The Importance of Comprehension

Hello Moms and Dads,

       My name is Ms. Block and I am here to discuss with you a little about comprehension, and the importance it serves to your child's literacy development. 

Oral and Written Language Facilitate Comprehension

         Oral and written language assists in the development because writing, speaking, and hearing a story helps the student comprehend the material. They then are able to record information about the particular story.     Comprehension starts at the beginning of background knowledge.  It then continues to expand as teachers practice read-aloud stories, or students read individually and students respond to the text. They are able to think about their responses by using mental pictures. 

Academic Language

   Comprehension of content-based language, also known as academic language, students need to have an understanding of semantics and pragmatics (students social use and meaning of language). Syntax (structure of language and grammar). Vocabulary (word definitions), and lastly Text Structure (organization of the text). If students are not able to understand and perform all of these components they will have a harder time deciphering the meanings of words in the text. They also need to understand text structure in order to recognize how to use words appropriately.  

Text Factor

We have two main factors to consider when looking into the development of comprehension. The first factor is Text Factor, which include such items as: 

1.            Genre- Categories of stories, which include three broad categories: informational books, poetry, and nonfiction. 

2.           Text Structure- Distinguishing structural elements the separate stories. These will include: plot, characters, setting, point of view, and theme.

3.           Text Features- Authors use text features in order to establish a particular effect in their writing. This includes, but is not limited too: Dialogue, Foreshadowing, Imagery, Symbols, and Suspense

4.           Text Complexity- A three part model that includes:

•    Quantitative- measurements of word frequency and sentence length.

•    Qualitative- levels of meaning, structure, language, clarity, and knowledge demands.

•    Reader and task considerations- student's motivation, knowledge, and background interests that is determined by the teacher.

Reader Factor

The reader factor is very important it allows us to provide the tools to be able to help the students comprehend

Purpose of reading- Due to reading for all different reasons the student needs to have a purpose for reading. This builds a mental blueprint that helps them focus on their reading and how important the information they are reading about is. 

Characteristics- this explains what the story is about or what is interesting about the story. 

Motivation- this element gives students the incentive to read the story. The story will help them understand a particular meaning or provide some interest to them. 

All of these components provide reason for the students to be engaged. They need to be able to open the book, or hear a story, and be able to relate to the text. This will make the reading more personal, and have the student be better engaged and motivated to read. 

Cognitive Targets

1.                 Locate and Recall: Students are asked to locate specific information in the text, or they are asked to recall main ideas or specific elements in the story. 

2.                Integrate and Interpret: Students make comparisons, explain the motivation of the characters, or analyze different relations between ideas all throughout the text. 

3.                Critique and Evaluate: The students look from different points of view about what they have read and evaluate the quality and effectiveness of that particular text. 

Using these cognitive targets help underlie the mental processes of thinking of reading comprehension.

The Reading Process

    Being a constructive process the reading process helps create meaning including the reader, text, and purpose with either a social or cultural context. The main goal of this process is to understand the information that has been presented and to utilize all of the given information for the intended purpose. It is organized into five categories:

    Phonemic Awareness & Phonics- As students read through a story they use their knowledge of manipulating sounds and apply the differences of phonemes and graphemes.

    Fluency- How well a students reading flows, and how they are able to understand and figure out automatically. 

    Vocabulary- The new words that the students learn as they start to comprehend more information.

    Comprehension- Using a combination of text and reader factors students become more equipped to ask questions and make predictions about a story.

    Word Identification- Being able to recognize high frequency words and using knowledge of Phonics. 

Each category has five stages:

         Pre-Reading- This helps with prior knowledge and identifying key words.

         Reading- This helps learn the reading types. This could mean a student working with partners or individually.

         Responding- This is to have the students continue to think about what they have read.

         Exploring- To go into further depth with what the students have read. 

         Applying- This impact the readers understand and uses activities to reflect what the students have learned from the text. 

     Students read in a variety of different ways, and acquire a variety of different information. For example the use different online sources to do research, reading textbooks, reading novels, etc. The more they read the more they learn. 

Demands of Domain Specific Text: 

     This kind of text is referring to Tier 3 words, which means specialized terms for content area specific words. These words can be fairly difficult to understand the meaning of when they are presented because of the fact that they are only used in a specific area and refer to concepts and not objects. These words are taught through in depth instruction and they are taught thoroughly because they are used in higher education. 

Comprehension Strategies:

  Strategies help the student go into more depth with their understanding of the text. This helps determine whether the students are comprehending the material they are reading, and to solve problems as they arise. Such strategies that help the comprehension process include, but are not limited too: 

1.            Activating Background Knowledge-    Readers bring their prior knowledge to every reading. Based on what they have experienced students will read a text differently.  

2.           Drawing inferences-"Reading in between the lines". Drawing inferences from what the story has mentioned.  

3.           Monitoring- The conversation that a student has with himself or herself as they read. This could be to ask questions or draw conclusions. 

4.           Self Correcting- This is also known as Repairing. Students figure out the problem and solve it by taking different action. This could be by rereading or skipping ahead to help figure out the problem.

5.           Well-developed language- Language, grammar, and vocabulary presented in the text. 

English Language Learners and the Difficulty in Comprehension:

            Comprehension can be very difficult for an English Learner to learn. This is because they are often missing on of the three prerequisites of Comprehension, which are: background knowledge, vocabulary, and fluency. It can also be difficult if a student has not had the middle-class American experience, or who have different cultural knowledge. If a student has come from a different country it would be hard for them to understand a book about the Pilgrims who came to America. 

             Having difficulty with complex words during a particular topic can be frustrating too. The student may understand the particular topic, but are having a hard time grasping the meaning of specific words. This can also aid in students being put at the wrong reading levels. If a student is having a hard time understanding text structure and Tier 2 vocabulary they can't read fluently and won't comprehend. All of this can be very overwhelming and frustrating for English Language Learners. 

Assessments:

     There are assessments for the two main factors in comprehension the Readers Factor and the Text Factor as we have discussed above. Both of these assessments can be Formal or Informal.

Text Factor

Formal Assessment: 

    District or State writing assessments these assessments analyzes the mechanics and content. They can also be used for more than just Text Factors. 

Informal Assessment: 

1.           Book Talks

2.          Reading Logs

3.          Creating/writing process

4.          Understand text structures through graphic organizers and observations. 

Reader Factors:

Formal Assessment:

   District or State writing assessments these assessments analyzes the mechanics and content. 

Informal Assessment: 

1.           Comprehension Thinking Strategies: Assesses whether the students can use the eight strategies for fiction and nonfiction. 

2.          Development Reading Assessments: In order to make instructional decisions teacher monitor and assess students' strengths and weakness during their reading.

   Informal Reading Inventories: Students are measured on their comprehension of nonfiction and narrative stories. They will be answering questions about the story and retelling main ideas, and parts in the story.  

References:

Tompkins, G. (2011). Literacy in the early grades. Boston:Pearson.