How often we wish for another chance
to make a fresh beginning.
A chance to blot out our mistakes
And change failure into winning.

From the poem Another Chance, these first four lines greeted me every time I opened the first chapter of the standard 8th English textbook. I faced a certain degree of anxiety every time I opened this book. My predicaments about teaching this poem were especially centred on two concerns:

• My students struggled with decoding three and four-letter words. How would they learn to decode this poem full of complex, unfamiliar, multisyllabic words?
• Even if we succeeded in learning to decode, how would I bring them to engage with this poem meaningfully, with content which was both abstract and completely unfamiliar to them?

We engaged with this poem for over a month -- one paragraph a week along with decoding, reading and vocabulary activities. I was often resigned to both my students and me finding this a long, arduous and meaningless activity. But at the end of the month, my students were reading this poem fluently. There was a sense of elated achievement on their faces when they looked up at my face at the end of the fourth paragraph. Innumerable times, I would hear them say, “ Didi ab padhna aa gaya hai. Pehle ekdum aata hin nahi tha.”

However, if you asked them any question related to the meaning of the poem, my students would fall silent. I struggled, and I think to a large extent failed at resolving the latter of my predicaments. I couldn’t teach my children to read with meaning, especially when the texts were abstract, unfamiliar, and filled with difficult words and complex sentences.

It wouldn’t be wrong to assume that failure in teaching our students how to comprehend is a fairly common phenomena across classrooms (Menon et al. 2017; Sinha, 2012). This failure is due to many factors, primary of which is teachers’ lack of understanding of the processes of comprehension, and also how to teach comprehension.

Other blog pieces within the theme have engaged with the idea of comprehension, how it is an interactive and transactional process between the reader and the text. In this piece, I engage with the idea of comprehension instructions. The question I attempt to answer is, what strategies can teachers adapt to teach children how to read with meaning?

Comprehension, it has long been assumed, is a skill that should be self-taught. Yet, teaching students how to decode and not teaching them how to comprehend what they decode leaves much to the students’ prior knowledge and support systems outside the classroom. Students who figure it out start to be tagged good readers and the rest poor readers.  

The consequences of poor comprehension begin to become more noticeable in middle and high school, when students are suddenly required to read longer texts of varied genres in limited time. (Tovani, 2000)

Is it possible, then, to teach students explicitly how to comprehend what they read, and help them become ‘good readers’? To answer that question, let us first try and understand what we mean by good readers. During the 1970s and 1980s, researchers studied what ‘good readers’ do when they read texts. Duke & Pearson (2009) have summarised the findings of those studies.

Good readers usually set purposes, that is, they know why they are reading a particular text. They also look over the text, make predictions, read selectively based on their goals, and integrate what they are reading with their prior experience and knowledge. They notice when they don’t understand something, and actively try to solve those comprehension problems. In comparison, poor readers don’t use these strategies, or use them only occasionally.

The question then is, is it possible to teach poorer (or, younger) readers to use these strategies? Luckily, there is enough research to show that it is definitely possible to teach these strategies and processes to readers, helping them acquire the skills of good reading.

Comprehension instruction, however, cannot be taught in isolation. It needs to have a supportive environment:

• The environment should be rich in print, and the pedagogy should be socio-culturally responsive.
• Students must be provided with many opportunities to read for different purposes.
• Texts of different genres, or kinds, need to be made available for reading, writing and discussion.  
• Relevant prior knowledge and personal experiences of the students should be brought into the classroom to help make sense of the texts being read. In fact, knowledge of different concepts need to be actively by exposing readers to diverse experiences.
• There must also be space in the classroom for a diversity of opinions and interpretations of texts.

It goes without saying that children who spend a lot of time reading, become better at reading and making sense of different kinds of texts. Therefore, teachers should ensure that children have enough time during and after school to read, write and discuss. In addition to giving these indirect opportunities for learning to make meaning, they should also teach children strategies for meaning making (Duke & Pearson, 2009). Let’s discuss a few of the strategies suggested by them. It is important to remember that in teaching any of these strategies, the teacher should model and demonstrate how to use the strategy, and provide students with guided practice in the strategy before expecting them to use it independently.

1. Predicting

We often make predictions while reading. Predicting helps us anticipate what we will read about next, and helps us be actively engaged with the reading process. Teachers can encourage students to use these cues to make predictions:

• Title of the text
• Illustrations
• Prior knowledge or experience of the content in the text.  For example, in a text on festivals, personal experience of the reader can be drawn on.
• Understanding of the character, plot, setting etc.
• Knowledge of the genre. For example the climax of a fairy tale will possibly shape out very differently from that of a thriller.

The idea isn’t that students make absolutely accurate predictions, but that they remain engaged with the text by following a line of reasoning.

Activity

Here are two activities you could use related to this strategy.

Group Discussions (for younger students): While reading a text together, the teacher can stop every now and then to ask students what they feel will happen next, and why. As the class makes progress with the text, the teacher can revisit the predictions to discuss how accurate they were.

Double Entry Journal (for upper elementary and middle school students): Ask students to divide a page into two columns. On one side, students can write the page number they are at, the prediction they have made, and the rationale behind it. On the other side, they can write whether the prediction turned out to be correct. If not, how was it different? (Tovani, 2000)

2. Summarising

Summarising is one of the most commonly used strategies by readers. Yet, it is not easy to summarise a text we have read. To do that, we have to be able to distinguish important information from less important information. The goals of summarising are two-fold. First is to learn the skill of summarising, to articulate in fewer words the main ideas from a text. Second, to summarise a text, readers engage with it rigorously, thus leading to a more thorough comprehension.

Two major ways of summarising are described  below.

Rule Governed Approach: In an approach McNeil and Donant followed (1982), readers are taught the following rules:

Rule 1: Delete unnecessary material.

Rule 2: Delete redundant material.

Rule 3: Compose a word to replace a list of items.

Rule 4: Compose a word to replace individual parts of an action.

Rule 5: Select a topic sentence.

Rule 6: Invent a topic sentence if one is not available.

GIST procedure (Cunningham, 1982): In the GIST procedure, students are given a total of 15-20 blanks. First, they identify and label the main idea from each paragraph. Then, they summarise the main ideas in 15-20 words.

3. Visual Representations

Representing the text we read in a visual form helps both in comprehension and retaining key ideas in memory. In their book Supporting Readers and Writers: Tools that Make a Difference in Comprehending and Constructing Texts, Fountas and Pinnell (2001) provide the readers with a list of graphic organisers that could be used in comprehending texts better. A few of these are described here.

Story/character map: Mapping the movement of a story or character.

Comparison chart: Can be used to compare two characters, two books, settings, phenomena etc. Comparison charts can be used for many different text structures and genres. For example, comparing the pigs and the wolf in The Three Little Pigs. Or students could be asked to compare a hill with a mountain.

Cause and effect chart: This can be a double entry diary, with the cause on one side of the table, and the effect on the other.

Sequence chart: Identifying the chronology or sequence of events and listing them down.

Information cycle: Students can be taught to draw a cycle of events to comprehend and recall activities which fall in a cyclical pattern, such as the life-span of living beings, water cycle and food chain.

Information web: Information webs can be about characters, places, books, things and so on. For example, an information web about a mango tree will have ‘mango tree’ written in a circle at the centre. Different strands coming out of the circle give us details about the tree, such as the flower, season and fruit. These are also called concept maps.

Ideas-details chart: Students identify main ideas from the text and write down supporting details. For example, in the story Kaabuliwallah an idea could be that there was a great friendship between Mini and Kabuliwallah. Readers can then write down three to four details which support this premise (Fountas & Pinnell, 2001).

4. Text Structure: Different kinds of texts often have different structures. Understanding the pattern of structures that they might find in different kinds of texts helps readers organise the information they encounter.

For example, the following kinds of texts organise information somewhat differently from each other.

• Narrative
• Chronological/sequential
• Comparison
• Cause and effect
• Descriptive

Duke and Pearson (2009) point out that systematic attention to the underlying structure of texts can help students relate ideas to one another, facilitating understanding and recall. For example, a text that compares one thing to another should be read differently from one that simply describes something. If a child does not realise this, she might read the comparative piece as a description, and end up not recalling relevant features compared.

5. Questioning:

Questioning is one of the most commonly (and often only) strategy used in classrooms. While the purpose of question-and-answer is to assess and assist comprehension, its usage within classrooms is often very didactic. Questions raised in classrooms are often close-ended and controlled by the teacher. Students aren’t encouraged to raise their own questions about the text they’re reading. Questioning needs to be used as a motivator for the readers to delve deeper into the text, and assist comprehension. A large body of research has shown that teaching students to raise questions about what they are reading, helps them understand the text better. Here, I describe one well-known method of teaching students to raise questions.

Question-Answer Relationship (QAR)

QAR was a technique developed in 1980s to help readers comprehend the text by answering and raising three different types of questions-

1. Right there questions: Here the question and answer are stated explicitly in the text – the answers can be found “right there”.
2. Think and search: The answers to these questions are in the text, but not readily available. Readers need to think about the content, and then search for the answers.
3. On your own: These questions could be inspired by the text, however, readers draw on their experiences to answer them. For example, , “In her place, what would I have done?” The child arrives at the answer through his or her own thinking and experience, and not using the text.

How can We Teach Comprehension Strategies?

Teaching children to use comprehension strategies is a long-term process that will need many repetitions through elementary and middle school. Teachers have to be prepared to show children how to use the strategies, and to guide and scaffold them. It is best to teach children one strategy at a time, although the aim is to have them using multiple strategies over time. When introducing the children to a strategy, introduce it clearly and explain what it is, why it is helpful, and when to use it. For example, here is how you can explain the predicting strategy.

• WHAT: Good readers often predict what is going to happen next in the text, based on what they already know.
• WHY: I find that when I pause and predict, it makes me think about what is going to happen next, so I stay attentive. Then, I read on to see if my prediction is correct.
• WHEN: I find that pause to predict at points when I feel that some new information is going to be given in the text. I find I use prediction both for stories, as well as for texts that give information.

Prompts:

• I can look at the title and all the visual clues on the page. What do I think we will read about?
• Thinking about what I have read and discussed, what do I think will happen next?

The teacher needs to demonstrate the process clearly before doing it collaboratively with the children. The idea is to support the children as they learn to use the strategies in guided and shared practice, and to help them grow into independent users.

When the teacher is demonstrating a strategy to children, she can think aloud. Think aloud is the process in which the teacher says out loud her thoughts as she reads. So if she is showing children how to predict, she can stop and explain to children her own thinking about why that is a good place to stop and make a prediction. She can show children how she reads to check if her prediction was correct, and how this strategy helps her to understand the text better.

After introducing a strategy and thinking aloud to show students how to do it, they will need an extended period of guided practice. It is possible that teachers will need to build a spiral curriculum through elementary and middle school, so that the strategies are re-visited until they become habitual.

Once familiar with many of these strategies, it’s important for students to know that there isn’t one correct way of using these strategies; rather, they should use a collection and combination of strategies as and when needed.

Summary

1. Introduce one strategy at a time. Introduce it clearly and explain what the strategy is, why it is helpful, and when it can be used.
2. Demonstrate the strategy for the readers, including thinking aloud to show students how you use it.
3. Engage students in guided and shared practice of the strategy.
4. Motivate students to use the strategy independently.
5. Clarify that there one right way of using the strategies. They can be used independently or collectively, in different combinations, based on the nature of the text and the purposes of the reader (Duke and Pearson, 2009).

Conclusion

There would be no sense of learning to read, if we aren’t reading with meaning. This piece has pointed to the need for strong comprehension instruction in classrooms to help readers acquire the skills of good reading. Drawing on Duke and Pearson (2009) and several other authors, I have discussed several comprehension strategies, such as prediction, questioning and visual organisers, after which, I have suggested ways for teaching these strategies to young readers. It is my hope that this will inspire you to try out comprehension strategy instruction in your class.

References

Cunningham, J. W. (1982). Generating interactions between schemata and text. In J. A. Niles & L. A. Harris (Eds.), New inquiries in reading research and instruction (pp. 42-47). Rochester, NY: National Reading Conference.

Duke, N. K., & Pearson, P. D. (2009). Effective practices for developing reading comprehension. Journal of education, 189 (1-2), 107-122.

Fountas, I. C., & Pinnell, G. S. (2001). Supporting Readers and Writers: Tools That Make a Difference in Comprehending and Constructing Texts. In r. C. Fountas, & G. S. Pinnell, Guiding Readers and Writers, Grades 3-6: Teaching Comprehension, Genre, and Content Literacy. (pp. 440-460). Heinemann, 88 Post Road West, PO Box 5007, Westport, CT 06881.

McNEIL, J., & Donant, L. (1982). Summarization strategy for improving reading comprehension. In J. A. Niles & L. A. Harris (Eds.), New inquiries in reading research and instruction (pp. 215-219). Rochester, NY: National Reading Conference.

Menon, S., Krishnamurthy, R., Sajitha, S., Apte, N., Basargekar, A., Subramaniam, S., ... & Modugala, M. (2017). Literacy Research in Indian Languages (LiRiL): Report of a Three-Year Longitudinal Study on Early Reading and Wrifing in Marathi and Kannada.

Sinha, S. (2012). Reading without meaning: The dilemma of Indian classrooms. Language and Language Teaching, 1(1), 22-26.

Tovani, C. (2000). I Read It, but I Don't Get It: Comprehension Strategies for Adolescent Readers. Stenhouse Publishers.