Link to Article on Reading Comprehension Research
RESEARCH
ARTICLE SUMMARY AND REFLECTION
Ronald
Maiuri
Wilmington
University
MEE
7998
The article that I chose for my summary and reflection is
titled: What Research Tells Us about Reading, Comprehension, and Comprehension
Instruction. The source of the article
was Reading Rockets and it was retrieved by Reading Rockets from the Texas
Education Agency who published the article in 2002. This article looked at research about reading,
comprehension, and comprehension instruction.
The focus of the article is on comprehension techniques of good readers
and how they differ from the techniques of poor readers. The article indicates that without
comprehension, reading is a frustrating, pointless exercise. Therefore, a large part of reading comprehension
instruction is to help children develop knowledge, skills, and experiences they
must have if they are to become competent and enthusiastic readers.
The article indicates that for many years, teachers
focused on teaching individual skills when educating children how to comprehend
what they were reading. These skills
included; identifying words, finding main ideas, identifying cause and effect
relationships, comparing and contrasting, and sequencing. The thinking was that if students could
master these skills then they would be successful with regard to reading
comprehension.
Teachers would follow a pattern of mentioning,
practicing, and assessing. Teachers
would mention a specific skill that students had to apply, the students would
practice that particular skill, and then the teacher would test them on that
skill. The article indicates that this
type of instruction did not teach the students how or when to use each skill
and it was never evident that these skills actually aided in reading
comprehension.
Cognitive scientists began focusing on how readers build
an understanding of what they read. They
studied the mental activities and processes that good readers go through in
order to comprehend what they read. From
these studies a new concept called constructing meaning emerged. Constructing meaning indicated that reading
is a complex and active process, not an application of separate skills. Constructing meaning was interactive and
involved not only the reader but also the text and the context in which the
reading was taking place. Constructing
meaning is strategic in that readers have purposes for their reading and use a
variety of strategies and skills as they construct meaning. Finally, constructing meaning is adaptable in
that readers change the strategies they use for various types of texts and
various purposes of reading.
The article looked at studies performed by researchers who
asked good readers to think aloud as they read.
The researchers determined that successful comprehension is achieved
through highly complex, well-developed, and well-practiced skills. The research further determined that good
readers use these skills before, during, and after reading.
Before reading, good readers set goals for their
reading. Good readers take notice of the
structure and organization of the text.
These readers often make a mental outline of the text they are about to
read. They decide what is going to be
important and relevant based on their reason or need for reading the text.
During reading, successful readers are able to read words
accurately and quickly, and deal with the meaning of those words and the
meanings of the phrases and sentences into which the words are grouped. They are able to connect the meaning of one
sentence to the meaning of another. Good
readers use their background knowledge and ask themselves questions about the
content of the text and reflect on its ideas.
Proficient readers are extremely successful at making,
evaluating, and revising predictions by using their background knowledge. These readers are selective about what they
read and tend to focus more of their time and energy on the parts of the text
that are important to their reading goals.
If they are very familiar with a certain topic of a text, they will
often skim over it or skip it entirely.
If these readers are confused or do not understand a topic, they will
often reread a passage or entire chapter before moving on.
When readers who are good at comprehension read, they
also make inferences by using their background knowledge and looking for clues
in the text that have not been provided directly. These readers create mental images and
utilize visualization to picture a setting, event, or a character to aid their
understanding of what is going on in a text.
They always monitor their comprehension as they read and when they feel
that they do not understand something they will ask themselves questions to
figure it out or they may even go to an outside source for clarification.
After reading, good readers always reflect on what they
have read. They will summarize the
events in their head to get an overall grasp of the text. They will often make an outline of what they
read. To completely comprehend a text
that has been read, good comprehension dictates that the reader even go to
other sources for additional information about the topic when necessary.
The article summarizes the overall activity of good
readers as being strategic. They use many
comprehension strategies to understand what they read. The authors indicate that good readers make
conscious decisions while reading as to which strategies to use and when to use
them. The article further characterizes
good readers as using metacognition. In
other words, they think about their own thinking.
The article summarizes the researcher’s findings about
poor readers as well. The authors state
that poor readers do not use comprehension strategies because they lack the metacognitive
awareness to know which strategies to employ and when to use them. These readers rarely prepare prior to
reading, rarely set goals for their reading, and do not consider the best
approach to reading different types of texts.
Poor readers have difficulty decoding words and as a result they read
slowly which also impairs comprehension.
These readers also typically lack sufficient background knowledge to aid
their understanding of the text they are reading. Finally, poor readers do not reflect on what
they have read and rarely refer to other sources for information.
The cumulative effect of all of the difficulties that
poor readers suffer is that they lose confidence in their reading ability. These readers fall in to a vicious cycle
because their lack of confidence causes them to read less and they get less
practice with comprehension skills.
Since they lack skill and do not receive much practice, the text that
they are asked to read are too difficult for them and they become frustrated
and embarrassed. These readers begin to
dislike reading and the cycle begins again.
REFLECTION
I was truly enlightened by this article as to the
comprehension strategies and techniques that good readers use. What really struck me the most however was
how the article grouped the students in two definitive groups: good readers and
poor readers. It seems as though the
good readers get better as they build skill and in turn gain confidence. In contrast, poor readers seem to fall
farther and farther behind their peers because their lack of skill causing
frustration and they tend to read less.
It is clear that the most important task in preventing a
child from falling into this vicious cycle is to nip it in the bud. Teachers and parents must teach children phonemic
awareness and how to decode. Once a
child is skilled at decoding they will become confident readers who are
receptive to learning comprehension skills.
When a child begins to comprehend the text they are reading they will
enjoy reading, read more, and further deepen their reading skills.
References
Texas Education Agency.
, & Reading Rockets, (2002). What research tells us about reading, comprehension, and comprehension
instruction. Comprehension Instruction, Retrieved from http://www.readingrockets.org/article/29199/?theme=print
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