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Reading Comprehension
Effective Teaching of Reading Comprehension
Just like writing and speaking, reading comprehension is a language skill that needs to be developed in order to enhance understanding of various types of texts. For a long time, teachers have employed different strategies in an attempt to assist their students catch a glimpse of their focus. However, some of these strategies have been applied haphazardly, most often out of ignorance. As a result, most students ended up having trouble in comprehending even basic text. Nevertheless, recent years have seen language experts coming up with techniques that have proven to be effective in solving some of these reading comprehension challenges. The following presentation explores some techniques a teacher can employ to make a reading exercise a successful adventure.
Instructional Strategies
Duke and Pearson (2004) recommend a number of tested instructional strategies for assisting students acquire effective comprehension skills. Despite the existence of a variety of workable comprehension techniques, studies indicate that the application of just one of these techniques considerably improves the student's comprehension. Undoubtedly, use of a collection or packages of these strategies will serve an immense deal to solidify students' comprehension of many kinds of text.
A key strategy to ensure effectiveness in teaching comprehension is first to devise a balanced comprehension instruction. The term "balanced" is used to imply an instruction set that encompasses both the explicit instruction in given comprehension strategies and sufficient time and chance for actual reading, writing, and discussion of the text.
A proper model of comprehension instruction comprises of the following features:
1. An explicit explanation of the strategy used and its mode of application: For instance, prediction is a strategy that involves making guesses regarding what is bound to come next in the text that one is reading. Prediction should be made as often as possible.
2. Teacher and/or student modeling of the strategy in action: This involves subjecting one's mind...
For example, the teacher and/or student can begin by making predictions of the text basing on a title, cover picture or an introductory paragraph.
3. Collaborative use of the strategy in action: At this point, both the teacher and the students pause reading the text. They then make some possible suggestions about what follows in the text or the evident theme.
4. Guided practice using the strategy with gradual release of responsibility: This stage involves giving a student or a group of students the duty to read a page or a chapter, and then allow them to make their prediction of the rest of the book.
5. Independent use of the strategy: This forms the last stage where each student is supposed to read the text quietly and fully noting if the earlier predictions were right.
Thinks-aloud technique
A think-aloud is a term used to describe a meta-cognitive technique or a strategy whereby the teacher verbalizes a thought or idea from a text. This technique is essentially applied to model comprehension of the text in question. Think-aloud is imperative for all readers as it allows them to halt the reading activity periodically, reflect on the text, and establish an oral relationship with this literacy process. Most teachers employ this strategy as an instructional practice to assist their students verbalize the ideas they generate while reading the text, and hence display that thinking openly so that they can effectively replicate the process in the future.
This form of meta-cognitive awareness remarkably improves students' performance in comprehension tests, promotes students' personal assessment of their comprehension capabilities, and boosts students' abilities to make selective thinking processes to assist them overcome difficulties when reading (Block, 2004). As an instructional strategy, think-aloud varies, though slightly, with other techniques such as modeling, prompting, or offering directions. This process enables the instructors to illustrate to their students how to choose the most suitable comprehension process at a given point of…
References
Block, C.C. & Israel, S.E. (2004). The ABCs of Performing Highly Effective Think-aloud. The Reading Teacher vol. 58(2): 1-14
Duke, N. K, & Pearson, P.D. (2002). Effective Practices for Developing Reading Comprehension. International Reading Association, pp1-27
Hassan, S and Fatemeh, N, (2012). The Effect of Learner Constructed, Fill in the Map Concept Map Technique, and Summarizing Strategy on Iranian Pre-university Students' Reading Comprehension. English Language Teaching, vol. 5(9):78-87
Stevenson, G. (2000). Concepts in Reading Comprehension. Advanced Learner Journal, vol. 3(4): 12-13
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