Comprehension

Eh?
What is Comprehension?
 Comprehension
 A process through which meaning is extracted
and constructed by interacting with written
language
 Can be effected by
 The reader
 His/her motivation to read and the strategies used while
reading
 The text
 Words used, author’s ideas, and the complexity of the
ideas presented/how they are presented
 The environment
 The activity or purpose for which the text is being read

The above information is from Shedd, Meagan (2008).

Comprehension. Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan
What is Comprehension?

 Comprehension and Fluency (refer to

Fluency PowerPoint)
 Comprehension and Vocabulary (refer to
Vocabulary PowerPoint)
 When all other aspects of literacy
development fall into place, comprehension
can occur
What good comprehenders do when they
read
 A good comprehender starts thinking before reading
and doesn’t stop when the book is done
 After reading a title of a book or chapter, they predict what is
going to happen
 While reading, they question why things are happening
 Also while reading, they imagine the events of the story in
their head
 If anything that is not understood while reading, they search
for clues in the text to help, or if all else fails, ask
 After reading, they summarize and make inferences about
the text
 Also after reading, they connect it to their own life or some
other form of prior knowledge
The above information is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Comprehension.
Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan
Affects on Student’s Comprehension

 Prior knowledge
 The amount of varied experiences students have
had affects the amount of schemas that can be
connected and the richness of the comprehension
(Field Notes, April 1st)
 Oral Language
 Students may have difficulty understanding
questions when asked orally (Shedd, 2008)
 Students may be comprehending, but are just not
understanding the questions asked
Affects on Student’s Comprehension
 Short-term or working memory (Shedd, 2008)
 This is our “active” memory that holds a small amount of
information for about 20 seconds (wikipedia.org)
 If a student has problems with his/her short-term memory,
he/she may have to continually re-read to comprehend the
text, because they always forget what they had previously
read
 Motivation (Shedd, 2008)
 If students are not motivated to read, they will not practice
various literacy concepts and will therefore have difficulty
with comprehension.
 Conversely, if students have difficulty with comprehension,
they may be unmotivated to read which will again, lead to a
lack of practice with various literacy concepts
Affects on Student’s Comprehension

 Linear vs. Hypertext

 Hypertext can cause disorientation
 The main issues students have with hypertext is
getting used to the ways in which we use it
different than linear text
 Finding things relevant to the topic desired requires prior
knowledge of the topic
 Hypertext is often skimmed for main ideas since there
are so many sources to choose from

The above information is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Comprehension.

Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan
Diagnosing the problem
 Students could have comprehension issues for
many different reasons
 These issues may arise during certain activities or could be
content specific
 These issues may arise because the student is not using
strategies to decode the text
 Having difficulty with any one of the literacy concepts
discussed in previous PowerPoints can affect
comprehension
 This is why a large number of good assessments should
be used
 It is especially important to use multiple assessments when
testing comprehension, so as to get a broader view of how the
student is doing with comprehension (In the case of a problem
in comprehension: what is the cause and what course should
be taken for instruction)

The above information is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Comprehension.

Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan
Issues for Second Language Learners
 SLL’s may have a particular problem with motivation
 Since it is harder for SLL’s to learn another language, they may
be less motivated to try
 Also, if the parents of the SLL place zero value on learning
English, the SLL will be much less motivated to try
 As discussed before, the less students read/practice the various
literacy concepts, the less they will comprehend
 SLL’s may have problems with texts that have a lot of metaphors
 Metaphors can be vary confusing for SLL’s because they often
play on double meanings of words
 Difficulty with early literacy concepts
 Difficulty learning letter-sound relationships and morphology
leads to difficulty decoding and a smaller vocabulary, which leads
to low fluency and not “seeing the big picture”, which leads to low
comprehension
Assessments and Activities
 Summarizing and Predicting
 Have a student predict what they think is going to
happen in a short story after reading the title and
seeing the cover illustration
 After the student reads the text aloud, have
him/her summarize it
 Predicting helps the student “jump-start” their
imagination
 Summarizing gives the teacher a good idea if the
student is comprehending the text or not
 While the student reads aloud, the teacher should note
things like fluency and decoding strategies
The above information is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Comprehension.
Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan
Activities and Assessments

 Journal Entries
 Give time for students to read their books every
day
 After each reading session is over, have the students
write a short journal entry relating to the text (what’s
happening, questions they have, predictions, how it
relates to them, etc.)
 Reading these entries periodically will give the teacher an
idea of how the students are thinking about the book

The above information is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Comprehension.

Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan
 Activities and Assessments

 Formal assessments
 Fill in the blank questionnaires
 Gates-MacGinitie
 Qualitative Reading Inventory
 All formal assessments such as the ones above
should measure multiple aspects of literacy
development, not just comprehension. It is key to
understand these other aspects along with
possible problems to understand the cause for
problems with comprehension
The above information is from Shedd, Meagan (2008). Comprehension.
Presentation for TE 301, East Lansing, Michigan
References
• Shedd, Meagan (2008). Comprehension. Presentation for TE 301,
East Lansing, Michigan
• Field Notes (2008). April 1st visit to Mt. Hope Elementary and talk
with Mrs. Holley
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short-term_memory