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Reading isn't really reading if students don't understand the meaning of the words on the page. Find out more about how to improve all students' reading comprehension, from young preschoolers to struggling readers and children with learning disabilities. Included are tips from the experts written for parents and teachers.
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By: Barbara Marinak and Linda Gambrell (2009)
Exposing young children to informational text early on can help them to handle the literacy demands of fourth grade and beyond. Practical instructional techniques can be used to promote understanding and enjoyment of informational texts. The three techniques described here — Text Impression, Guiding Questions, and the Retelling Pyramid — can help children become familiar with the language and structure of non-fiction books.
By: Sherrye Dee Garrett (2009)
Introducing elementary-aged students to local and community news through the newspaper can help them strengthen comprehension and research skills. Community news keeps it relevant to the kids, enhancing motivation to discuss and learn more about what they are reading. Classroom activities are included in this article.
By: Kristina Robertson (2008)
One of the most important skills students learn as they transition into middle and high school is how to get information from a non-fiction text. This skill can be especially challenging for ELLs, who may not have had much experience working independently with expository texts. This Bright Ideas article offers ways that teachers can help ELLs work effectively with non-fiction texts and includes strategies for introducing components, structure, and purpose of expository texts.
By: Marcy Zipke (2008)
Riddles are the perfect medium for learning how to manipulate language for many reasons, including students' familiarity with them and motivation for reading them. Here's how riddles can be used in the classroom to stimulate student's metalinguistic awareness.
By: Regina Boulware-Gooden, Suzanne Carreker, Ann Thornhill, and R. Malatesha Joshi (2007)
The use of metacognitive strategies helps students to "think about their thinking" before, during, and after they read.
By: Cheryl K. Iannucci (2007)
Research has demonstrated that the most effective read-alouds are those where children are actively involved asking and answering questions and making predictions, rather than passively listening. This article describes in detail a technique for a three-step interactive read-aloud using sophisticated storybooks.
By: Daniel T. Willingham (2007)
Learning "critical thinking skills" can only take a student so far. Critical thinking depends on knowing relevant content very well-and thinking about it, repeatedly. Here are five strategies, consistent with the research, to help bring critical thinking into the everyday classroom.
By: Daniel T. Willingham (2006)
How does the mind work — and especially how does it learn? Teachers' instructional decisions are based on a mix of theories learned in teacher education, trial and error, craft knowledge, and gut instinct. Such gut knowledge often serves us well, but is there anything sturdier to rely on?
By: Daniel T. Willingham (2006)
Very often, students will think they understand a body of material. Believing that they know it, they stop trying to learn more. But, come test time, it turns out they really don't know the material. Can cognitive science tell us anything about why students are commonly mistaken about what they know and don't know? Are there any strategies teachers can use to help students better estimate what they know?
By: Daniel T. Willingham (2006)
The author, a professor of cognitive psychology, notes, "it's true that knowledge gives students something to think about, but… knowledge does much more than just help students hone their thinking skills, it actually makes learning easier." Factual knowledge enhances cognitive processes like problem solving and reasoning, and once you have some knowledge, the brain finds it easier to get more and more knowledge.
By: Gina Carrier (2006)
In the last few years, an alarm has sounded throughout the nation's middle and high schools: too many students cannot read well. It isn't that they don't know their ABCs or how to read words. It's that they cannot understand or explain what they're reading. Johnny can read, but he doesn't understand.
By: Daniel T. Willingham (2006)
Learning happens when we connect new information to what we already know. When children have limited knowledge about the world, they have a smaller capacity to learn more about it. Here are four ways teachers can build content knowledge that will expand the opportunity for students to forge new connections — and make them better independent readers and learners.
By: Susan Neuman (2006)
By: Shutta Crum (2006)
Use picture books to teach young writers how to organize plot logically. This article includes examples of basic plot structures, along with picture books that use those structures.
By: E. D. Hirsch, Jr. (2006)
The federal No Child Left Behind law requires more testing of students, and has spurred some frantic and ineffectual test preparation in many schools, says the author, E. D. Hirsch, Jr. Reading tests must use unpredictable texts to be accurate measures of reading ability, but if you cannot predict the subject matter on a valid reading test, how can you prepare students? Hirsch says you can't, and, therefore, you shouldn't try. The only useful way to prepare for a reading test is indirectly by becoming a good reader of a broad range of texts, an ability that requires broad general knowledge."
By: Sebastian Wren (2005)
This article illustrates the difference between being able to decode words on a page and being able to derive meaning from the words and the concepts they are trying to convey.
By: Cara Bafile (2005)
The reader's theater strategy blends students' desire to perform with their need for oral reading practice. Reader's Theater offers an entertaining and engaging means of improving fluency and enhancing comprehension.
By: Teaching Today (2005)
Science texts are often more challenging for students than other text types. This article contains strategies teachers can use to increase reading comprehension, helping students make sense of complicated science concepts.
By: Roger Farr and Jenny Conner (2004)
Students need to think while they are reading. By using modeling, coached practice, and reflection, you can teach your students strategies to help them think while they read and build their comprehension.
By: C.R. Adler (2004)
Comprehension strategies are conscious plans — sets of steps that good readers use to make sense of text. Comprehension strategy instruction helps students become purposeful, active readers who are in control of their own reading comprehension.
- For older articles, see the Comprehension Archives >
