Comprehension Is an Outcome, Not a Skill: How to Use Strategies in K-2
Written by: Kayla Hinton
In recent years, the emphasis on research-based literacy instruction (otherwise known as the Science of Reading) has placed a lot of emphasis on how we teach foundational skills like phonemic awareness and phonics. Rightly so, many teachers, administrators, and districts across Indiana have taken a close look at foundational skill instruction in their classrooms and made important changes to literacy instruction, such as adding explicit and systematic phonics instruction to their literacy block in the primary grades. Why do we focus so much on word recognition skills like letter sounds, grapheme-phoneme correspondences, phonemic awareness, and high-frequency words in the grades K-2? The simple view of reading (word recognition X language comprehension = reading comprehension) tells us that reading comprehension is the outcome of foundational skill instruction (or word recognition) and language comprehension. In this equation, it is important to notice that reading comprehension is an outcome and is dependent on the reader’s automatic word recognition, background knowledge, and vocabulary knowledge in order to occur. When word reading is slow and laborious it utilizes the cognitive space needed to construct meaning. So, this focus on foundational skills builds the foundation for skilled reading. However, this is not the only instructional shift the Science of Reading has brought to classrooms.
“It is important to notice that reading comprehension is an outcome and is dependent on the reader’s automatic word recognition, background knowledge, and vocabulary knowledge in order to occur.”
A few years ago I got a new camera – the fancy kind with lots of settings – but learning to use it has been much harder than expected! Trying to read about what each setting does requires a lot of cognitive load because I lack the background knowledge and vocabulary necessary to understand and apply what I have read about how to adjust camera settings. Children also experience this when they are reading. Along with word recognition, background knowledge, and vocabulary knowledge, researcher Sharron Vaugn also emphasizes the need for readers to monitor their own understanding – or to use metacognitive strategies while reading. The body of scientific research that informs our instruction of word recognition skills also provides key shifts in how we should teach strategies that support reading comprehension.
While reading researchers like Hugh Catts and Sharon Vaughn, clarify that reading comprehension is an outcome and not a skill, we must remember that reading strategies are necessary for understanding a text and supported by research. When I taught second grade, I would select a reading strategy to teach, then select a text and focus on teaching that strategy, aiming for “mastery” of the strategy at the end of the week – this way of teaching reading strategies has also been a common practice in reading classrooms across the US. However, the National Reading Panel Report recommends teaching comprehension strategies in a “naturalistic setting.” So, instead, we should center our instruction around high-quality grade-level texts that will build content knowledge and utilize reading comprehension strategies as needed to understand those texts. This approach is discussed in this article from the International Reading Association. In grades K-2 these texts should be read aloud to students by the teacher and the comprehension strategies taught through explicit modeling. It is beneficial to read aloud the text because a child’s listening comprehension is higher than their reading comprehension until about 7th or 8th grade (Oral Reading Comprehension Sets the Ceiling on Reading Comprehension by Andrew Biemiller). Listening to a text as the teacher reads, commonly called a “read aloud”, enables the student to learn about the content, vocabulary, and text structure of the text that they cannot yet read independently. The Dyslexia and Science of Reading Toolkit from the Indiana Department of Education provides a structured lesson planning template for read aloud lessons.
“We should center our instruction around high-quality grade-level texts that will build content knowledge and utilize reading comprehension strategies as needed to understand those texts.”
After a high-quality grade-level text (or multiple texts about the same topic) focused on teaching content has been selected, the next step is to choose how to teach the text. Reading comprehension strategies can be especially useful when a reader encounters a challenging section of text. So, as you read a text you plan to read to your students, make note of certain sections you anticipate being challenging for students due to their text structure, language patterns, vocabulary, or content. Then select reading comprehension strategies that will support students’ understanding of the text. The website Reading Rocket’s identifies key comprehension strategies supported by research that can be used in any elementary classroom.
Key Strategies to Try
- Monitoring: This means that the reader is aware of when they understand or do not understand the text they are reading (metacognition). Strong readers then use “fix-up” strategies to go back and repair the places in the text where they did not understand the text. Some of these “fix-up” strategies are rereading, reading ahead, asking someone for help, or looking up unfamiliar words in a dictionary or glossary.
- Activating Prior Knowledge: A reader recalls their background knowledge that relates to the text they are reading and uses it to understand what they are reading. Attaching new learning to something you already know helps it to “stick” in your memory.
- Generating and Asking Questions: Readers ask themselves questions as they read to identify important information in the text and can also help the reader identify places in the text where they did not comprehend well and can lead the reader to monitor their comprehension.
- Drawing Inferences: Readers must evaluate or draw conclusions based on clues that the author gives in the text. Authors don’t always state everything they want the reader to know directly, so drawing inferences allows the reader to “read between the lines” while reading.
- Predicting: Predicting is what readers do when they use their background knowledge to make an informed prediction about the content of the text before they read or during reading.
- Summarizing: This requires the reader to synthesize the text and tell in their own words what the text is mostly about.
- Visualizing: Readers who visualize the text create a mental image in their minds of what they have read.
These strategies are mental processes happening in the reader’s brain during reading that teach the reader how to think about a text so they can understand and learn from it. A powerful way for teachers to teach these strategies during a read aloud is to use a teaching method called “thinking aloud”. During a “think aloud”, the teacher models their thinking in a clear and explicit way as they read through the text with the purpose of showing students how to use one of the above strategies. Then the teacher uses gradual release of responsibility (I Do, We Do, You Do) to transfer this learning to students.
It is important to remember that reading comprehension strategies should be viewed as a means to build knowledge and not a skill to be mastered and checked off a list. It is a small shift in our thinking, but one worth giving attention to. While students in grades K-2 are mastering word recognition skills, they can still engage in deep comprehension of texts through their listening comprehension of texts read aloud. As reading teachers, our main goal is to provide instruction that enables students to become independent, active readers who can utilize these strategies purposefully when they encounter difficult sections of text. Making shifts in comprehension strategy instruction that are aligned with research can go a long way to achieve this goal.
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