Categories of Instruction with a Firm Scientific Basis for Improving Comprehension

Comprehension monitoring has students actively asking themselves if they understand what they read or do not understand what they read. If they do not understand what they are reading, they are able to utilize “fix up” strategies to resolve problems in gathering meaning from text. Armbruster, Lehr, and Osborn (2006c) provide several examples of comprehension monitoring strategies, such as pinpointing where difficulties occur (e.g., “I do not understand the third paragraph on page 50”); pinpointing what the difficulties are (e.g., “I do not understand what the author means here”); putting the difficult sentences/paragraph into their own words (e.g., “The author means….”); looking back through the text when needed; and looking forward in the text if the information might help solve a problem currently faced.

Cooperative learning involves having students interact with one another in the use of learning strategies, discussing information about what was read, and drawing conclusions.

Graphic and semantic organizers are important text comprehension strategies. Graphic organizers illustrate concepts and common relationships among concepts in text. Sometimes we see the terms story maps, story webs, graphs, charts, frames, or clusters. Semantic organizers also have been called semantic maps or webs and are graphic organizers that look like spiderwebs. In this approach a central idea is presented and lines connect to this central concept to illustrate related ideas or events. Graphic (and semantic) organizers help students focus on what they are reading, provide a visual to help show relationships, and assist students in writing thorough summaries of what they read.

Question answering involves having teachers ask questions to guide and monitor students’ understanding of text. These questions help students focus on meaning. There are several types of questions that can be taught to students. These include explicit, implicit, and scriptal questions. Explicit questions are stated explicitly in one sentence. Implicit questions are implied by information that is presented in two or more sentences. Finally, scriptal questions are not found in the text—students have to use their prior knowledge to answer the questions.

Question generation involves having students ask their own questions as they read text. By asking these questions, students learn to pinpoint what they do and do not understand. For example, students can ask questions such as, “What is the main idea of this paragraph?” or “What is going on in this chapter?”

Summarization involves having students condense what they read into only the most important information. This activity involves putting text information into students’ own words.

Multiple strategy instruction involves teaching students to use various types of strategies to assist in their comprehension of text. One of the main methods of multiple strategy instruction is reciprocal teaching. Reciprocal teaching involves having students ask questions about what they are reading, summarize parts of the text, clarify parts they do not understand, and predict what might happen next. Multiple strategy instruction “finds considerable scientific support for its effectiveness as a treatment, and it is the most promising for use in classroom instruction where teachers and readers interact over texts” (NRP, chapter 4, p. 46).