things the students have seen or read.
This strategy helps students put what they are reading into context by helping them see the connections between the text and themselves, the world around them, and other things they have read or seen.
Visualization
Students make mental images of what they are reading. They learn to look for vivid language, including concrete nouns, active verbs, and strong adjectives.
Visualization allows readers to form mental images of what they are reading about. By visualizing, good readers can better remember the main ideas or events in a passage. Good readers use sensory words from the text to help them visualize and adjust their mental images as they read.
Organization
Students learn to find the organizational pattern of a text. This allows them to anticipate what they are reading and helps them focus on the author’s central message or important ideas.
By looking at how a passage or selection is organized, students can better understand the author’s intent, as well as predict what information is likely to appear later in the text. Texts are often organized sequentially, around main ideas and details, according to causes and effects, or by comparison and contrast.
Determine Important Information
Students learn to categorize information based on whether or not it supports an author’s central message or is important for a specific purpose.
When readers determine important information, they identify the type of text they are reading and then concentrate on finding the essential ideas, events, or details from that text. For nonfiction, determining the important information often means finding the main idea. For fiction, it means understanding essential plot points, themes, or character actions.
Ask Questions
Students learn to ask questions before reading to set a purpose for reading, during reading to identify when their comprehension breaks down, or after reading as a way to check their understanding of a passage.
By asking questions, readers can set a purpose for reading or make sure they understood what they have read. Good readers ask questions to involve themselves with the text and often ask questions before, during, and after they read.
Monitor Comprehension
Students learn to pay attention to their own reading process and notice when they are losing focus or when comprehension is breaking down. They then can employ another strategy to help them overcome their difficulty.
When students monitor their comprehension, they keep track of how well they understand the material and identify when their understanding breaks down. Related activities include asking questions, taking notes, and paraphrasing what has been read.
Skills:
Main Idea and Details
Students identify what a passage is mostly about and find important details that support the main idea.
Sequence
Students look for the order in which things happen or identify the steps in a process.
Cause and Effect
Students identify what happens (effect) and why it happens (cause).
Evaluate Evidence
Students study an author’s claims and the evidence that the author gives to support those claims.
Compare and Contrast
Students note how two or more people or things are alike and different.
Make Inferences
Students use their background knowledge and clues from the text to infer information.
Character and Setting
Students identify who or what a story is about and where and when the story takes place.
Theme
Students look for the moral or lesson in a fiction story or an author’s view about the world in nonfiction.
Author’s Purpose
Students determine why an author wrote a passage and whether the purpose is to entertain, to inform, to persuade, or to teach.
Prediction
Students use their background knowledge and clues from the text to figure out what will happen next.
Nonfiction Text Features
Students study features that are not part of the main body of text, including subheadings, captions, entry words, and titles.
Visual Information
Students study pictures, charts, graphs, and other forms of visual information.
source: Daily Reading Comprehension; Evan-Moor Educational Publishers;2010