13+Steps+to+Better+Reading+Comprehension

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1. Monitoring Comprehension
Students who are good at monitoring their comprehension know when they understand what they read and when they do not. They have strategies to "fix" problems in their understanding as the problems arise. Research shows that instruction, even in the early grades, can help students become better at monitoring their comprehension.

Comprehension monitoring instruction teaches students to:
 * Be aware of what they do understand
 * Identify what they do not understand
 * Use appropriate strategies to resolve problems in comprehensio

2. Meta-cognition
Metacognition can be defined as "thinking about thinking." Good readers use meta-cognitive strategies to think about and have control over their reading. Before reading, they might clearify their purpose for reading and preview the text. During reading, they should monitor their understanding, adjusting their reading speed to fit the difficulty of the text and "fixing" any comprehension problems they have. After reading, they check their understanding of what they read.

Students may use several comprehension monitoring strategies:


 * Identify where the difficulty occurs: "I don't understand the second paragraph on page 34."
 * Identify what the difficulty is: "I don't get what the author means when she says, 'Arriving in America was a milestone in my grandmother's life.'
 * Restate the difficult sentence or passage in their own words: "Oh, so the author means that coming to America was very important event in her grandma's life."
 * Look back through the text: "The author talked about Mr. McBride in Chapter 2, but I don't remember about him. Maybe if I reread that chapter, I can figure ouut why he's acting this way now.?
 * Look forward in the text for information that may help to resolve the difficulty: "The text says, 'groundwater may form a stream or pond or create a wetland. People can also bring groundwater to the surface.' Hmm, I don't understand how people can do that. Oh, the next section is called 'Wells.' I'll read this section to see if it tells how they do do it."

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">3. Graphic and semantic organizers
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Graphic organizers illustrate concepts and relationships between concepts in a text or using digrams. Graphic organizers are known by diffrent names, such as maps, webs, graphs, charts, frames, or clusters. Regardless of the label, graphic organizers can help readers focus on concepts and how they are related to other concepts. Graphic organizers help students read and understand textbooks and picture books.

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Graphic organizers can:


 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Help students focus on text structures "differences between fiction and nonfiction" as they read
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Provide students with tools they can use to examine and show relationships in a text
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Help students write well-organized summaries of a text
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Here are some examples of graphic organizers that may help your child:
 * Venn Diagrams--used to compare or contrast information from two sources.
 * Storyboard/ Chain of Events --used to order or sequence events with a text.
 * Story Map -- Used to chart the story structure.
 * Story Mountain -- Used to emphasize the problem growing to climax and then being resolved
 * BIG FOX -- Used to guide pre-reading of nonfiction texts/ articles.
 * Main Ideas -- Used to make sense of nonfiction articles/ books.
 * Cause/ Effect -- Used to illustrate the cause and effects told within a text.
 * [|More Graphic Organizers] -- Here are several other graphic organizers to help readers

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">4. Answering questions
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Questions can be effective because they:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Give students a purpose for reading
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Focus students' attention on what they are to learn
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Help students to think actively as they read
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Encourage students to monitor their comprehension
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Help students to review content and relate what they have learned to what they already know

<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">The Question-Answer Relationship strategy (QAR) encourages students to learn how to answer questions better. Students are asked to indicate whether the information they used to answer questions about the text was textually explicit information (information that was directly stated in the text), textually implicit information (information that was implied in the text), or information entirely from the student's own background knowledge. <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">There are four different types of questions: > Example: Who is Frog's friend? Answer: Toad > Example: Why was Frog sad? Answer: His friend was leaving. > Example: How do think Frog felt when he found Toad? Answer: I think that Frog felt happy because he had not seen Toad in a long time. I feel happy when I get to see my friend who lives far away. > Example: How would you feel if your best friend moved away? Answer: I would feel very sad if my best friend moved away because I would miss her.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">"Right There"Questions found right in the text that ask students to find the one right answer located in one place as a word or a sentence in the passage.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">"Think and Search"Questions based on the recall of facts that can be found directly in the text. Answers are typically found in more than one place, thus requiring students to "think" and "search" through the passage to find the answer.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">"Author and You"Questions require students to use what they already know, with what they have learned from reading the text. Student's must understand the text and relate it to their prior knowledge before answering the question.
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">"On Your Own"Questions are answered based on a students prior knowledge and experiences. Reading the text may not be helpful to them when answering this type of question.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">5. Generating questions
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">By generating questions, students become aware of whether they can answer the questions and if they understand what they are reading. Students learn to ask themselves questions that require them to combine information from different segments of text. For example, students can be taught to ask main idea questions that relate to important information in a text.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">6. Recognizing story structure
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">In story structure instruction, students learn to identify the categories of content (characters, setting, events, problem, resolution). Often, students learn to recognize story structure through the use of story maps. Instruction in story structure improves students' comprehension.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">7. Summarizing
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Summarizing requires students to determine what is important in what they are reading and to put it into their own words. Instruction in summarizing helps students:
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Identify or generate main ideas
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Connect the main or central ideas
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Eliminate unnecessary information
 * <span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Remember what they read

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">8. Anticipate and Predict
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Really smart readers try to anticipate the author and predict future ideas and questions. If youu're right, this reinforces your understanding. If you're wrong, you make adjustments quicker.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">9. Pay attention to supporting cues
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Study pictures, graphs and headings. Read the first and last paragraph in a chapter, or the first sentence in each section.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">10. Highlight, summarize and review
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Just reading a book once is not enough. To develop a deeper understanding, you have to highlight, summarize, and review important ideas.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">11. Build a strong vocabulary
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">For most educated people, this is a lifetime project. The best way to improve your vocabulary is to read and use a dictionary regularly. You might carry arouund a pocket dictionary and use it to look up new words. Or, youu can keep a list of words to look up at the end of the day. Concentrate on roots (base words), prefixes and suffixes (endings). When it comes to reading, don't allw your children to skip over unkonwn words. Predict what they might mean while reading and jotting the word and page number down, and then talking with an adult or other reading partner or looking them up to find their meaning.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">12. Visualize the text.
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">Create a movie in your mind of the words that you're reading. You should be able to describe what you're picturing to a reading partner.

<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">13. Talk about the book with a partner.
<span style="font-family: 'Comic Sans MS',cursive; font-size: 120%;">We understand what we've read a LOT better when we talk about it with a partner. Whenever possible be a reading partner for your child and allow them to talk with you about the difficult, surprising, upsetting, amazing, funny parts in the book they're reading. This discussion will strengthen their comprehension--especially if you're a really good listener that leans in, asks questions, and looks back at the book with your child.

Some information above from Reading Rockets @http://www.readingrockets.org/article/3479/ and Mrs. Gold's Webpage@http://www.mrsgoldsclass.com/ReadingComprehension.htm