Frequently Asked
Questions
What is reading?
What is phonemic awareness?
What is reading comprehension?
Why do some students have reading
comprehension problems?
How do we teach children to
comprehend while they read?
What is reading?
Reading requires both decoding (sounding out the words) and
comprehension (understanding what is read).
Decoding is an area of difficulty since individual letters are
abstract and meaningless. The
letters must be linked to abstract sounds (phonemes) that blend together to
make words. This must take place in rapid and automatic fashion and is not
hard for many children who figure it out regardless of how it is
taught. However, for about 30% of
children, learning this skill is not straightforward and is dependent upon
the ability and efficiency to hear sounds in words, called phonemic
awareness.
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What is phonemic awareness?
Phonemic awareness and development of the alphabetic
principle are non-negotiable skills necessary for reading.
In the English language there are 44 sounds, or phonemes, that
correspond to the 26 letters.
Readers must understand that speech is segmented units and is
represented by printed forms (sound-letter) and written words represent the
phonemes of spoken words (letter-sound).
The difficulties associated with phonemic awareness stem from the
fact that spoken language is seamless and children must learn to
“unglue” sounds in words (C-A-T is no longer represented by one
sound- rather 3 sounds). Some
children do not hear the individual sounds in words and since there
is no natural practice understanding that words are a combination of sounds
it must be EXPLICITLY taught to about 1/3rd of our nation’s readers,
otherwise they are at risk for reading failure.
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What is reading comprehension?
Reading comprehension is the on-going
understanding of what is read while reading. It is the ability to transform written
text into meaningful understanding.
It requires the reader to be able to read the words, know the
vocabulary, be relatively fluent, and understand the language structure
underlying the text. In addition, a
reader must be able to relate the current text being read to the previous
text in order to develop a clear understanding of the entire passage. This requires on-going monitoring of
one’s ability to “build the story” or comprehend as
the text is read.
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Why do some students have reading
comprehension problems?
There are various components that impact reading comprehension, such
as the following:
DECODING PROBLEMS
Reading comprehension can be compromised if a
reader has significant problems “sounding-out” the words in a
passage. A conflict may arise in the
brain between decoding the words while simultaneously attempting to
understand the written text and apply that understanding to prior
comprehension of the text.
ATTENTION AND SELF-REGULATION DIFFICULTIES
A reader must be able to relate the current text
being read to the previous text in order of develop a clear understanding
of the entire passage. This requires
on-going monitoring of one’s ability to “build the
story”. Because of the
requirements involved in comprehension monitoring, students who struggle
with attention and other self-regulation difficulties may have difficulty
the on-going comprehension of read text.
WORKING MEMORY DEFICITS
Reading comprehension may suffer due to
difficulties during the simultaneous storage and processing of language.
This leads to the ability to read what is being read but not able to
understand and remember the context.
LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION PROBLEMS
Overall weak verbal and language skills may also
contribute to poor reading comprehension.
Such difficulty would be evident with both written and oral
language.
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How do we teach children to comprehend
while they read?
Instructional
procedures usually include
1. having students read material
2. having students answer questions
Only a very few teachers use visual
imagery- and those teachers report using it less than 4% of teaching
time (Lloyd, 1995-96)
Teachers assess reading
comprehension rather than teach the skill (Mason, 1983; Mason & Osborne, 1982)
READING AND ANSWERING QUESTIONS IS TESTING
COMPREHENSION NOT TEACHING COMPREHENSION
Comprehension monitoring and
the use of visual imagery techniques
have been proven as effective tools in improving reading comprehension
Visual imagery helps children improve memory for
passages (Oakhill & Patel, 1991)
Poor readers do not monitor their comprehension
as well as good readers (Paris & Myers, 1981)
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