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Explore by Literacy Component: Comprehension

• Is there a suggested order for teaching comprehension strategies?

  Many experts refer to the 6 major comprehension strategies:  connecting, questioning, predicting, imaging/visualizing, inferring, and synthesizing. 95 Percent Group recommends that they be taught in the order listed above and shown graphically on the continuum available for download.
  
  Children learn to connect and question early on; these strategies are followed by predicting, which is a natural outgrowth of asking a question. Being able to visualize with all five senses allows a reader to imagine what might be occurring above and beyond what the author says; this leads naturally to generating an inference which requires going beyond what the author explicitly says to combine background knowledge with clues in the text. Synthesizing is last.
  
  Download this continuum of comprehension strategies.
  
  
  

• Do you have a suggested definition for each of the comprehension strategies?

  One of the most important contributions of Isabel Beck and colleagues who wrote the book Bringing Words to Life was their emphasis on defining new words in student-friendly definitions. Many times while teaching comprehension strategies the terms teachers use are academic language that doesn’t have meaning to students. What is an inference? What’s synthesizing?
  
  Download this document to obtain a list of common comprehension strategies along with student-friendly definitions for each one.
  
  
  

• Is it important to use a “think-aloud” approach when modeling comprehension strategies?

  Since comprehension occurs in the mind of the reader, it’s very difficult for students to see what a skilled reader is doing when making sense of text. That’s why using a “think-aloud” approach is very important when modeling for students. One of my favorite techniques is to identify a spot in the room (like a corner of the ceiling) and tell students that when I look up I’m sharing my thoughts like a speech bubble on a cartoon.  What I’m saying is not written in the text, but rather it’s what I’m thinking.
  
  Download this document that outlines the importance of think-alouds in teaching comprehension.