How to Better Comprehend What You Read

Cookbooks, social media, instruction manuals — no matter where you await, we live our lives surrounded by words. That'due south why reading comprehension is one of the most valuable skills a pupil can primary.

Merely it's not automatic. Reading comprehension needs to be taught in the classroom to have a lasting impact, whether you're teaching kindergarten or high school English language.

Many students struggle with reading comprehension and understanding for a variety of reasons:

They prefer a different learning style
They're not interested in reading or writing
They don't accept the necessary prior knowledge to sympathise the text
They take trouble focusing on one discussion at a fourth dimension and skip important ideas
They're working with a learning need like dyslexia that makes understanding written materials difficult

Every student deserves the take a chance to build disquisitional comprehension skills. Keep reading for eleven strategies you lot can use in your classroom to help students love reading!

What is reading comprehension and why is it of import?

Reading comprehension is a reader's ability to sympathise the explicit and implicit meaning of a text, or piece of writing.

It moves across vocabulary cognition and word recognition to add meaning. When students use reading comprehension skills, they're turning words into thoughts and ideas.

Reading is one of the most important ways students and adults learn new data. Reading comprehension can besides help struggling readers build enjoyment of reading and participate more than fully in lessons.

And it's not just for the classroom, either — reading comprehension has real-life applications for readers of all ages. It can:

Equip readers to brand skillful 24-hour interval-to-day decisions with available information
Requite readers the ability to recall critically nearly what they read online and in the news
Assistance readers decipher meaning in recipes, directions or other step-by-step instructions
Assist students move past word recognition into understanding and remembering the text

Improving reading comprehension tin can assistance your students become successful readers in and out of the classroom for the residuum of their lives.

Two core components of comprehension

A student points at words in a picture book as they practice reading comprehension skills.

The two main components of reading comprehension are vocabulary knowledge and text comprehension. Both of these skills combine to help students get the virtually out of a text.

Vocabulary noesis

Vocabulary knowledge is where reading comprehension starts. Students with adept vocabulary strategies understand what words mean and have the groundwork knowledge to understand a given text.

It too includes strategies for using context clues to determine the significant of unfamiliar words. The reading comprehension process is over before it begins if students don't have solid vocabulary knowledge or the power to learn new words.

Text comprehension

Text comprehension is a large-picture wait at what, exactly, a text means. It helps students interact with a text to sympathize what's being said and what they demand to learn from it.

When students have adept text comprehension skills, they can answer questions about what the author is saying, summarize the passage and connect information between texts or prior knowledge.

In short, it helps them move beyond literal comprehension and into higher levels of thinking.

x Ways to improve reading comprehension skills

A young girl in a pink shirt reads a storybook to improve reading comprehension skills.

Whether you're teaching high school or uncomplicated school, it's never too tardily to utilize reading comprehension strategies to improve understanding, heave retentivity and brand connections. Every student is different, so arrange your teaching methods accordingly!

Some of the most effective reading comprehension strategies include:

1. Build on existing noesis

One of the biggest barriers to reading comprehension is a lack of groundwork knowledge.

If you're reading a text nearly astronomy, for example, enquire students to record or explain what they already know about the solar organization. For easy insights, have students answer quick questions or fill out a KWL (Know, Want to Know, Learned) nautical chart and share the results.

Make sure all students empathize key terms and ideas before you read the text, so everyone starts on the aforementioned page (literally). This helps students draw inferences and make connections between the text and things they already know, leveling the playing field when it comes to prior knowledge.

two. Identify and summarize key ideas

After students read, summarizing a text tin can assist them pull out main points and absorb more information.

As you introduce summarization, guide students through with leading questions and a specific structure — length, key points, etc. Apply the "I do, we do, yous practice" format to model good summarization techniques.

Every bit you model the practice, teach students how to:

Separate facts from opinions
Detect key ideas amongst extra information
Place important words and phrases
Look up vocabulary they don't empathise

Teaching students how to exercise this consciously helps train their brains to get-go summarizing automatically, leading to better reading comprehension overall.

3. Use online resources

Thanks to the internet, reading doesn't just happen IRL — information technology'south online, too! There are lots of resources y'all can use in your classroom to engage kids with different interests as they practice their reading comprehension.

Prodigy English is a brand-new adventure that introduces kids to a world filled with adventures, wishes and more ways to love reading.

Its game-based platform encourages students to answer curriculum-aligned reading and language questions to get more energy. Once players are energized, they can get together resource from an open up earth, craft items, earn coins and build their very own village!

Every bit they play, you'll be able to track their progress and achievement. Prodigy English language is coming Spring 2022, so sign upward now to be the first to know when it's ready for you lot and your students!

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4. Use visual aids

A teacher reading a picture book to a group of students sitting on floor mats as they work on improving reading comprehension skills.

To help students build a picture in their minds of what they're reading, use visual aids and visualization techniques.

Start by reading aloud and asking students to attempt and picture what's happening in their heads. After, use writing prompts similar:

What colors did you lot meet the most?
What do y'all think the setting looked like?
How would you describe the master grapheme?
What sounds exercise you call back you would hear in the world of the story?

Have students depict out a scene, graphic symbol or story for even more understanding. They can make a family unit tree of the characters or fun notes to aid them call back the primal points in the story!

Ballast charts, word walls or motion-picture show books can as well aid reinforce fundamental concepts for your students. When they're able to visualize the story or information they're reading, they're more probable to retain key information.

5. Develop vocabulary skills

Vocabulary is an important part of agreement a text and is vital for reading ease and fluency. Vocabulary teaching strategies can help students build the tools to empathize new words on their ain.

To assist students acquire and remember new words, try:

Making a word wall in your classroom
Pairing new words with concrete deportment
Creating graphic organizers that assistance relate known words to new ones

Read-aloud strategies can also help you model the process of learning new words for students. Show them how to apply context clues to find meaning, and have them make a vocabulary list of all the new words they know or want to learn.

6. Implement thinking strategies

To encourage students to engage critically with a text, enquire questions about:

Where they can spot bias in the material
Why the writer chose a detail genre or style
What they think happened before or later the story
Why characters responded to situations the way they did

These questions get students thinking about the deeper meaning in a text and help them use disquisitional thinking skills as they look for key points. Encourage students to inquire clarifying questions when they don't know what the text is proverb, or build mind maps to draw connections between ideas and prior knowledge.

7. Create question and answer scenarios

A young student sits at her desk and works on a reading comprehension activitiy.

Questioning students on different aspects of the text helps them examine information technology with fresh eyes and discover new ways of interpreting information technology.

Utilize questions that claiming students to find the answers:

In several unlike parts of the text
On their own, using groundwork noesis
In their own opinions and responses to the text

Ask students questions to clarify pregnant, help them understand characters meliorate, make predictions or help them understand the author's intent.

Whether you're answering these questions in a group or individually, they'll help students make a habit of request questions and using critical thinking skills. After all, the magic happens when students start thinking beyond the folio!

eight. Encourage reciprocal teaching

Reciprocal teaching gives students 4 strategies for reading comprehension and uses specific techniques to get them involved in interrogating a text.

Using the "I practise, we do, you do" method, follow the four edifice blocks of reciprocal teaching:

Predicting — Asking questions about what's going to happen in the story and afterward it'southward done.
Questioning — Asking questions about the who, what, when, where, how and why of a story.
Clarifying — Helping students recognize their defoliation, identify what'southward confusing them and taking steps towards agreement.
Summarizing — Condensing a reading to its most important facts and ideas.

Check out four reciprocal didactics strategies to apply in your classroom.

9. Use summarizing techniques

Although information technology might seem deadening for students at showtime, summarizing techniques help them larn how to find and bring together central ideas. It trains them to automatically synthesize information as they read, and can do good learners of all levels.

When students first encounter a text, have them write a summary and encourage them to refine information technology until information technology only includes the essential data. Inquire clarifying questions to guide their writing, including:

What is the chief idea of this passage?
What details back up the master idea in the story?
What unnecessary data did the writer include?

This helps them see how parts of a story are connected and emphasizes the importance of providing textual support to their argument and summaries.

ten. Enquire students to make predictions

Two students work through a reading workbook during reading comprehension activities.

Predictions happen when students use the evidence from the beginning of a text to approximate:

What will happen next
What they think the text will be nigh
What details an author volition employ to support their argument

At the beginning of a reading, have students record their predictions. Once the reading is over, accept a discussion virtually what they got right and what they got wrong. What made them call up of their prediction? Did the author follow their expectations, or subvert them?

Model predictions with a call back-aloud or requite students blank statements that guide their thinking.

Non only does this build reading comprehension, just information technology encourages students to engage with the material critically and teaches them how to build solid, text-based arguments.

11. Try making inferences

When students make inferences, they're using the information they know to make a gauge about what they don't.

Instead of just predicting what's going to happen next, students make inferences about information outside the story — what happened before the story started, what genre the story isor what happens after the story is over.

Like predicting, you can model inferences with read-alouds or guided questioning. Have students write a prequel to the story, or build a character background based on textual evidence.

Inferences assist students describe conclusions betwixt the text and their prior knowledge near how the globe works. Plus, information technology tin help boost their inventiveness!

How parents tin can encourage reading comprehension at home

Two parents read with their daughter at home.

Reading doesn't stop when children leave the classroom. Parents, yous accept an of import opportunity to support reading comprehension at home, too.

1. Read aloud with your children

Reading with your child has lots of benefits — it helps you bond, it builds their imagination and information technology's fun!

Equally you lot read, discuss topics and ask your child guiding questions nearly what's happening. What do they retrieve will happen next? Which character would they well-nigh like to exist friends with? What would they exercise if they were the main character?

Not only do these questions make reading fun, it tin can help strengthen their reading comprehension skills.

2. Buy or infringe books at the right reading level

Whether it's your local bookstore or library co-operative, in that location are always books available at your child's reading level.

If your child is reading books that are too easy, they'll get bored. Just if books are too hard, they'll become discouraged. Talk to your child's teacher about how to find books in their sweet spot.

Host a volume swap with neighbors or friends to get access to new titles, or look in the library for books that chronicle to your kid's unique interests.

3. Hash out what your child is reading

Mother and daughter read a book together to boost reading comprehension.

Equally a parent, you lot have a wonderful opportunity to hold low-force per unit area, friendly conversations with your child about what they're reading — no pop quiz required.

Ask your child what their favorite volume is, or what they like reading at domicile or at school. After they're done reading, inquire them questions nigh what happened in their volume, or what they recall will happen side by side, to build an organic dear of reading.

4. Check out online reading programs

Online reading apps can help kids engage with books and reading in new, exciting ways! For a digital literary experience, check out:

Ballsy — A gratuitous online library of digital books you can browse and read with your child.
Headsprout — An adaptive online learning resources for students in kindergarten to fifth course.
Audible — A library of audiobooks and podcasts for kids who prefer to listen rather than look at words.
Sora — An Overdrive-based app where you can download books and audiobooks from your library for gratis.

v. Try game-based learning

If your kid doesn't desire to sit nonetheless long enough to read a volume, game-based learning can help them master important concepts and become the ants out of their pants.

Charades, phone, Pictionary and Scattergories are all fun games that connect meaning with words, aid boost your child's groundwork knowledge and make learning words fun.

Try some in your firm to see which your child likes best.

vi. Ask their teacher

Your child's instructor should exist your start finish for any questions about your child'due south reading comprehension or areas for improvement.

Whether it's part of a parent-teacher conference or just a quick grab-up after school, they'll be able to give you valuable advice about how to best help your kid beloved reading. Use their advice to connect the books you read at dwelling and the games you play with what your child is working on in class!

Reinforce with continual learning and encouragement

Reading comprehension doesn't just happen all at once — information technology'southward a lifelong procedure that students build on as they grow.

In each grade, encourage students to engage more deeply with what they're reading and ask critical questions. As students build reading comprehension skills, they'll have an opportunity to notice joy and meaning in their reading.

Desire more ways to build reading comprehension? Prodigy English is coming in Spring 2022!

In this all-new adventure, students tin can explore and create a world of their very own equally they see new characters, earn coins and build a domicile. Sign up now to exist the commencement to know when Prodigy English is gear up for you and your students!

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Source: https://www.prodigygame.com/main-en/blog/improve-reading-comprehension/