Apple banana blue walk tree happy sing. Surely you were able to read each of the words in that sentence and understand what they meant independently. An apple is a fruit that is usually round and red, green or yellow. A banana is another fruit that is yellow. Blue is a color…and so on and so forth. However, when you look at the sentence as a whole, does it make sense? Probably not. This nonsense sentence demonstrates the difference between being able to read words and comprehend text. As practiced readers we may take this distinction for granted since the acts of reading and comprehension occur almost simultaneously for us. For developing readers this relationship is not as apparent, but is essential for them to become strong, capable readers.

What exactly IS reading comprehension?

Simply put, reading comprehension is the act of understanding what you are reading. While the definition can be simply stated the act is not simple to teach, learn or practice. Reading comprehension is an intentional, active, interactive process that occurs before, during and after a person reads a particular piece of writing.

Reading comprehension is one of the pillars of the act of reading. When a person reads a text he engages in a complex array of cognitive processes. He is simultaneously using his awareness and understanding of phonemes (individual sound “pieces” in language), phonics (connection between letters and sounds and the relationship between sounds, letters and words) and ability to comprehend or construct meaning from the text. This last component of the act of reading is reading comprehension. It cannot occur independent of the other two elements of the process. At the same time, it is the most difficult and most important of the three.

There are two elements that make up the process of reading comprehension: vocabulary knowledge and text comprehension. In order to understand a text the reader must be able to comprehend the vocabulary used in the piece of writing. If the individual words don’t make the sense then the overall story will not either. Children can draw on their prior knowledge of vocabulary, but they also need to continually be taught new words. The best vocabulary instruction occurs at the point of need. Parents and teachers should pre-teach new words that a child will encounter in a text or aid her in understanding unfamiliar words as she comes upon them in the writing. In addition to being able to understand each distinct word in a text, the child also has to be able to put them together to develop an overall conception of what it is trying to say. This is text comprehension. Text comprehension is much more complex and varied that vocabulary knowledge. Readers use many different text comprehension strategies to develop reading comprehension. These include monitoring for understanding, answering and generating questions, summarizing and being aware of and using a text’s structure to aid comprehension.

How does reading comprehension develop?

As you can see, reading comprehension is incredibly complex and multifaceted. Because of this, readers do not develop the ability to comprehend texts quickly, easily or independently. Reading comprehension strategies must be taught over an extended period of time by parents and teachers who have knowledge and experience using them. It might seem that once a child learns to read in the elementary grades he is able to tackle any future text that comes his way. This is not true. Reading comprehension strategies must be refined, practiced and reinforced continually throughout life. Even in the middle grades and high school, parents and teachers need to continue to help their children develop reading comprehension strategies. As their reading materials become more diverse and challenging, children need to learn new tools for comprehending these texts. Content area materials such as textbooks and newspaper, magazine and journal articles pose different reading comprehension challenges for young people and thus require different comprehension strategies. The development of reading comprehension is a lifelong process that changes based on the depth and breadth of texts the person is reading.

Why is reading comprehension so important?

Without comprehension, reading is nothing more than tracking symbols on a page with your eyes and sounding them out. Imagine being handed a story written in Egyptian hieroglyphics with no understanding of their meaning. You may appreciate the words aesthetically and even be able to draw some small bits of meaning from the page, but you are not truly reading the story. The words on the page have no meaning. They are simply symbols. People read for many reasons but understanding is always a part of their purpose. Reading comprehension is important because without it reading doesn’t provide the reader with any information.

Beyond this, reading comprehension is essential to life. Much has been written about the importance of functional literacy. In order to survive and thrive in today’s world individuals must be able to comprehend basic texts such as bills, housing agreements (leases, purchase contracts), directions on packaging and transportation documents (bus and train schedules, maps, travel directions). Reading comprehension is a critical component of functional literacy. Think of the potentially dire effects of not being able to comprehend dosage directions on a bottle of medicine or warnings on a container of dangerous chemicals. With the ability to comprehend what they read, people are able not only to live safely and productively, but also to continue to develop socially, emotionally and intellectually

One of the most complex mental activities we can engage in is reading. When you look at brain scans taken while the subjects are reading you see many of the areas of the brain lit up with activity. As we read we are simultaneously using our knowledge of sound segments (phonemes) and the connection between sound and letters (phonics) to make meaning of the text (reading comprehension). This last element is the most important and most challenging to develop. Parents and teachers need to explicitly teach reading comprehension skills while at the same time encouraging young readers to keep practicing and honing their skills.

Explicit and Varied Teaching

Because reading comprehension is challenging and multifaceted it must be explicitly taught. Most readers do not infer how to make meaning of texts. They need to be instructed in a variety of strategies for understanding what they are reading. In addition, young readers need to be taught and given opportunities to practice reading comprehension using a variety of texts in a variety of different settings. This is one of the reasons why the partnership between parents and teachers is so important. In the classroom, teachers should work with children as a whole class, in guided reading groups and one-on-one to foster reading comprehension skills. At home, parents can help reinforce and strengthen what their children are learning at school by modeling “real-life” reading (newspapers, Internet, reading books for pleasure) as well as reading with and to their children.

Reading Comprehension Strategies

In order to foster a child’s comprehension of the many types of texts she will encounter, parents and teachers need to equip her with a whole “toolbox” of reading strategies to draw from as needed. While there is an almost infinite number of strategies that we employ as adult readers a core set of reading comprehension strategies provides the foundation for all readers. These are the strategies that adults should explicitly teach young readers to help promote their reading comprehension abilities.

Questioning

Whether we realize it or not we are constantly asking and answering questions as we read. To foster this behavior in young readers, parents and teachers should model good questioning by asking guiding questions before, during and after children read a text. Before reading questions parents and teachers can ask children to make predictions or activate prior knowledge that will help them comprehend the text. While the child is reading, adults should ask questions to check comprehension as well as to guide understanding. After the child has completed the text we should again ask questions to check for comprehension and to clear up misunderstandings. Adults can foster deeper comprehension and retention by following up basic comprehension “check” questions with those aimed at having children make personal connections with texts as well as analyzing events and characters in the story. Children should also be encouraged to generate and answer their own questions about texts to develop independent questioning skills.

Vocabulary Instruction

Understanding the vocabulary used in a piece of writing is essential to reading comprehension. There are a number of strategies that parents and teachers can teach young readers to help them comprehend new vocabulary. Unfamiliar words can be taught prior to reading the text. This can be formal (a lesson on the definitions of words) or informal (a parent mentioning a new word and its meaning before the child reads). Vocabulary can also be taught as it is encountered in the text. When a child comes to a word that he seems to be struggling with the adult working with him can provide the meaning. This practice works best when working one-on-one with a child. Beyond this, adults can help children develop skills for “conquering” new words independently as they are reading. Teaching children to use context clues (hints about the meaning of an unfamiliar word provided in the sentence or paragraph where it is used) is one of the best ways to help foster independent vocabulary discovery. Also, children can be taught common roots, prefixes and suffixes that they can use to help understand new vocabulary used in a text.

Monitoring

Good readers constantly monitor their comprehension. They check to make sure they are understanding what they are reading and if they do not, they adjust their approach to the text to ensure comprehension. Young readers often do not realize that they need to regularly “check in” with themselves while they are reading. Therefore, it is incumbent upon adults to help them develop these important self-monitoring skills. Prior to reading, parents and teachers should help children activate prior knowledge about the story’s content, choose appropriate reading strategies and understand the reading task. While the child is reading, we can help her reading comprehension by checking for understanding through questioning and encouraging her to use text structure and other strategies to understand the text. Over time children will internalize these monitoring strategies and will be able to practice them independently.

Summarizing

When we read we rarely sit down and formally create a summary of what we’ve read. Still, our minds store a synopsis of the key ideas in a text. Young readers need to be taught how to summarize what they have read to encourage their comprehension and retention. When a reader is able to restate what he has read in his own words he has truly understood it. Parents and teachers can foster this practice by asking children to summarize what they have read during and after they have read a particular text.

Focus and Attention

Reading comprehension cannot occur when the “flow” of reading is repeatedly interrupted. Think about how difficult it is to remember what you have read when sights and sounds prevent you from focusing your attention on a text. Young readers rarely realize the importance of focus and attention in reading. Parents and teachers can help foster good focus and attention by teaching children to eliminate distractions while they are reading. One way to do this is to encourage them to use an index card or a finger to track the words on the page as they are reading. Also, adults can teach children to take periodic breaks from reading to summarize what they have read.

The Role of Motivation in Fostering Reading Comprehension

While building a full “toolkit” of reading strategies is an important element in fostering a reader’s comprehension and retention, it is not the only factor influencing reading development. As with almost any task the learner must be motivated in order to be successful. Parents and teachers can help foster reading comprehension by encouraging their children’s motivation to read. The easiest way to do this is to model enthusiasm for reading. If the adults around them are excited about their own reading as well as the child’s, she is more likely to also become enthusiastic about reading. In addition, adults can talk with children about the importance of reading highlighting what reading has to offer them (i.e. pleasure, information). Beyond this, adults can motivate young readers by helping them pick texts that “speak” to them. Tapping into a child’s personal interests or encouraging them to continue exploring books by a particular author can help sustain a young person’s interest in reading. Along with this, adults should help children pick texts that are “doable”. The reading level of a new story or book should be at or slightly above the child’s independent reading level. When children experience success at reading, they are more likely to continue reading. And when they continue reading their reading comprehension skills will become stronger and stronger.

Beginning reading instruction is an essential part of the kindergarten classroom. Though some students enter school with some basic reading skills, this is a prime period in the children’s development to build the foundation for reading. Kindergarten teachers and parents should focus on all three of the pillars of reading: phonemic awareness, phonics and reading comprehension.  This article discusses all of these, with an emphasis on kindergarten reading comprehension.

Multiple Methods of Instruction

Just as every child looks different each has his or her own way of learning to read. Though there are many ways to teach a child to read there is not one single kindergarten reading comprehension checklist that works best for every child. Plus reading is not a simple activity. In fact it is one of the most complex cognitive activities that a human being can perform. Therefore it is incumbent upon those working with kindergarteners to use multiple methods of reading instruction. Different children will need different types and levels of support. Even individual children will need to have instruction varied as they reach particular reading milestones. It is important to know each child well and to use strategies that fit her individual learning style(s), interests and needs.

Phonemic Awareness

Phonemic awareness is one of the building blocks of a strong foundation for reading development. A phoneme is a sound unit in language. For example, say the word “apple” aloud. You use three distinct sound “chunks” to pronounce this word—“a”, “puh” and “l”. Each of these is a phoneme. Phonemic awareness is not only an understanding that these sound units exist, but also the recognition that they make up words. We are able to read unfamiliar words because we use our knowledge of phonemes to sound out the word. Very young readers do not know to do this. Therefore they must be taught phonemes. In order to help children transition between saying and reading phonemes, kindergarten teachers and parents should instruct children by connecting letters and phonemes. They should present written letters and teach the child the different ways that the letter is pronounced. Through this sort of instruction kindergarteners become aware not only of the different sounds in the English language, but also they begin to understand that specific letters represent specific sounds.

Phonics

In addition to phonemic awareness, kindergarteners must be taught phonics. Phonics involves the ability to link sounds to letters and to use these to construct words. While it is helpful for children to be aware of particular phonemes and their letter representations, this knowledge is not enough for them to be able read. They need to be able to put letters and phonemes together to create words.

Phonics is best taught systematically. Parents and teachers of kindergarteners should begin by helping children sound out individual letters and then blending these letters into a word. For instance, if a child is learning to read the word bat the adult working with her should first help her figure out what sound each letter makes—“buh” a” “t”. Then she should be encouraged to link these sounds together to make the word. Often young children have many words in their verbal vocabularies that they have not learned to read. When they are assisted in sounding out and blending the sounds together to create the word, they quickly identify the word and are able to make a connection between the oral and print version of it.

Once children have become comfortable sounding out individual letters, they should be taught to read letters in “chunks”. This is where instruction in sound units like “th” and “st” comes in. Also, they should be encouraged to use entire words that they already know to help them read a new word. For example, a child may know how to read the word “car”. When he comes to the word “scar” his teacher should point out that “car” is a part of this word and that he can use it to help him figure out how to pronounce this new word.

Reading Comprehension

Because reading comprehension cannot occur unless a child can identify the sounds making up each word, it is essential that kindergarteners have at least a basic foundation in phonemic awareness and phonics before they can be instructed in reading comprehension. Once they have this basic understanding they can begin working on comprehending what they are reading.

Kindergarten reading comprehension instruction begins on an individual word basis. Children should be taught to read basic high frequency words. Of all of the words in children’s stories, there are approximately 220 that make up 50 to 75% of the content. For this reason, these words are the best ones to focus on in kindergarten instruction. Both E.W. Dolch and Edward Fry have created lists of the most frequently used words in children’s texts. These lists are excellent resources for kindergarten parents and teachers to select vocabulary to instruct their children in. Pictures are an excellent tool for helping children transition between the spoken and written versions of a word. When the print word “ball” is presented under a photograph of a ball the child is able to make a connection between the two.

Kindergarten reading comprehension is also taught using repetitive reading. While it may seem that having a child read the same story over and over would deter her reading development it actually aids it. Repetitive reading allows a child to process a text multiple times. Often the first time she reads it she is focusing on decoding words rather than putting them together to make meaning. Once she has mastered the words she can move more fluently through the story and can begin making meaning. Kindergarten parents and teachers are encouraged to have children read texts aloud multiple times. This allows them to see where the child needs support in understanding words, phrases or sentences. Also, they can ask guiding questions to help children build the skills that they will eventually use independently when they read.

Modeling Good Reading

One of the most powerful tools for helping kindergartners learn to read is for parents and teachers to read themselves. Young children should not only see the adults they love reading they should also read with them. Reading storybooks aloud to kindergarteners helps build their vocabularies, appreciation and interest in reading and background knowledge. They also see the ways a “seasoned” reader uses strategies to make meaning. Reading a book aloud to a young child always benefits him.