Reading Comprehension

In
Primary Grades

Reading Comprehension
In
Middle Grades







1. The emphasis in beginning
reading is decoding.
2. Students in the primary grades
are exposed to the six critical
elements for beginning reading:
Oral language, phonological
awareness, concepts of print,
letter-sound
associations/phonics/structure,
analogy, and a way to think about
words.
3. Fourteen routines are
particularly effective for beginning
literacy instruction: routines for
decoding phonemic awareness,
explicit phonics, analogy, making
words, word wall, decodable high-
frequency; routines for reading
decodable text, fluency, read-
aloud, shared reading,
observational guided reading,
cooperative reading; routine for
comprehension explicit
comprehension, strategy
routine.
1. The primary focus of reading instruction at
the middle grades should be helping students
apply the skills & strategies they have learned
& use them to read to learn.
2. The major focus of decoding instruction
is on helping students to gain more indepen-
dence as they meet an increasing number of
words that are not in their oral vocabularies.
3. There are at least 4 different kinds of infor-
mational text commonly found in the middle
school: argumentation, description,
exposition, & narration. The majority of these
readings are informational or expository texts.
Thus, reading instruction focuses on strategies
for reading & comprehending expository
texts.
4. Vocabulary development is the main focus
for comprehension.
6. Effective vocabulary strategies include
inferring meaning from context, word maps,
semantic mapping, semantic feature analysis,
hierarchical & linear arrays, preview in
context, contextual redefinition, vocabulary
self-collection, structural analysis,
dictionary/thesaurus.
Decoding &
comprehension are
always present in
varying degrees as
students read.
Source: Literacy:
Helping Students
Construct Meaning,
8
th
ed., by J.D.
Cooper, N.D. Kiger,
M.D, Robinson, J.A.
Slansky