Beginners, on the other hand, must continue to learn these tactics. But which tactics do you teach them?
Nell Duke and David Pearson did excellent work in this regard. They also emphasise that teaching them on their own is ineffective and offer suggestions for effective teaching.
This article explores six proven strategies for enhancing reading comprehension skills.
Understanding Effective Reading Strategies: The Concept Behind Skilled Reading Practices
You should not allow children to become overwhelmed by the number of potential strategies.
Duke and Pearson identified six effective tactics based on extensive research analysis. Teaching just one of the six strategies will improve pupils' reading comprehension skills.
1. Make predictions.
Before pupils begin reading, have them scan the material for the title, table of contents, photos, and other relevant information. What do they believe the text will be about?
In informative texts, what do readers already know about the subject matter?
In fiction, how does the tale unfold? This method involves focussing your attention and activating prior information.
Leisure reading allows pupils to decide if a piece is fascinating enough to read. Readers can confirm their predictions and make new ones while reading.
Predicting can help pupils assess their understanding of a topic against the text.
2. Thinking aloud.
Encourage pupils to express their reading experiences and thoughts aloud. For instance, 'I don't understand this part, so I'll go back a little.'
This helps them focus on the content. It encourages deliberate reading and discourages pupils from reaching hasty conclusions.
3. Pay attention to text structure.
Focussing pupils’ attention on text structure enhances their comprehension. Narrative literature, for example, use chronology.
Informative texts are organised into chapters and paragraphs, using enumeration words like 'firstly' and connection words like 'in comparison to'.
4. Visual representation.
Have pupils summarise the text using an arrow diagram or other schematic illustration.
This approach keeps pupils engaged and highlights the importance of reading instruction beyond mere memorization of techniques.
This method is best suited for instructive writings in subject areas.
5. Summarising.
The prior technique was creating an image-based summary.
Another useful method is for pupils to summarise a text in words. This helps them understand the essence of a tale or instructive literature.
Teaching pupils about the difficulty of this task is essential, because a poor summary will be unhelpful. Teaching pupils to summarise and critically examine their work enhances their understanding of the book.
6. Posing questions on the text
Using questions to assess text comprehension is a common approach in education. To encourage careful reading, use questions during the reading process.
Related article: Enhancing Reading Comprehension with 'Questioning the Author' Method: Engage Your Pupils Actively
Do you recall what you did when you started reading this article? You probably quickly skimmed the titles of the different articles. That way, you can probably guess what the article is about.
Then you switched or scrolled through the article that appeared most interesting or beneficial to you and looked at the paragraph subheadings. All before you actually started reading the whole text.
The strategies of scanning and anticipating are essential reading tactics that pupils must actively develop.
You can ask the questions yourself, but it is more enjoyable and educational if pupils generate questions about the book.
For instance, why does the main character in a tale dislike dogs, or how does the author define addiction in a text about smartphones?
The effectiveness of learning strategies in improving pupils’ text comprehension is dependent on instruction. Modelling and scaffolding are useful methods for teaching strategies.
First, display the technique, then practise it together, and finally help pupils to apply it independently. Pupils can ultimately pick which method to utilise and when.
Practicing a method without a reading goal is ineffective. Instead, children should learn which strategies are effective for specific situations.
According to Duke and Pearson, pupils should prioritise reading high-quality materials linked to their subjects or hobbies.
This approach keeps them engaged and emphasises the importance of reading teaching beyond memorising techniques.
Related article: How Knowledge Drives Reading Comprehension: Insights from 12 Years of Research
Scanning and anticipating are only a few of the various methods that skilled readers employ to grasp a text. They do it automatically and don't think about it.
Assign a clear reading goal, such as learning about flowers or reading an author’s latest work.
Practical Classroom Applications: Integrating Effective Reading Strategies
What should schools do with information about effective reading strategies?
This method of reading education has started to raise questions in recent years.
Research suggests that teaching reading skills may not be as helpful as claimed, and that excessive practice can demotivate kids. Much of this criticism is justified.
The failure of reading tactics can be attributed to how teachers approach them, rather than the strategies themselves. Too often, methods are raised to a goal rather than a tool.
Duke and Pearson warn about this in their article. They identify two requirements for effective teaching of reading skills.
To teach reading strategies, teachers must clearly identify and show their use.
Second, integrated reading education should prioritise rich texts and focus on vocabulary and global knowledge growth. Reading education should align with pupils’ goals and teach them how to use tactics to achieve them.
This prevents an approach from becoming a trick only applicable to school-based texts.
Duke and Pearson's paper provides practical teaching techniques for classroom use. Researchers stress the critical role of maintaining pupil motivation in reading instruction.
This approach focusses on books that are relevant to pupils’ interests or provide subject-specific content.
Introducing variation is another crucial element in effective reading instruction. Allow pupils to study with a variety of texts, including stories and news reports.
This teaches them that different types of texts have unique qualities. Additionally, working methods and strategies may differ. Having to repeatedly forecast or answer questions about a book might be demotivating.
Encourage pupils to utilise adaptable strategies. If you don't comprehend a section or material, what steps may you take to improve your understanding?
You can tailor your assignments to a strategy. Instead of asking individual questions regarding a book, encourage pupils to generate group questions for each other.
Instead of requiring a step-by-step description, pupils can summarise useful material in a tweet format. Encourage pupils to depict their favourite scene from a narrative.
Collaboratively discussing each other's products enhances comprehension and experience with literature.
Comprehensive Checklist: Ensuring Effective Reading Instruction in the Classroom
Duke and Pearson create a checklist with all of the tips.
Use the list to guide your reading instruction: what are we currently doing and what are we missing? You can also gain ideas from it.
Don't worry, the list isn't intended to be completed or checked off. The researchers caution against attempting to do everything at once.
Even implementing just one of its recommendations is effective. Look at your current teaching methods and try new activities from the list.
General
- How much reading do pupils do outside of their reading method?
- Do kids have a specific reading objective in mind?
- How many various genres and text types are offered in your classroom?
- Do pupils have adequate opportunities to expand their vocabulary and expertise through reading and discussing texts?
- Do pupils have opportunities for meaningful content-based conversations regarding texts?
Reading tactics
Do you teach pupils to:
- Make predictions before and while reading?
- Utilise appropriate prior knowledge?
- Think aloud while reading?
- Use the text structure?
- Develop a graphic representation?
- Create a summary?
- Ask any questions about the text?
- Look up unknown words?
- Monitor their reading comprehension while reading?
Regarding your instruction
- Are you introducing a new strategy by modelling it first?
- Do you practise new strategies with pupils?
- Do you use scaffolding to help pupils practise independently?
- Do you teach pupils to make independent decisions about which strategies to use?
- Do you keep your pupils motivated?
Key Takeaways: Mastering Reading Strategies for Better Comprehension
- All competent readers employ reading strategies.
- A reading technique aids comprehension before, during, or after reading.
- Always present a new plan.
- Practice tactics with a reading objective in mind, rather than separately.
- Engage kids with diverse and interesting texts.
Next up in this series: Boosting Reading Comprehension: How Reciprocal Teaching and Modeling Help Struggling Readers
Reference
Duke, N. K., & Pearson, P. D. (2008). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension.
