Key Comprehension Strategies for Students
When reading, comprehension begins as the student identifies the initial meaning from previewing a text or source material. It builds as one continues to read through predicting, making inferences, synthesizing, and seeking answers.
Once reading is done, the student creates a deeper understanding of the text by reviewing, going over parts of the text, discussion, and reflection while also relating these new information to his or her own experiences or current knowledge.
Making connections or using background knowledge Students relate new information with their existing knowledge, which includes their own experiences, other texts they have read, and what they know of the world.
Asking questions Students ask themselves questions as they go through the text, including how they feel towards what they are reading and the authors purpose. This helps the reader process and summarize information and identify main ideas and underlying meanings.
Visualizing Students create mental images of the printed word to understand events and situations in the text. Studies show that visualizing allows readers to have better recall of what they have read.
Determining the importance of a text This means that a student can differentiate between crucial and interesting information and fact and opinion; identify cause and effect and themes; compare and contrast ideas; determine problems and solutions; summarize; list steps in a process; and recall information that answer specific questions.
Making inferences Students take clues from the text and combine it with their background knowledge and identify answers to underlying themes.
Synthesizing Students are able to use new information in combination with existing knowledge to create original ideas or new perspectives.
For students to learn these comprehension strategies, modeling, practice, supervision, and feedback must be provided. Read more about Brooklyn Letters reading comprehension tutoring program.
Before an individual can use language to communicate (expressive language), one must first understand and grasp spoken language. That is why most children with receptive language disorder also struggle with expressive language. This is called mixed receptive-expressive language disorder.
There are also instances when listening comprehension difficulties are caused by a central auditory processing disorder. This involves problems in processing speech or verbal information when presented with noise. The brain fails to assign the correct meaning to the words one hears and does not identify the subtle differences in them. Like receptive language disorders
Central auditory processing disorder (CAPD), also known as auditory processing disorder, refers to difficulties in processing speech or taking in verbal information when presented with noise. The brain fails to assign the correct meaning to the words an individual hears and does not identify the subtle differences in them. The condition is not related to hearing problems or intelligence. However, it may coexist and overlap with other disorders such as ADHD, language disorders, and learning disability.
At Brooklyn Letters, we specialize in working with students who have difficulties processing language, students with reading comprehension difficulties, students diagnosed with dyslexia, and students with auditory processing difficulties.
We let the students know what were doing, so they can be part of the process. We also take their interests, strengths, and learning style into account, maximizing effectiveness and ensuring the students dont get frustrated. After all, were not trying to fit a square peg into a round hole.
If your child likes music and flying saucers, lets incorporate it! Drawing and imaginary animals? For sure! These skills are targeted for remediation during fun activities, and they are also implemented into the students curriculum
We have a veritable toolbox of tools to help your child. We teach strategies to facilitate comprehending language, and these include:
using preparatory sets (before reading/hearing a story, activate background knowledge about the material, discussing unfamiliar vocabulary words, making predictions about the material)
using visual aids (e.g. visual and verbal organizers)
understanding story grammar (make story maps who is the main character, what did the main character do, etc.)
comprehension monitoring to help students be aware when they do not understand what they read or what they heard
repeating information, summarizing, paraphrasing, visual imagery, self-question strategies (e.g. what is the main idea, asking questions after reading or listening to a passage to monitor what they are comprehending, understanding characters plans and intentions, including creating illustrations)
using imaginary play to act out comprehension
drawing pictures to illustrate understanding of what they are reading or listening
understanding pronouns and connecting pronouns to characters in the stories
understanding word relations and conjunctions (e.g. temporal words such as then, after, etc., and oppositional relation words, such as but, though, etc.)
