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. The seven strategies here appear to have a firm scientific basis for improving text comprehension
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.
2. Metacognition
Metacognition can be defined as “thinking about thinking.” Good readers use metacognitive strategies to think about and have control over their reading. Before reading, they might clarify their purpose for reading and preview the text. During reading, they might 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.
3. Graphic and semantic organizers
Graphic organizers illustrate concepts and relationships between concepts in a text or using diagrams. Graphic organizers are known by different 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.
4. Answering questions
Questions can be effective because they:
– Give students a purpose for reading
-Focus students’ attention on what they are to learn
-Help students to think actively as they read
-Encourage students to monitor their comprehension
-Help students to review content and relate what they have learned to what they already know
5. Generating questions
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.
6. Recognizing story structure
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.
7. Summarizing
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:
-Identify or generate main ideas
-Connect the main or central ideas
-Eliminate unnecessary information
-Remember what they read
-Effective comprehension strategy instruction is explicit
By: MS. MARICEL A. BANSIL | TEACHER III | NEW SAN JOSE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DINALUPIHAN, BATAAN
