How to teach reading comprehension English?

Opportunities for teaching comprehension occur throughout the curriculum. To improve comprehension, students must have some reading proficiency and receive explicit instruction in skills and strategies for reading comprehension.

It’s important to include researchable information in the work we provide for our students, this should be done in a supportive environment whether at home or in the classroom. It’s important for teachers to make sure their students have read relevant information and for a decent length of time.

Texts selected should be engaging and interesting and potentially even relevant to the student(s) lives currently. It’s always a good idea to discuss with students some of the vocabulary from within the text, especially those with rich language.

In a classroom setting, students should be given time to talk to one another for a short amount of time before answering questions, or meanwhile. When teachers choose texts that have openings for students to talk amongst themselves, they create better experiences for learning.

The curriculum includes opportunities for teaching reading comprehension throughout each lesson. Strategies taught in early years are to be revised intensively as they will be used throughout the later years of the students education. I’m now going to cover 7 of the main strategies that should be taught to students during reading comprehension lessons.

The strategies are: using Prior Knowledge, predicting, visualising, asking questions and answering them, summarising, synthesising and thinking critically. Using prior knowledge Each reader will have a different memory and prior knowledge.

One student may know more about one topic while the other student may know more about a different topic. It depends what stands out to each individual while reading and the way that persons collective factors chip into the picture.

Personal factors count into prior knowledge such as after school sports and travel. Cultural aspects can contribute to the way an individual contains their knowledge. Like stated above, some students are already more knowledgeable on certain topics than some.

It’s important to think about what they already know about the text, as well as vocabulary factors and text type. Predicting Some readers will be able to predict what’s going to happen next based on what they already know about common literature.

Others are encouraged to attempt to the beat of their ability. Predicting can be as simple as seeing a butterfly on the front page and predicting there will be butterflies in the text. Some readers will be able to make predictions based on what’s already happened, kind of like cliches.

After reading you can confirm whether or not your predictions were correct, this doesn’t impact the grade or outcome of their work, only feeds the brain with more understanding of the text than what they already had.

Sometimes false predictions make the reader surprised to find out that the plot ended up going in a different direction than they thought it would. Visualising Its proven that creating mental images while reading increases the ability to comprehend.

It’s kind of like using your imagination except it’s coming from the text you’re reading. Visualising helps to understand and remember what’s been read. It’s good to focus on what you can hear, smell, see, taste and what the mind is feeling.

When we put these factors we create a much nicer knowledge on the text ready to comprehend it with a clearer image. Questions It’s a good skills to ask oneself questions as they read in order to justify what’s going on in the text as well as gaining clarity and understanding. Readers usually first ask themselves “what’s this story about?”

Before they read the blurb and check the cover image. If the reader is unsure of the meaning of a word, they research it in order to understand the text. Sometimes it’s important to re read a certain paragraph to know who or what it was about.

Every now and then readers should evaluate what they’ve read so far and ensure they’re clear on the text so they can continue reading with an understanding. Questions to be asked after reading are: what was the main idea? What is my opinion on the characters? What do I think of the way it ended? And what am I still unsure about?

Asking oneself these questions will make comprehending simpler. Summarising Students should be taught to pin point the main ideas of the text excluding irrelevant or excess words and information, putting it into their own words. To summarise you must select the main points of the text, briefly mention each topic and to point out all the main necessary parts of what’s been read, separating the main topics from supporting details.

Synthesising This occurs before and after reading when the reader combines their internal thoughts with what’s actually being read. Knowledge already had merges with new information found out, contributing to personal thoughts, shaping them based on prior knowledge. New information can challenge readers to think creatively about the text, assisting with reading comprehension.

Synthesising brings us to think about challenges that are brought by finding out new information that tickles what we already know. Critical Thinking With critical thinking it’s important to understand that all texts have been crafted in a certain way by the writer. We should ask ourselves what point of view is being supported by the text and why.

Knowing the purpose of the writers text is important for compression as well as understanding how it makes you feel and react. Using Previous knowledge Each reader has a different view on the same texts, due to their previous knowledge. This knowledge could be a either or a combination of cultural aspects, knowledge on certain concepts and personal aspects. Everyone has the opportunity to include their prior knowledge when reading. Questions to be asked are around the type of text if is, what ideas already stand and what vocabulary is already familiar.

Readers will often compare what they’re currently reading to what they’ve read in the past. Sometimes after reading, we change our minds on things we previously believed in as a result of readying the text in subject. Conclusion Teachers include relevant information in texts they provide for their students in order to feed information presentation.

Reading comprehension should take place in supportive environments. Students should talk to each other about what they’re reading to share insights. When In a school setting, it’s important to follow the curriculum as well as teaching the main seven strategies which are; using prior knowledge, predicting, visualising, asking questions, summarising, synthesising, critical thinking and using prior knowledge.

When taught these strategies we are enabled to understand how to complete reading comprehension tasks in school settings and other environments.