Not all struggling readers are alike!
Comprehension is a huge part of reading development. Teachers may come across readers who can decode and read fluently however, they struggle with understanding what is being read. Word recognition and language comprehension are 2 critical components of reading comprehension. So often it is important to explicitly target both areas.
Proficient readers can read the words and even answer questions about who did what to whom an why because they know the basic grammatical structure of a sentence. However, for those students who require a bit more remediation , these are the 3 suggested strategies to incorporate in both your whole group and small group instruction.
Teach vocabulary . Vocabulary is an important part of language comprehension. students should be taught about the different types of context clues and how to use them to determine the meaning of unknown words. You want to incorporate multi-sensory strategies like graphic organizers, pictures and mnemonics to enhance knowledge of unknown words.
Teach Thinking Strategies. The overall goal is to build indpendence in reading . So, as students build their vocabulary it is also vital to allow students the opportunity to keep up with all of the important details and to access information that is implied but not directly stated.Some thinking strategies include activating prior knowledge, developing questions while reading, visualizing or picturing what they are reading. Allow students to pick their strategies based upon the text being read. These skills can be an important part of reading but can also transfer over to writing.
Directly teach comprehension skills . Some comprehension skills that should be taught are story structure, sequencing , inferencing and drawing conclusions. These skills should be introduce in read aloud to model how students can successful use these skills during independent reading.
