Reading Comprehension Is A Cognitive And Mental Problem Solving Process

Comprehension is also an important factor when speaking of literacy. Students should be taught the many strategies that will help them with comprehension and word recognition. In my experience in a first grade classroom I used many of these strategies. Within my lessons I included the activation of prior knowledge to construct meaning, the use of context clues in a sentence, pictures clues, predicting, and drawing inferences about ideas or characters in the text. I always made sure that I modeled the strategy for the student before they set of to do it.

Reading fluency is considered an integral component of the reading process and it has a big presence in the classroom. Its importance became evident since the National Reading Panel (2000) pronounced fluency instruction and assessment an essential and was thus incorporated into the reading First guidelines of No Child Left Behind in 2002 (Shelton, Altwerger, &Jordan, 2009). Reading fluency has been defined in many ways; an outcome of decoding and comprehension, a contributor to both decoding and comprehension, the ability to recognize words rapidly and accurately, the connections

Children are able to connect the visual of seeing letters on the page and the vocal sound of their parent as they are being read to. They also learn their colors, shapes, alphabet, numbers, and expand their vocabulary. Each of these skills will assist in reading comprehension and literacy.

A doctor once said ‘the more that you read, the more things you will know. The more you learn, the more places you’ll go’. That doctor was, of course, Dr Suess in his book 1978 book, I Can Read with My Eyes Shut!. Reading is the orchestration of many skills. It is much more than simply decoding words. The National Reading Panel Report (A Closer Look, 2004, p. 1) summarised a child’s reading process and teachers’ effective reading instruction into five essential components. These five critical elements are phonological awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary and comprehension. Each element is individually important; however, each cannot occur independently of one an other. The most effective way to teach these elements is through a balanced

Pikulski and Chard (2005) argue that reading fluency can prove to be a vital bridge for a learner to perfect his or her skills in reading comprehension (p 511). Therefore, the ability of the learner to read the instructional material fluently is likely to have a direct impact on the same learner’s ability to decode the meaning behind the statement read. Fluency therefore makes it possible for learners to acquire the necessary skills that can foster their ability to read and understand comprehension easily. Fluency equips a learner with accurate word recognition abilities that can be central in the way the learner interprets the meaning that is carried across the literature read. The instructors therefore can help learners improve on their fluency by offering constant practical reading session, which can give

These core components include phonemic awareness, phonics and word study, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000). Vocabulary knowledge is important because it encompasses all the words we must know to access our background knowledge, express our ideas and communicate effectively, and learn about new concepts. “Vocabulary is the glue that holds stories, ideas and content together… making comprehension accessible for children.” One of the oldest findings in educational research is the strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Word knowledge is crucial to reading comprehension and determines how well students will be able to comprehend the texts they read in middle and high school. Comprehension is far more than recognizing words and remembering their meanings. Children with reading problems read less and vocabulary knowledge often suffers. Without reading, the more challenging text, they cannot learn the vocabulary they need to be able to read further challenging

Reading comprehenison is an essential compontent to reading. Altough, students with literacy challenges often times lack the strategies need to effectivily comprhend the material they read. Several key components to readng comprehension include applying background knoweldge, asking questions of self and text, summarizing, monitorying understanding and looking to clarify information. Once students with liteacy challenges learn the strategy they struggle with knowing when to use it, if its effective and adapitng to meet their needs.

The process of learning to read can be difficult for young children. Teachers require knowledge and understanding of the reading process as well as skills to teach children skills and strategies to become a successful reader. Using a balanced approach to teaching children reading skills and strategies, teachers start with explicit instruction before gradually giving students responsibility and independence in using these strategies for reading. Teachers must understand the importance of oral language, vocabulary, concepts of print, phonemic awareness, phonics and comprehension within the reading process to ensure that children are well equipped with these elements prior to learning to read. Knowledge and understanding of these concepts give teachers the skills to teach children to read.

Text comprehension is defined as ?demonstrating understanding of the text at the mental model level by generating inferences, interpreting, paraphrasing, translating, explaining, or summarizing information? (Otero, Lecentsn, & Graesser, 2014: p. 17). There are various studies based on the cognitive science illustrating the understanding of text in relation to its comprehension for children (Chambres, Izaute&Marescaux, 2002). Such studies develop theoretical models for the comprehension process and test the predictions of the model by collecting empirical data from readers (Readence, J & Barone, 1997). Growth in reading is considered one of the most successful undertakings for most of the students (Searfoss, 1997).

A student that is learning to read needs to learn to decode words. If a learner has a hard time with this, then processing or comprehending can and will be challenging for them. They will be so focused on the word they are trying to see, while they forget or do not understand what is being said in the passage. The goal for a learner is to be an effective reader; which means, the

Comprehension and responding to literature are used to help learners grasp the concept of the information or text to make meaning. Allowing them to draw from their prior knowledge eventually building on what they already know. As learners read they should make meaning of the text, while the teachers encourage learners to use various strategies along the way. “ With the educator observing and noting how the learner is processing text, occasionally providing guidance in use of reading strategies.” According to Bainbridge & Heydon( 2013, p. 277). However this paper consist of choosing an appropriate book to conduct a read aloud, choosing two comprehension strategies, reflecting on my teaching, saying why I chose the strategies, describing the read aloud experience, saying how the responding to literature went and explaining how the activity strengthen comprehension.

National Reading Panel define fluency as "reading text with speed, accuracy, and proper expression."(2000, p. 3-1). Reading Fluency has three interdependent distinct elements which are accuracy, rate, and prosody. Several decades of scientific research by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD], clearly shows effective reading instruction addresses five critical areas: Phonemic Awareness, Phonics, Fluency, Vocabulary, and Comprehension. Research points out that Reading Fluency helps build a bridge between basic word decoding and comprehension.

Reading is believed to be an easy task, something we all learning and develop through the years as we grow, however, is it really that simple? To reading and understanding are both essential when a student begins to read. It is a complex action that requires a multitude of different actions/components, all working at the same time, to become a successful reader. The components that are pertinent to reading are: comprehension, oral language, phonological awareness, phonics, fluency and vocabulary. Without these components, reading may very well be irrelevant because it does not make sense to read and not understand what is being transmitted/relayed. According to the National Reading Panel (NRP), “a combination of techniques is effective for

Many students are passed on through the education system without having proper reading skills. These skills consist of fluency, comprehension, and phonemic awareness. Reading skills are foundational building blocks for elementary aged students. Students who lack proper reading skills, such as fluency or the rate in which they read, will ultimately lack comprehension of what they are reading due to the amount of time in which it takes the students to read. This leads to the question, how does fifth grade students lack of fluency affect his or her reading comprehension? Unfortunately, because reading skills taught in kindergarten and first grade focus mainly on phonemic

When data from students who had average accuracy and fluency scores, but lower comprehension scores were compared to data from those with similar accuracy and fluency but average comprehension, the consistent differences were found to be lower oral language and vocabulary skills in the poor comprehenders upon entry into formal schooling. (Nation, Cocksey, Taylor & Bishop) Thousands of dollars each year are spent on intervention, trying to improve the reading of children that show delays. When one reads, the clear goal is comprehension of what is read. Without communication of ideas between the author and reader, decoding texts is pointless. Most intervention programs are focused on phonics and word decoding. Oral language interventions concurrent with vocabulary and comprehension tasks at age eight have been shown to lead to significant improvements in reading comprehension. (Nation, et al., 2010). Reading comprehension is not merely a product of being able to decode words and sentences. How we teach children to process and integrate the ideas found in text can have a large impact on their ability to function in a world of ever expanding knowledge and information.