The Importance Of Text Comprehension

In chapter five, by Cris Tovani, “Why Am I Reading This” explains how educators need to establish a clear reading instructional plan. In order to accomplish understanding students need to concentrate on main ideas from the readings. Tovani explains that it is vital for teachers to model how students should hold their thinking or slow down their reading. Throughout the chapters she gives examples as question strategies, highlighting text, or summarizing key points. As this will benefit students in their reading assignment. Tovani also explains throughout the chapter that teachers should model thinking aloud. This strategy will benefit students on how to negotiate difficult text.

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.

Many students who struggle with reading ask why should we read, what is the point? The point is that being able to read opens you up a whole new world of knowledge and imagination. But to have that new world opened up you need to be able to comprehend what you are reading. The primary goal of reading is to determine the meaning of

Students may be able to read a text, pronounce words, but have no idea what is being interpreted. Not understanding what is being read can make reading seem like a chore or just boring to students as they see no point in reading since they have no idea what is going on. Teachers need to make sure they teach students how to monitor their comprehension so students can make sure they are comprehending what they are reading and gaining a meaning experience from it not just reading

Student survey responses corresponded with the most expressed concerns of teachers. Of the 45 students surveyed (proficient and deficient learners in reading comprehension), all expressed that the vocabulary within a text is difficult and makes it hard to comprehend a reading. Furthermore, 73% of students said that language (the language used in the text and the format of a text) in historical or English readings were confusing. Finally, 86% of students said that most of what they read in class was boring and they found very little interest in the reading.

* Use comprehension strategies to build literal and inferred meaning about key events, ideas and information in texts that they listen to, view and read by drawing on growing knowledge of context, text structures and language features (ACELY1660), (ACARA, 2012). Learning to read is essentially learning to decode and understand the words/language written in the story and to construct meanings from those words (literacy) (Nicole & Roberts, 1993). The more language the children (and adults) hear and read the more developed their vocabulary will become (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998, Nicole & Roberts, 1993, Anderson et al, 1985). Reading fluency is enhanced with an enlarged

The Common Core State Standards place importance on the ability for students to understand and analyze key ideas in text. Students who have reading fluency are able to read text at a steady rate, summarize supporting details, and analyze different points of view. To assess a student’s fluency rate, teachers can measure WCPM, the words read correctly per minute in 2-3 grade-level passages. To assess reading comprehension, teachers can ask students to read and summarize short passages, then rate the student’s summary of the events and characters on a 7-point scale.

I believe the more I read and the more I write, the easier it is for me to comprehend what is being told in the story line. For example, in Dr. Seuss’s ABC book, I was able to comprehend which words began with each letter in the alphabet as the book contained pictures and examples of each letter. The book Ten Apples Up On Top! by Theo LeSieg helped me gain a knowledge and understanding of counting numbers as well as learning my colors. Each page in this book displayed an apple in bright red color with one or more apples on each page. By doing so, this taught me to count each apple on the page and the repetitive use of the red colored apple taught me the color red. I believe it is imperative that all readers gain a knowledge and understanding of words being used in their

Luke, Woods, and Dooley start the article by describing what comprehension is. They identify comprehension as, “a cognitive, but also social and intellectual, phenomenon, and that narrow understandings of comprehension are insufficient for literacy education for diverse and

Students' comprehension of the text will be the dependent variable in this study. Comprehension will be measured using the student responses to the story questions. The questions and answers are coming from Benchmark Literacy. In this study, the students will not be given the opportunity to look back in the text to respond to any questions.

A teacher’s learning instruction is essential and paints the picture for a child’s success in society. A teacher’s literacy instruction provides children with the needed skills to be fluent in reading, writing, phonemic awareness, and math. Phonics and phonemic awareness also help with reading comprehension. Preparing a child for fluency and comprehension means doing the basics and leading up to the high expected skills. Each step in developing reading and writing is built off the other; for example, cause and effect. What is an affective comprehensive literacy instruction? Is one better than the other? This essay will define comprehension literacy instruction and explain how to scaffold a child’s literacy development.

As proven by the decades-long study by the National Reading Panel Report, there are five pillars students must be exposed to (foundations of reading): phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. When students encounter a word that is not in their spoken vocabulary, they will not understand that word in the text (Reading Horizons, 2015). Context clues help students meet the goals for each of these vocabulary skills. Also, there is a direct relationship between vocabulary and knowledge of the world. Students with a better background of the world are more successful with their

That being said, comprehension is not just understanding the singular words that are being read, but being able to put them together, along with activating previous knowledge, make sense and develop meaning to the text. Essentially, when a reader is immersed and engaged in text, they are actively developing meaning to the text while formulating questions that may later be answered by the text itself.

The failure of students being able to read and comprehend what they are reading is a great concern for most schools. When students enter the fifth grade and are not on grade level, they are already behind their classmates. Teachers are then responsible for remediating the students to get them on grade level. Unfortunately, these same students are unable to keep up with on grade level standards teachers are required to teach, because they lack the skills needed. These students will continue to struggle throughout their education because they will not be able to catch up to their grade level. Many educators have realized there is a gap between fluency and comprehension. Because of this realization, special instruction such as guided reading and remedial teaching has been implemented.

In this information–driven age, preparing students to read a variety of texts with complete understanding should likely be one of our educational system’s highest priorities. Understanding is more than just the ability to produce information on demand (knowledge) or the ability to perform learned routines (skills). “Understanding is the ability to think and act flexibly with what one knows.” (Active Learning Practice for Schools, n. d.) A review of the literature in the area of reading comprehension of elementary-age students shows two principle areas of focus. There is a body of literature that examines the development of proficient vs. struggling comprehenders and another body of literature that compares methodologies for teaching