Reading comprehension is one of the five pillars of reading instruction. Reading comprehension is the ultimate goal in reading. When a student has a high, strong reading comprehension level, he or she is able to successfully interpret, analyze, and understand any text. Reading comprehension involves the strategies and skills that are essential when it comes to thinking about a text. Once a child can decode or easily read words on a page, he or she is able to focus more on the meaning of the text, which is the definition of reading comprehension or, rather, the understanding of the text.

Comprehension strategies and skills vary in genre from fiction to nonfiction to poetry. They also vary among grade levels and reading levels. While the same basic comprehension strategies are used throughout a reader’s journey, the complexity of the strategies increases as the rigor of the text and the developmental reading level of the student increase.

Reading comprehension practice is often a multifaceted process that includes many elements. In any given text, in addition to reading accurately and smoothly, students should be able to make predictions, activate prior knowledge, make connections, ask and answer questions, clarify meaning, visualize, infer, and summarize. Additional comprehension skills include sequencing events, determining importance, understanding theme or author’s purpose, and identifying cause and effect relationships.

It is also important to recognize that listening comprehension, oral reading comprehension, and silent reading comprehension will often differ for the same student at the same reading level. Most often, students are better at listening comprehension, even if it is at a higher reading level. Oral reading comprehension at a child’s instructional or independent reading level comes next. Silent reading comprehension at a child’s instructional or independent reading level usually results in the lowest comprehension score. Oral comprehension skills outperform written comprehension skills in student readers as well. All of this information is pertinent when understanding the value and purpose of reading comprehension.

Why Some Older Students Struggle with Reading Comprehension

Some older students struggle with high school reading comprehension. This occurs because of several reasons. One reason is the fact that their word attack skills are weak. When students have not developed proficient phonics skills, their reading focus is primarily on decoding words. When this happens, the words on the page have no meaning to the reader, which significantly impacts their lack of comprehension.

The other factor is that their reading fluency is weak. Fluency is another pillar of reading that research suggests directly affects comprehension. Fluency includes accuracy, rate, and phrasing during oral reading; the better the fluency, the better the reading comprehension. Despite these key points, it is important to know that older students may not struggle in phonics or fluency, but they do struggle with reading comprehension.

One reason could be that the students have not developed the advanced comprehension strategies that are essential to fully understand a more complex text. Older student readers must be able to go beyond the basic comprehension strategies of predicting and questioning. They need to be able to analyze the author’s purpose and interpret the meaning behind the text structure. When students do not have background knowledge of the information in a text, their reading comprehension automatically decreases.

A student’s vocabulary also affects comprehension; if a child lacks the word knowledge of structure or meaning, their comprehension will also decrease. Therefore, we need to arm students with the specific strategies to comprehend each type of text our students will be expected to read. We need to not only teacher children how to read, but how to think about reading, often referred to as metacognition. The process of teaching, modeling, reading, and rereading will help older students improve their reading comprehension levels.

Reading Comprehension Strategies for Older Children

Reading comprehension strategies, which include activating prior knowledge, predicting, clarifying, questioning, determining importance, inferring, or summarizing, are used in upper grades as they are in primary grades. Therefore, we need to discuss the exact intervention strategies that will help the children understand the text.

One suggested strategy is to incorporate graphic organizers. When we teach and model each skill and strategy using a graphic organizer, it becomes a helpful intervention to clearly show children how to think about a text. Close reading, note taking, or annotating text are also intervention strategies that are used to teach older children. Each intervention strategy teaches students how to examine a text and interpret the meaning of specific quotations, genres, structures, or conventions used by the author.

Once students have learned a variety of reading comprehension intervention strategies, they should be encouraged and empowered to use the strategy that best works for them. Teachers must model these interventions and strategies on grade-level text so that students can see how to successfully comprehend what may be considered difficult text for some readers.

We know that vocabulary affects reading comprehension, and teachers will not always know what vocabulary words are challenging for their students. Defining the unknown word in a dictionary is not an effective strategy to learn new terms. Instead, teachers can teach students how to use context clues, synonyms, and antonyms in every text to expand vocabulary and build meaning.

Finally, visuals, mnemonic devices, and manipulatives can be used to explain new and advanced reading concepts. It is most helpful when teachers implement these same intervention strategies in math, science, and social studies so students are understanding content while increasing their reading comprehension. When students are provided with multiple opportunities to share their thinking in various modes of learning, reading comprehension increases.

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Reading fluency describes the rate, accuracy, and phrasing or expression that is evident when a student is reading aloud one-on-one to a teacher. Fluency is one of the five pillars essential in providing quality reading instruction. It is also a key component that teachers use while administering one-on-one literacy assessments to determine student reading levels, reading behaviors, and strengths or challenges in literacy.

Reading fluency is calculated by combining three different components. The first component is rate, which is based on the amount of words read per minute; this number is supposed to increase as the student’s grade level and reading level increase.

Accuracy is the second component of fluency. In reading, accuracy is defined as the number of errors made during reading for a certain amount of words or minutes. This number is supposed to increase as decoding or automaticity skills increase.

Lastly, the phrasing of reading aloud is the final component that helps determine fluency. This element is an observed, not measured, reading behavior and is often subjective. It is determined based on a student’s reading flow and expression. If the student is reading word by word, their fluency is not considered satisfactory. If a student is reading smoothly and adhering to punctuation that helps their expression and phrasing, he or she is most likely considered a fluent reader.

When these three reading behaviors are calculated, the reading fluency for a student is determined. Once the fluency is determined, instructional practices can be implemented to help the reader continue to grow and improve as a fluent reader.

Why Is Reading Fluency Important?

Reading fluency is just as important as phonics and vocabulary are in reading instruction. It is the key link between word recognition and comprehension. Fluent reading is evident when the automaticity of words is present. The automaticity of both sight words, phonetically spelled words, and multisyllabic words greatly affects the reading fluency of a child from kindergarten on up. When a child is not considered a fluent reader, it is often because the child has difficulty decoding words, which should be mastered for a student to be considered a fluent reader.

Research shows how reading fluency is necessary to increase reading comprehension. Fluency leads to comprehension. While it is true that some children have poor reading fluency but excellent comprehension, reading research indicates how simply reading more accurately and quickly leads to better comprehension. In the five pillars of reading, fluency remains an important factor in achieving reading comprehension, which is the ultimate goal of reading.

Reading Fluency Strategies

The most effective strategy to increase reading fluency is simple. It’s reading! Reading for at least twenty minutes a day to someone, with someone, or silently can increase fluency. The implementation of repeated readings can effectively increase reading fluency while it also increases student confidence levels in reading. Children should be encouraged to read and reread their favorite nursery rhymes and children’s books at home and in school. This is just one way fluency improves.

The most powerful strategy is for parents to read to their children from the time they are born. While instilling a love of literacy at home, they are also modeling reading behaviors for their children. From a very early age, children are hearing how good readers read in rate, expression, and phrasing. Children repeat what they hear and learn. Listening to great readers from birth paves the way for great reading fluency. It is also important to share that audio books are both an easy and convenient way for families to promote reading while increasing fluency while they are on the go.

Reading Fluency Activities for the Classroom

Classrooms can easily implement daily independent reading time, which helps to increase reading fluency. In addition to silent independent reading time, choral reading (which means reading in unison) or partner reading are instrumental in the improvement of reading fluency. Classrooms can also include a literacy station that uses online audio books to increase fluency.

In addition to these literacy activities, teachers can add read aloud experiences from children’s picture books and chapter books in classroom instruction to model great reading behaviors. Teachers should use short, rhythmic texts like nursery rhymes, traditional songs, and poetry in the classroom to increase reading fluency. Poetry folders are a great way for students to have the opportunity to independently read shorter text. It is not as overwhelming for a student, which can increase engagement and confidence while increasing reading fluency.

Another strategy is to include reader’s theater into the classroom. When children are given specific sentences or lines to practice and read, they are more focused on the reading task at hand. The repeated reading of readers theater scripts implemented in the classroom can increase fluency as easily and effectively as poetry.

Teachers should help children set and reach achievable fluency goals in rate, accuracy, and phrasing. A common goal is based on words per minute, meaning the number of words a student can accurately read in one minute. Teachers should use grade-level recommendations when making these goals to help students graph and track the growth.

Teachers can provide a fluency passage or selected pages of a task for students to read and reread for three days in a row. The number of words per minute should be documented during this timed reading on each day. The increase of both guided reading levels and words per minute should take place through these repeated readings. Finally, the repeated practice of both sight words and common phrases significantly increase fluency during reading. When all of these reading strategies are used at home and in school, reading fluency improves.

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Direct Explicit Instruction

Direct explicit instruction is nothing new in education. It emphasizes teacher-student interaction to teach skills. There are six steps generally recognized in direct explicit instruction:

1. Review and check previous work.
2. Present new material.
3. Provide guided practice.
4. Provide feedback and corrections.
5. Provide independent practice.
6. Provide weekly and monthly reviews.

Essentially, direct explicit instruction involves a gradual release from teacher-directed instruction to independent practice. The more specific the learning objective, the more direct explicit instruction is recommended.

Phonological Awareness

Phonological awareness is a broad set of skills that involves being able to break language down into discreet units: sentences into words, words into syllables, onsets from rimes, and syllables into sounds. Phonemic awareness is the specific skill of being able to break syllables into sounds. It is usually the last phonological skill to develop. It is important to note that phonological awareness is oral and auditory, as opposed to written. This oral and auditory awareness is a precursor to decoding the written word.

For most students, phonological awareness begins before formal schooling even starts, without any direct explicit instruction. Parents can help develop this awareness by:

• Reading aloud to their children. Point out words that have the same onset (beginning sound) and rime (ending syllable). For example, “fox” and “fish” have the same onset, while “fox” and “box” have the same rime. Find examples of these patterns in everyday conversations.
• Talking with their children. Point out rhyming and alliteration in everyday conversations with children.
• Singing songs with their children. Sing nursery rhymes with your child and encourage silly variations, substituting some sounds for others. Practice clapping out the syllables in the songs.

For grade school students who still struggle with phonological awareness, systematic instruction is required. This instruction is direct and explicit. While there are a variety of strategies, interventions, and programs available, it is important that any instruction is research-based. The What Works Clearinghouse, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Education, is a good resource for effective phonological awareness instruction.

Sound-Letter Correspondence

Sound-letter correspondence refers to a reader being able to associate certain sounds with certain letters. This is the instruction that takes emerging readers from phonological awareness to actually being able to decode the written word using phonics, a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with letters or groups of letters.

Sound-letter correspondence is best taught using direct explicit instruction. The following sequence is typically used to teach sound-letter correspondence:

a, m, t, p, o, n, c, d, u, s, g, h, i, f, b, l, e, r, w, k, x, v, y, z, j, q

Though it may seem strange to teach letters out of alphabetical order, this sequence teaches high-frequency letters first, allowing students to begin reading as soon as possible. Letters that are easily confused, such as “b” and “d”, are separated from each other in sequence. Short vowel sounds are taught before long vowel sounds.

Blended Reading and Segmented Spelling

Once students understand letter-sound correspondence, they are able to begin blending those sounds to decode words. Blending is often referred to as “sounding out” a word. For instance, given the word “bat”, the emerging reader will at first sound it out slowly, “bbbbaaaatttt”, and eventually will blend the sounds together to form the word “bat”.

Segmentation is the skill of splitting words up into their separate phonemes to help emergent readers spell words. Given the word “bat” orally, the student will separate the individual sounds into b/a/t. Knowing the letter that corresponds to each of these sounds, the student is able to spell the word correctly, “b-a-t”.

Sight Words

While phonics-based instruction is shown to be effective in teaching most students to read most words, there are situations that call for the use of sight words. Sight words are words that students should be able to pronounce within three seconds of seeing them in print.

There are two types of sight words. The first type includes words that are used frequently. Learning to recognize this type of word by sight allows readers to move quickly through text, saving energy for deciphering less frequently used words. Examples of these words include “and”, “the”, and “like”.

The second type of sight word does not follow typical phonetic rules, so they cannot be taught using phonics instruction. Some examples include “have”, “said”, and “women”.

Sight word instruction should complement phonics instruction, not replace it. Instruction should not last more than ten minutes at a time. Words should be introduced in isolation, but then reinforced in reading material. Students should only be exposed to a limited number of words (2-7) at any given time. The Dolch sight word list and the Fry sight word list are two well-established resources from which teachers can find sight words.

Handwriting

Handwriting also plays a surprisingly important role in reading instruction. Students who practice handwriting more tend to be better readers and spellers. Typing does not seem to have the same effect. It is hypothesized that writing words by hand while saying the words aloud activates brain circuits that promote literacy.

In a world that is increasingly digital, it is worth implementing often neglected handwriting practice. Having students write their spelling words or sight words may help them learn them more quickly.

Learning to read is not a process that just occurs naturally. Turning a child into a reader requires direct explicit instruction in phonological awareness, phonics, sight words, and handwriting.

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So, how do teachers check for a student’s post-reading comprehension in all of these scenarios? The following literacy and learning strategies that can be implemented during reading instruction are also most effective for checking post-reading comprehension for students of all ages in any grade level.

Think-Pair-Share

This strategy promotes critical thinking, conversation, and collaboration, and is best used after a whole group reading comprehension lesson. In this manner, a whole class of students can respond to a text by participating in a think-pair-share exercise. A think-pair-share means exactly what it sounds like it means. After hearing any piece of text, teachers provide students with a question stem or prompt for students to individually think about and answer on their own. Then, they pair up with a partner to share their thinking with each other before the partners share their responses out to the entire class.

When this strategy is used correctly, the students are leading their thinking and discussions while teachers are facilitating. The teachers are walking around listening in to the students’ conversations and asking additional probing or clarifying questions when needed.

This strategy can be altered by putting students into groups and assigning a specific question or prompt to each group while the teacher, again, facilitates. This time, when the sharing component begins, the students are learning something brand new because every group has a different topic to think and brainstorm about with their peers. The think-pair-share model allows teachers to observe students’ understanding and comprehension of an article, book, poem, or any text selected for a specific lesson or unit.

Graphic Organizers

Graphic organizers are another way to check post-comprehension after a whole group or small group instruction. It is also an easy way to assess a child’s individual comprehension after an independent reading assignment. Graphic organizers are used to help readers think about what they are reading before, during, and after reading. They are selected to match a specific reading comprehension skill or strategy.

Teachers strategically select text to match a reading comprehension standard they want to teach. This may include understanding main idea, theme, or cause and effect. During an initial literacy lesson, teachers model how to complete a graphic organizer to match the selected standard. Graphic organizers are used to help readers think about what they are reading before, during, and after reading.

A great example of how to appropriately implement this strategy is to model the use of a cause-and-effect graphic organizer during a whole group lesson using nonfiction text. The students can work in partners or on their own to the complete the organizer after reading. The same graphic organizer can be used in small group instruction using leveled nonfiction text as well. Finally, after practice, teachers can assign a nonfiction article and the same graphic organizer template for students to independently complete to assess post-reading comprehension of cause and effect.

Retelling/Summarizing

Retelling and summarizing are post-reading comprehension strategies students can use to show their full understanding of a text. While both comprehension strategies focus on highlighting the sequence, characters, setting, problem, and solution of a text in any genre, there are also a few differences.

Retelling is a comprehension skill that requires a reader to tell the details in order of everything that happened in a story from beginning to end. It is best assessed in a one-on-one setting between teacher and student and most appropriate for emerging and beginning readers. The student orally retells the story while the teacher makes note of the amount of story elements and sequence of events present in this child’s retelling.

While many students like to turn a summary into a retelling, the expectation of summarizing is different. Summarizing is a more complex comprehension strategy because it requires the student to be able to provide the main idea, characters, problem, and solution in the most concise way possible. Summarizing is also sequential, but rather than focusing on the details of the story, it focuses on the overview and takeaways from the text. Summaries are written examples of post-reading comprehension strategies that are most appropriately used for upper-grade and fluent readers.

QAR (Question Answer Relationships)

Questioning is a key strategy in comprehension, and the QAR model helps children understand question and answer relationships in a variety of text. This strategy can also be used after a whole group or small group lesson and can certainly be implemented after independent reading.

The QAR explores four types of questions that students will most often encounter during reading. “Right there” questions assess literal questioning skills while “think and search” questions require more inferential thinking skills. “On my own” questions can be presented without actually reading the text because it focuses on a child’s background knowledge. Lastly, the “author and you” questions are answered based on combining the information in the text and the reader’s personal experiences. The four square template of questioning can be used after any text to evaluate a student’s understanding in multiple forms.

Exit Tickets

Exit tickets are another way to quickly check post-reading comprehension skills and strategies after a whole group or small group literacy lesson. An exit ticket consists of one or two questions to evaluate a child’s understanding of the text. The question is most often found to be in the form of multiple-choice, true or false, a cloze sentence, or a short answer response. Exit tickets can quickly identify the students who fully comprehend a reading standard or objective after reading a text.

The one or two question format can also help teachers determine whether to reteach a comprehension standard and how to teach it so that students can best understand. After collecting student responses, the teacher can explain to students how to understand the question and how to figure out the correct answer. Therefore, when the same question is presented with another text at a later date, students will be familiar with how to successfully answer it.

Writing About Reading

While comprehension is the ultimate goal in reading, writing about reading is the most advanced post-comprehension assignment students can complete. The short answer responses, graphic organizers, and written summaries are a more guided way for students to practice written comprehension responses.

However, writing about reading provides the opportunity for students to analyze and interpret a text. Examples may include writing about the problem in the story from the perspective of one character, writing an alternate ending to the text, or writing what could happen next despite the fact that the story has ended.

Students can also use research to show their post-comprehension and write further about a nonfiction topic. Narrative and expository writing that correlate to the text help teachers to understand a child’s deepest understanding of a text after reading. Various writing assignments can be given for students to complete independently or during a modeled interactive writing lesson. All of these strategies help teachers to vary their instructional practices and check student post-reading comprehension.

*Updated March 2021

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