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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: 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: Michael Pressley (2000)
Without a strong background in basic skills like decoding and vocabulary-building, reading comprehension is impossible. This article offers research-based strategies for building on these and other skills to increase student understanding of what is read.
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: 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: 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: Beth Antunez (2002)
Find out how teachers can play to the strengths and shore up the weaknesses of English Language Learners in each of the Reading First content areas.
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: Susan Neuman (2006)
By: Joanna P. Williams (2000)
Some children can master decoding and still be poor comprehenders. Learn what interventions have been found to help these children read narrative and expository texts more strategically.
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: 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: 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: Texas Education Agency (2002)
How can classroom reading instruction help poor readers — indeed, all students — become more like good readers? Research suggests that the answer may lie in providing students with instruction that both teaches them the comprehension strategies that work so well for good readers and helps them to develop the necessary metacognitive awareness of how and when to use these strategies.
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: 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: Judith Gold and Akimi Gibson (2001)
This article discusses the power of reading aloud and goes a step further to discuss the power of thinking out loud while reading to children as a way to highlight the strategies used by thoughtful readers.
- For older articles, see the Comprehension Archives >
