Comprehension Strategy Research

The National Reading Panel (NRP) conducted research regarding methods that can help to improve text comprehension in students and some of the best methods to teach these comprehension methods to students. Reviewing this research, with the understanding that these findings are not guaranteed, can aid in the implementation of specific comprehension strategies and skills within classrooms and theories on possible ways of teaching these strategies to students.

There were six strategies that were researched and detailed in the NRP's report. These strategies include: monitoring comprehension, using graphic and semantic organizers, answering questions, generating questions, recognizing story structure, and summarizing. There were also four methods for teaching these comprehension strategies that were discussed. These methods include: direct explanation, modeling, guided practice and application.

Monitoring comprehension is when the student is identifying what they do and do not understand during while they are reading. During the course of the student's reading, they may come across words, thoughts or phrases that they do not quite understand and the student themselves recognize this issue. In the course of monitoring their comprehension, the student is able to identify what strategy would be best used for them to fix the problem that they have encountered. Although, it is be hoped that the student has learned the various "fixing" strategies to use in early grades or is currently learning them. Monitoring comprehension can help students to understand what they are reading by identifying where they are having the problem and what it is that they do not understand. Teaching students to try to reread or rethink the problem area in their own words, on their own level of understanding will also aid in true understanding of the context. Another way for students to decipher the information is to reread a few of the sentences prior to the problem area and to read forward a few sentences beyond the problem to "see" if there any clues to use that may help in their understanding.

Using graphic organizers and semantic (organizers that look like spider webs) graphs are another form of assistance in reading comprehension. The use of organizers and webs can help a student to understand how thoughts, ideas, or even concepts can be related. The use of webs, charts, graphs, charts, frames, or even clusters can be of help to gaining the focus and comprehension of how some times what can be seemingly common text relates to concepts and ideas are related. They can also aid the student in understanding how text is put together by giving visual aids, drawing a map if you will. Organizers are also helpful as a guide for students to learn to write their own organized and structured essays, papers or summaries.

A commonly used method within the classroom is questioning. Answering questions that are being asked by the teachers can be used as a guide as to the level of understanding of students. According to the NRP, research proves that teacher questioning has positive and proven results in advancing learning and comprehension through reading. Questions and answers sessions are considered effective because it provides the students with a reason to read (they are searching for answers), it focuses student attention on the material that they need to learn, it encourages the use of KWL (what they know, what they want to learn, and what they have learned) and it promotes active thinking and learning. With all of the questions that are being asked by the teacher, the student is also able to monitor the information that they are reading in order understand what they are reading to find their answers by going back through their text to find their answers that they did not find the first time around through text explicit (single sentence) details, text implicit (multiple sentence implications) or even scriptural implications (activating prior knowledge on the part of the student).

Another method of text comprehension is for the students to generate questions about what they are reading. In generating questions, the student will work on increasing their active processing skills, which in turn will aid in increasing their level of reading comprehension. When students are asking, and also answering, their own questions, they can learn about their own comprehension skill level. For the students to learn how to ask questions of themselves, they will also have to realize that they will need to take information from throughout the entire text selection and work that information together to make those questions that will be the most helpful in building a better foundation for comprehension.

An important aspect of reading comprehension is to recognize the structure of a story. Students need to be able to identify how the story is put together by recognizing the way that the content and the events are organized together to form the story; its plot and main idea. Those students that are able to recognize and understand the structure of the story are able to better comprehend and remember what the story is about. Identifying the various categories of the content are a huge factor because once the reader identifies the content, they can put the story into perspective and understand the plot and main idea. The best way to learn to identify the categories of the content is to use a story map (an organizer that aids in the illustrating the stories sequence of events in simple stories) to identify the: content, the setting, the reasons for events, reactions to the events (both of these are also known as cause and effect), goals of the character/plot, what is attempted and the outcomes of the reactions. Teacher instruction, as well as the use of story maps to identify structure and content also aid in improved comprehension and retention of story information.

Summarizing skills are important because it requires students to find and simplify the main ideas of the text or story they are reading. In order for a student to summarize properly, one of the first steps is for them to learn to identify what is and what is not important in the story and then re-tell it in their own words. One of the most important parts of summarizing is learning the skills to summarize correctly. A student needs to learn to identify the main idea that is presented or draw a conclusion to what the main idea is, correctly determine the connection between the main ideas, get rid of information that is not needed all in the hopes that the student will retain the information they gained from reading.

Using the comprehension strategies is a wonderful way to aid in understanding and retaining the information that is being read, but what happens if the student is not taught the strategies or how to use them? There are many ways to teach the comprehension strategies. There are three primary methods of instruction of these methods: direct or explicit instruction, cooperative learning and/or using flexibility in strategies.

One of the most effective methods of teaching the comprehension strategies is to use explicit instruction. The NRP has found through research that when the strategies are taught directly to the students, the techniques are more effective for comprehension strategy instruction implementation and success. The reason for this success is because through directly teaching the techniques and strategies to students it can show them why they should use a strategy and how it can be used to help in the comprehension of the material. Another reason for its success is because this method of teaching is also showing the students to identify which strategy would be best suited to be used in which situations and how to apply that strategy to suit their personal needs in comprehending the material.

There are four defined steps in the direct teaching method that a teacher can use to aid in application of strategies by students. By directly explaining the strategy, the teacher allows for the clear understanding of how each strategy works, why it works, and how it should be used for success. Another method would be for the teacher to show, or demonstrate, the proper use of the strategy; usually by reading the text and then "thinking aloud" when reaching the needed location to apply the strategy. The "thinking aloud" would be the teacher applying the strategy to reach comprehension to verbalize the steps that a student should take to aid in comprehension of the material. Another teacher led method would be guided reading of the text material. In this method the students and the teacher read the material together while the teacher is guiding the students through the steps to apply the strategies as they are learning. This allows the students to apply the method, but have the teacher helping in the case they miss a step or are unclear of how to precede with the strategy. The actual application of the strategies is the last method of direct teaching. With the application method, the students will continue to practice the strategy, with the aid of the teacher as needed, until the student is proficient in the steps to continue the use of the strategies on their own to gain the level of comprehension that they require.

Another successful method of teaching, as defined by the NRP, is through collaborative (or cooperative) leaning. In this method, the students work together either in small groups or pairs on clearly defined tasks and assignments. This method has been used successfully in all subject-content areas for material comprehension. With the collaborative/cooperative method, the students are able to work together, helping one another along the way to understand the content of the texts and to properly apply the comprehension strategies. This allows the teacher the time to work with individual, smaller groups of students to assist in the understanding of how to use and apply strategies without ignoring the needs of other students. This provides more one-to-one focus because not only is the teacher being allowed to have the focus time with individualized attention, but no students is left unnoticed because they are with peers that can help until the teacher has made the his/her way to that group. It also allows for the teacher to have more knowledge of student progress and be able to provide specific demonstrations of key points where needed.

One of the most important aspects of teaching comprehension strategies to students is the use of flexibility and combination. The teacher must make it clear that one strategy is not always the cure all for comprehension; that sometimes the strategies need to be "mixed and matched" throughout to ensure the complete comprehension of the text material that is being read. Multiple strategy instruction allows for the students to understand that they may need to coordinate and adjust for comprehension; allowing for flexibility in learning. A popular method of multiple strategy instruction is the "reciprocal teaching" method the teacher and students work together with one another to learn the strategies. The teacher can ask pointed questions that require the students to think about the answers to gain comprehension. There would be questions that ask about what the student is reading, asking students to summarize each paragraph and/or what they have read thus far, asking the students to clarify a word, phrase or even sentences that are unclear, or even have the student stop reading and predict what may happen next in the reading based on the information that they have gained from reading to this point. Using this method will teach the students to be flexible and to use a variety of strategies interchangeably to gain maximum effective comprehension of the materials that they have to read.