What is Reading Comprehension?
When we read, thoughts fill our mind. We might make connections to our own life… we might have a question or an inference…Strategic readers address their thinking in an inner conversation that helps them make sense of what they read. They search for the answers to their questions. They attempt to better understand the text through their connections to the characters, the events, and the issues.
Identifying, Teaching, and Practicing Reading Comprehension Strategies
- Utilising prior knowledge
- Asking questions
- Making inferences
- Visualising
- Synthesising information
- Making connections
- Summarising
It is important to move past a superficial understanding of a text. Often reading activities will include a text and a couple of short answer questions focusing on lower-level thinking skills (Remember and Understand). That’s not how we roll! Our resources challenge students to use the full range of thinking skills including Applying, Analysing, Evaluating, and Creating/Synthesising. These strategies help students to understand more complex texts across the curriculum. As Harvey and Goudvis (2007) explain, higher-order thinking skills and “strategies such as determining importance and synthesising information help students as they read for information, particularly in social studies and science content areas” (p. 14).
How Our Resources Align With This Research
Our reading comprehension follow-up activities feature a wide range of reading comprehension strategies. We don’t just stop with summarising a text or finding specific information. Students make connections, use their prior knowledge, ask questions, make evaluations and personal judgments, visualise, make inferences, extend their vocabulary, have discussions, analyse, and more. From the very beginning, we have focused on including higher-order thinking skills that push students to think, dig deep into the text/topic, and use their new knowledge.
Providing rigorous texts that challenge students
We believe that, even by Year 3 and 4, students are ready to be challenged with texts of greater complexity. They also need to have a breadth of reading material across a range of genre, text types, and curriculum content. Research backs this up.
“We may have a problem with the ‘reading diet’ at school, specifically the range and variety of texts for reading. We need a greater focus on complex reading, figuring out meanings, appraising, and critically reasoning.”
It is so important in this era of fake news for students to be able to look critically at a text and to read deep for meaning.
EROs research document, “Keeping Students Engaged and Achieving in Reading” looks at a school that prioritised the time they gave to reading and literacy each day. By implementing a Daily 5 system where students also completed independent reading and word work, teachers had longer to spend with each reading group. “The new approaches allowed teachers and children to explore texts in more depth…The key was to slow the process down and allow time for the students to explore more challenging texts over time.” Results showed that students enjoyed the more complex texts and felt a feeling of achievement in completing them. They felt like “real readers.”
How Our Resources Align With This Research
Vocabulary development
Research has shown that children with larger vocabularies achieve better results at school, including higher reading achievement in particular. Progressing as a reader has a high association with an increased focus on vocabulary acquisition (Jesson, et al, 2018). Research also shows that vocabulary knowledge also can help students to improve their decoding skills and directly affects future reading comprehension success (Tunmer & Chapman, 2011).
This quote from The Oxford Language Report sums up the importance of vocabulary development:
Language opens doors. It unlocks the world of reading and the imagination, the excitement of writing, the capacity to explore new subjects and releases our potential to learn and grow as an individual.
How Our Resources Align With This Research
Content-area literacy
How Our Resources Align With This Research
- Dinosaurs
- The Solar System
- Natural Disasters
- Kiwi Innovators (inventors)
- The Treaty of Waitangi
- Ancient Egypt
- Under the Sea
- Kiwiana
- Māori Myths and Legends
- Sports Heroes
- Famous New Zealanders
Our Solar System Digital Activities integrate science concepts and vocabulary (Planet Earth and Beyond) with Literacy.
Integrating Writing and Reading
How Our Resources Align With This Research
Summing Up
I hope that wasn’t all too dry for you. We are passionate about keeping our content current and up-to-date with current research into reading. This means we will continually look to refine our resources and make improvements that will help you and your learners. When you purchase from us, you get free updates for the life of the resource.
Our full range of reading comprehension resources
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Onwards and upwards,