5 Ways to: Improve Comprehension Instruction
Over the coming weeks, Think Forward Educators will be posting a series of blog articles written by educational experts providing ready-to-use tips on how to implement the Science of Reading into the classroom.
Inspired by Tom Sherrington’s Five Ways Collection, the posts have been edited and curated by Brendan Lee and Dr Nathaniel Swain.
The third blog post of the series from structured literacy specialist, Debbie Draper gives us a comprehensive look at comprehension.
Comprehension involves forming a coherent mental model that integrates vocabulary, syntax, background knowledge and semantic knowledge. It relies on
Accurate automatic and fluent word recognition
Vocabulary knowledge
Sentence and text structure knowledge
Cognitive processes such as knowledge integration, comprehension monitoring and application of strategies
It is sometimes assumed (and indeed, implied by the Reading Rope) that fluency and comprehension will automatically result from the coming together of the separate strands. Comprehension can also be improved with explicit instruction.
What is comprehension anyway?
Comprehension, simply put, is understanding. Oral comprehension (listening comprehension) is being able to understand the spoken word. Oral language, however, is usually much less formal in vocabulary and structure than written language. When we are talking and listening, cues such as tone of voice and body language and firsthand background knowledge assists with understanding the speaker’s message.
However, written language is rarely just speech written down and we have the complexities of written language to deal with as well. These are outlined in Scarborough’s rope under the banner of language comprehension. Language comprehension refers to the understanding of written texts whether they are listened to or read independently.
Reading comprehension, oral and language comprehension are highly correlated. To be skilled comprehenders, readers need to be automatic and strategic with all elements of the reading rope and be able to select and use cognitive and metacognitive strategies. This means that students need to be explicitly taught how to monitor their comprehension, understand when meaning breaks down and be able to select and use appropriate fix-up strategies to build meaning.
The Complexity of Comprehension
Unlike decoding, comprehension is harder to recognise and assess. As it is something that occurs in the brain, we can’t actually see or hear it. We can usually only infer that a reader has comprehended a text by their oral, visual and written responses.
Comprehension is an interaction between the reader’s
language knowledge and skills
background knowledge of content and vocabulary
cognitive flexibility in the use of comprehension strategies
purpose for reading
and the text
complexity (syntax, sentence length, multisyllabic words, structure, vocabulary)
difficulty (familiarity with content)
type, genre, forms and features.
Putting it into Practice
Here are five ways to improve reading comprehension instruction:
Embed comprehension into content instruction
Teach micro-skills as well as whole text comprehension
Think about what to teach and when
Don’t be afraid of strategy instruction – but be wary of decontextualising it!
Teach explicitly through the Gradual Release of Responsibility model
(1) Embed comprehension into content instruction
We use the term “mental model” to describe the structure you create in your memory while reading a passage. It makes sense to help students meaningfully interact with a text at the same time as deepening their comprehension of the content. In order to do this efficiently, consider embedding comprehension instruction into content instruction.
Integrated comprehension instruction facilitates reciprocity – the more knowledge developed on a topic, the easier it becomes to read and understand other texts on that topic. As well as helping students develop a rich mental representation of content, it enables teachers to integrate comprehension into all curriculum areas. Rich learning is not about separating what is traditionally seen as English from Science or HASS or the Arts or PE. The aim of all learning areas is understanding of the subject.
So, rather than thinking about comprehension strategies first start with the question “Why is this learning important?”
Consider content (concepts, understanding and skills), then consider the texts that will help support the development of the content knowledge. Finally think about your students and the support that they will need to be able to access those texts.
What text structures and features might students need to be explicitly taught?
What vocabulary (Tier 2 academic and 3 content- specific) will students need to know and how will I teach it?
What skills and strategies will students need to employ in order to understand this text?
How can we best help students meaningfully interact with text to deepen comprehension?
(2) Teach micro-skills as well as whole text comprehension
Comprehension instruction has traditionally focused on comprehension of chunks of texts, if not whole texts. The attention is now being drawn to those comprehension micro-skills that developing readers need to develop a better mental model as they are reading. The micro-skills focus on the sentence level.
Understanding that sentences have particular structures is important to reading comprehension
Anaphors – part of the text that takes it meaning from another part of the text (pronoun – noun connection, ellipses)
Connectives (temporal, causal, contrastive and continuant)
Syntactic Awareness – the meaning behind word order and function, phrase and clause structure and the role of punctuation.
Comprehension of texts also relies on the reader being able to make “gap filling inferences.” Writers do not include all the information needed to understand a text. For example, the sentence “Alex looked out the window then searched for her coat.” relies on the reader to infer that Alex is about to go outside for some reason, looks out of the window to check the weather, sees that it is cold or windy and decides that she will need her coat.
When teaching these skills explicitly, use authentic texts to find relevant examples. Explicitly teach through modelled reading / think-alouds and shared reading before guided and independent practice.
Here are some examples from a draft English / Science shared reading and writing unit currently being trialed. Take note that teaching syntax and sentence structure is more effective when connected to writing.
Butterflies are flying bugs.
They live on trees.
They live in grassy places.
Butterflies like to be warm.
Anaphora (pronoun – noun connection). What does “they” refer to?
How can we combine the sentences into one or two sentences using connectives (and more scientific vocabulary)?
Butterflies are flying insects that live in trees and in grassy places.
Using connectives to show meaning and relationships
Butterflies cannot live in very cold places because
Butterflies cannot live in very cold places but
Butterflies cannot live in very cold places so
Refer to “The Reading Comprehension Blueprint” by Nancy Hennessy and “The Writing Revolution” by Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler for more information and ideas. (NB: these books are available from many sites. I have no affiliation with any book sellers!)
(3) Think about what to teach and when
When we consider all the elements that impact on comprehension, it can become overwhelming. In order to focus your instruction go back to the curriculum. When writing learning intentions consider how students will be assessed and what evidence you will need to collect. The Achievement Standards (or similar) of the curriculum need to be clearly understood in terms of the skills and knowledge required. In this example I have used the Australian Curriculum.
The Australian Curriculum Achievement Standards lay out what we should be assessing
The Content Descriptors provide some detail to help us elaborate on the Achievement Standards
The Elaborations provide some ideas for instruction but are not compulsory
The National Literacy Learning Progressions provide more fine-grained detail. Learning Progressions are designed to be used in all Learning Areas
The National Literacy Learning Progressions can help narrow your focus but be wary of teaching these skills in a decontextualised way. Use the curriculum and the progressions as a resource to determine what to focus on within your content rich teaching sequence.
The ultimate goal of strategy instruction is not the strategy itself but the comprehension of texts through the flexible use of a variety of relevant strategies.
The following example details a lesson plan based on these curriculum outcomes:
(4) Don’t be afraid of strategy instruction – but be wary of decontextualising it!
Strategy instruction has become a hot topic recently, particularly as a result of Natalie Wexlers’s assessment, that the teaching of reading comprehension has become narrowly constricted to practicing a growing set of disconnected skills. Her recommendation is to focus on knowledge and vocabulary building and reject the practising of comprehension skills.
When we look back at the original research, knowledge-building and research-informed cognitive strategy instruction went hand in hand. These studies focused on the cognitive strategies that led to improved comprehension. This was also backed up a meta-analysis of over two hundred studies for the National Reading Panel Report in 2000. The studies took place over a relatively short time with positive results but, unfortunately the idea that “if a little bit is good, a lot must be better” took hold. Strategy instruction is best practised in a relatively short time, with some strategy revisiting as text demands become more complex.
Remember that the aim of strategy instruction is for readers to have a toolkit of strategies to draw from when meaning breaks down. Strategy instruction is a means to an end, that being the comprehension of the text.
The transition from promising research into the classroom practice often involves over- simplification along with a plethora of ready resources from eager publishers. Over time, educators were led to mistakenly believe that practising skills such as finding the main idea or inferring would lead to better outcomes. These skills were mostly practised out of context with no explicit instruction.
Effective comprehension strategy instruction involves teachers modelling through a “think aloud” how to read and understand a text. This process enables students to understand how a good reader thinks while they are reading – opening the “black box” to reveal how a reader develops a mental model.
Strategies that have been determined to have a high effect size include inferring meaning, summarising and synthesising, developing questioning strategies, using graphic and semantic organisers and monitoring comprehension and identifying and resolving difficulties.
However, each of these strategies also require a range of cognitive processes to occur:
Comprehension Strategy
Cognitive Processes and Strategies Required
Inferring meaning
Understanding what an inference is
Understanding that prediction and inference are different but share some commonalities
Connecting background knowledge (schema) to information from the text
Determining the validity of an inference
Monitoring and adjusting inferences as more information is learned
Summarising and synthesising
Understanding the purpose of the task (what to summarise)
Determining importance – of the information relevant to the task
Sifting key ideas and relevant / irrelevant details
Collecting and evaluating information from a range of sources
Determining how to present a summary relevant to the task
Developing questioning strategies
Knowing what a question is
Understanding different question types and their purpose
Knowing how to answer different question types
Locating relevant information
Generating relevant questions
Using graphic and semantic organisers
Knowing different text structures and their purpose
Knowing a range of graphic organisers and their purpose
Matching text type and structure to a relevant organiser structure
Being able to determine importance, summarise and synthesise
Monitoring comprehension and identifying and resolving difficulties
Knowing when you have lost meaning and locating where
Determining why (vocabulary, semantics, content knowledge etc.)
Drawing from a range of cognitive strategies to resolve the difficulty
It can also be helpful to look at the curriculum expectations to determine which strategies to focus on.
(5) Teach explicitly through the Gradual Release of Responsibility model
The Gradual Release of Responsibility is a model designed to teach students skills and strategies that they have not yet mastered. The model brings back the “teach” into teaching and positions the teacher as an expert. It’s sometimes called the apprenticeship model.
Most teachers are competent readers themselves and are unaware of the cognitive processes they are employing to understand a text. Because the strategies have become automatised, it is sometimes difficult to think about what we are actually doing when we read.
When planning to introduce a new strategy to students, it is important to consider the following
Locate an appropriate text which provides several opportunities to highlight the particular skill or strategy you wish to make explicit
Scan the text for relevant teaching opportunities
Read the text, highlighting with sticky notes where you might stop and “think aloud”
Select a few pertinent examples. There is no need to stop and articulate your thinking on every page.
Write a script – determine what you will say and how you will connect your thinking to the text. Write the script in first person using I statements
Practise
A think aloud might feel quite unnatural at first, but it is a very powerful strategy when done right.
Revisit the strategy with the same, or another text, inviting students to share their thoughts and ideas. Reinforce full sentence answers using scaffolds such as sentence stems if needed.
Consider revisiting and reinforcing the strategy during small group guided practice. This approach is effective for fluent readers but may be cognitive overload for emergent readers who should be focusing on decoding.
Cooperative structures such as Reciprocal Reading and Literature circle can be useful, but only after students have been explicitly taught the strategies required in these approaches.
When students are reading independently, it can be helpful for accountability purposes for students to record aspects of their thinking e.g. record three inferences citing evidence from the text and your own thinking, use a graphic organiser to summarise the text, write three questions about the text for someone else to answer.
I DO, YOU WATCH
Reading & Comprehension
Modelled Reading
Teacher reads aloud to students whilst modelling and articulating effective reading and comprehension strategies. The teacher articulates the purpose of the read aloud, names the strategy and explains that effective readers use the strategy when they are reading. During the read aloud, students are required to listen to the teacher “thinking aloud” as they read the text.
The teacher talks out loud about what they are thinking as they read the words and the illustrations in a text. The thinking is articulated out loud in the first person (using I).
When I look at the cover of this book, I am predicting….. I am thinking that because (evidence from the text)…… When I just read that bit, I am starting to infer ……because…
I DO, YOU HELP
Shared Reading
Shared reading involves a simliar process to modelled reading, except that students are invited to share their own thinking at strategic points in the text.
The turn and talk strategy is very effective for this purpose as all students have an opportunity to participate. Model and reinforce the appropriate language to use.
Building an anchor chart with students helps them remember the strategy and anchors their thinking back to the lesson when they are required to use the strategy independently.
YOU DO, I SUPPORT
Guided Practice
During guided practice, teachers explain the purpose of the lesson and can model the focus strategy during the book introduction as a reminder to students.
As students read the text, the teacher listens to the student read aloud. At strategic points in the text, the teacher may ask the student to think aloud (articulate their thinking using the focus strategy). A prompt card or bookmark can be used as a scaffold.
YOU DO, I WATCH
Peer Collaboration
Students may work together in pairs or small groups to read and articulate their thinking out loud. For example, after a modelled reading students could “turn and talk” with a partner to explain their thinking about a text – “I infer that the wolf won’t blow the house down because in the picture I can see that he looks angry. I think that’s because he can’t blow the bricks down.”
During Literature Circles, students could take on roles and be scaffolded to explain their thinking along with evidence from the text. “When I read ……..I made a text to text connection because…….”
As students read independently, they should begin to automatically use the comprehension skills and strategies. In order to bring metacognitive thinking to the surface, teachers can require that students record 3 or 4 examples of their thinking. Scaffolds and sticky notes can be used to keep evidence for assessment.
An exploration of the various teaching approaches encompassed within Pearson and Gallagher's (1983) Gradual Release of Responsibility framework can be watched here.
In summary
DO integrate comprehension instruction into rich knowledge based units
DON’T teach comprehension using an isolated, decontextualised skills based approach
DO teach language comprehension from the early years through rich shared texts
DON’T wait to consider comprehension until students can decode
DO explicitly teach questioning skills and strategies and focus on student generated questions
DON’T think that questioning students is teaching comprehension – it is assessing comprehension
DO use the gradual release of responsibility to model think-alouds and show students what a good reader does metacognitively whilst reading
DON’T expect students to go from explanation to independence
DO teach micro and macro comprehension skills
DON’T ignore word level comprehension (vocabulary) or sentence level comprehension syntax and semantics
DO remember that the ultimate goal of comprehension instruction is understanding the text
DON’T forget that some students seem to automatically develop a range of comprehension strategies but some students will need to be expicitly taught strategies in order to have a repertoire to draw from
Infographic by Dr. Charlotte Forwood, teacher, speech pathologist and occasional sketchnoter.
About Debbie Draper
Debbie Draper is an educational consultant specialising in the science of reading and writing. Debbie has held many roles in the educational field including over 20 years classroom teaching as well as leadership roles at site, partnership and state levels. Debbie has worked at state level supporting the implementation of the SHIP (Students with High Intellectual Potential) focus school programme and co-developed and delivered a teacher training programme nationally and internationally.
Debbie has held district and regional roles implementing literacy, numeracy and Australian Curriculum initiatives. Whilst working in Northern Adelaide, South Australia, Debbie was instrumental in developing a 4-year professional learning strategy that led to significant improvements in student outcomes in comprehension. She currently enjoys a role working with sites in a private capacity empowering teachers to enrich their reading and writing pedagogy.
Comprehension References and Resources
Cain, K. & Oakhill, J.V. (1999). Inference making ability and its relation to comprehension failure in young children. Reading and Writing, 11(5) , 489
Duke Nell K., Ward Alessandra E., P. Pearson David (2021) The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction in The Reading Teacher Vol. 74 No. 6 May/June 2021
Hennessy, Nancy Lewis (2021) The reading Comprehension Blueprint: Helping Students Make Meaning from Text
Hruby, George G. Grounding Reading Comprehension in the Neuroscience Literatures Utah State University
(PDF) Grounding Reading Comprehension in the Neuroscience Literatures | George Hruby - Academia.edu
McNamara, Danielle S (editor) (2007) Reading Comprehension Strategies Theories, Interventions, and Technologies
Oakhill, J., Cain, K., & Elbro, C. (2015). Understanding and teaching reading comprehension: A handbook. New York: Routledge.
Wexler, Natalie (2020) The Knowledge Gap: The hidden cause of America's broken education system--and how to fix it
Wexler, Natalie(2022) ‘What Works’ in Reading Comprehension—And What Doesn’t https://www.forbes.com/sites/nataliewexler/2022/04/09/what-works-in-reading-comprehension-and-what-doesnt/?sh=5e36581f4e26
Webinars
Moats, Louisa - Reading Like a Detective Louisa Moats - Reading Like a Detective on Vimeo
Wexler, Natalie Don’t Stop Teaching Comprehension—Just Embed It in Content Don’t Stop Teaching Comprehension—Just Embed It In Content (forbes.com)
Podcasts
Teaching Literacy Podcast
Episode 05 Comprehension: CI Theory and Practice with Dr. D. Ray Reutzel
Episode 06 Comprehension: CI Theory and Practice Part 2 with Dr. D. Ray Reutzel
Comprehension Instruction Part 1/3 Reading Comprehension Research: Schema, Simple View of Reading, and the Rope
Comprehension Instruction Part 2/3 Reading Comprehension: Construction, Integration and Common Core
https://teachingliteracypodcast.com/reading-comprehension-construction-integration-and-common-core/
(This episode explores Kintsch’s Construction Integration model)
Comprehension Instruction Part 3/3 Comprehension Strategies: The Good, The Bad, And the Ugly
https://teachingliteracypodcast.com/comprehension-strategies-the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly/
(This episode explores how strategy instruction is a key component of many classrooms, and what does research indicate about its effectiveness?)
Evidence into Action
Episode 4: Exploring the Complexities of Reading Comprehension
https://evidenceintoaction.podbean.com/e/ep-4-exploring-the-complexities-of-reading-comprehension/
Episode 11: Teaching Reading: The Reading Comprehension House
https://evidenceintoaction.podbean.com/e/ep-11-teaching-reading-the-reading-comprehension-house/
Amplify - science-of-reading-the-podcast
https://amplify.com/science-of-reading-the-podcast/
Season 2, Episode 7. Research, comprehension, and content-rich literacy instruction: Sonia Cabell
Season 3, Episode 1. Deconstructing the Rope: An introduction with Dr. Jane Oakhill
Season 3, Episode 6. Deconstructing the Rope: Background knowledge with Susan Neuman
Season 3, Episode 9. Deconstructing the Rope: Vocabulary with Nancy Hennessy
Season 3, Episode 8. Deconstructing the Rope: Language comprehension with Sonia Cabell
Season 3, Episode 10.Deconstructing the Rope: Language structures with Kate Cain