Reading comprehension

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about human reading comprehension. For machine reading comprehension, see natural language understanding.

The examples and perspective in this article deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide viewof the subject. Please improve this article and discuss the issue on the talk page. (December 2010)

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Reading comprehension is the ability to read text, process it and understand its meaning. An individual's ability to comprehend text is influenced by their traits and skills, one of which is the ability to make inferences. If word recognition is difficult, students use too much of their processing capacity to read individual words, which interferes with their ability to comprehend what is read. There are a number of approaches to improve reading comprehension, including improving one's vocabulary and reading strategies.

Contents

  [hide] 

• 1 Definition
  • 1.1 Reading comprehension levels
  • 1.2 Brain region activation
• 2 History
• 3 Teaching reading comprehension
  • 3.1 Vocabulary
    • 3.1.1 Three tier vocabulary words
    • 3.1.2 Broad vocabulary approach
    • 3.1.3 Morphemic instruction
  • 3.2 Reading strategies
    • 3.2.1 Reciprocal teaching
    • 3.2.2 Instructional conversations
    • 3.2.3 Text factors
    • 3.2.4 Visualization
    • 3.2.5 Multiple reading strategies
  • 3.3 Assessment
• 4 Difficult or complex content
  • 4.1 Reading difficult texts
  • 4.2 Hyperlinks
• 5 Professional development
• 6 See also
• 7 References
• 8 Further reading
• 9 External links

Definition[edit]

Reading comprehension is defined as the level of understanding of a text/message. This understanding comes from the interaction between the words that are written and how they trigger knowledge outside the text/message.^[1][2] Comprehension is a "creative, multifaceted process" dependent upon four language skills: phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.^[3] Proficient reading depends on the ability to recognize words quickly and effortlessly.^[4] It is also determined by an individual's cognitive development, which is "the construction of thought processes". Some people learn through education or instruction and others through direct experiences.^[5]

There are specific traits that determine how successfully an individual will comprehend text, including prior knowledge about the subject, well developed language, and the ability to make inferences. Having the skill to monitor comprehension is a factor: "Why is this important?" and "Do I need to read the entire text?" are examples. Lastly, is the ability to be self-correcting to solve comprehension problems as they arise.^[6]

Reading comprehension levels[edit]

Reading comprehension involves two levels of processing, shallow (low-level) processing and deep (high-level) processing. Deep processing involves semantic processing, which happens when we encode the meaning of a word and relate it to similar words. Shallow processing involves structural and phonemic recognition, the processing of sentence and word structure and their associated sounds. This theory was first identified by Fergus I. M. Craik and Robert S. Lockhart.^[7]

Brain region activation[edit]

Comprehension levels can now be observed through the use of a fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging. fMRIs' are used to determine the specific neural pathways of activation across two conditions, narrative-level comprehension and sentence-level comprehension. Images showed that there was less brain region activation during sentence-level comprehension, suggesting a shared reliance with comprehension pathways. The scans also showed an enhanced temporal activation during narrative levels tests indicating this approach activates situation and spatial processing.^[8]

History[edit]

Initially most comprehension teaching was based on imparting selected techniques that when taken together would allow students to be strategic readers however in 40 years of testing these methods never seemed to win support in empirical research. One such strategy for improving reading comprehension is the technique called SQ3R: Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review that was introduced by Francis Pleasant Robinson in his 1946 book Effective Study.^[9]

Between 1969 and to about 2000 a number of "strategies" were devised for teaching students to employ self-guided methods for improving reading comprehension. In 1969 Anthony Manzo designed and found empirical support for the ReQuest, or Reciprocal Questioning Procedure, it was the first method to convert emerging theories of social and imitation learning into teaching methods through the use of a talk rotation between students and teacher called cognitive modeling.^{[citation needed]}

Since the turn of the 21st century, comprehension lessons usually consist of students answering teachers' questions, writing responses to questions on their own, or both.^[10] The whole group version of this practice also often included "Round-robin reading", wherein teachers called on individual students to read a portion of the text. In the last quarter of the 20th century, evidence accumulated that the read-test methods were more successful assessing rather than teaching comprehension.^{[citation needed]} Instead of using the prior read-test method, research studies have concluded that there are much more effective ways to teach comprehension. Much work has been done in the area of teaching novice readers a bank of "reading strategies," or tools to interpret and analyze text.^[11]

Instruction in comprehension strategy use often involves the gradual release of responsibility, wherein teachers initially explain and model strategies. Over time, they give students more and more responsibility for using the strategies until they can use them independently. This technique is generally associated with the idea of self-regulation and reflects social cognitive theory, originally conceptualized by Albert Bandura.

Teaching reading comprehension[edit]

2009 summer reading program for children ages 5 to 12. "One of our goals is to help the children maintain their reading comprehension skills during the summer," said Belinda Pugh. "If they just read 15 minutes a day, it really will help them maintain that comprehension level."

There are differing viewpoints about how to best teach reading comprehension in the United States. One, for instance, is based uponunderstanding the text through reading and other is learning first to decode the words, or phonics.^{[citation needed]}

Vocabulary[edit]

Reading comprehension and vocabulary are inextricably linked. The ability to decode or identify and pronounce words is self-evidently important, but knowing what the words mean has a major and direct effect on knowing what any specific passage means. Students with a smaller vocabulary than other students comprehend less of what they read and it has been suggested that the most impactful way to improve comprehension is to improve vocabulary.^[12]

Most words are learned gradually through a wide variety of environments: television, books, and conversations. Some words are more complex and difficult to learn, such as homonyms, words that have multiple meanings and those with figurative meanings, like idioms,similes, and metaphors.^[13]