Chapter 9: Comprehension

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Scenario
Alan’s Comprehension

Alan is a fifth-grader who scored at a 4.2 level on the reading comprehension subtest of the
California Achievement Tests in the fall of this school year. Observing Alan when he is reading
many different kinds of texts in many different contexts, Ms. Maddox sees that Alan appears
able to comprehend and recall information that is mentioned in the texts. She also notices that
he appears to need help with higher-level comprehension skills such as making inferences. She
decides to review the specific items on the reading comprehension subtest to see if Alan’s
comprehension performance coincides with her observations and discovers that it does. Her
analysis shows that Alan answered all literal-level questions accurately but answered
higher-level comprehension questions incorrectly. Using the results of her observations and test
item analysis, Ms. Maddox concludes that literal-level comprehension is Alan’s strength. What
he needs is help in learning how to use higher-order thinking skills such as inferring to
comprehend beyond the literal level.

Understanding Comprehension

Comprehension
Comprehension happens in a reader’s mind, which means it cannot be observed or measured
directly. We can only infer from overt behavior that someone “understands.” Webster’s Third
New International Dictionary defines comprehension as “the act or action of grasping (as an act
or process) with the intellect,” and intellect is defined as “the capacity for rational or intelligent
thought especially when highly developed.” The more intelligent an individual is, the more able
she is to comprehend. What may not be so obvious is that people who have difficulty
understanding may have this difficulty because they have not had experiences that required a
variety of levels of thinking; thus, they may not have learned how to comprehend.

Listening Comprehension
To be able to recognize expressions in print, students must have heard these phrases in the
past; they must be in the students’ listening vocabulary. Reading comprehension depends on
comprehension of spoken language. Students who are sensitive to the arrangement of words in
oral language are more sensitive to the same in written language. Strong listening
comprehension also involves speaking, since children figure oral language out by testing out
their ideas in speech situations.1 Through listening and speaking, children learn many
expressions they will eventually see in print. Listening and speaking take place all the time.
Teachers orally explain word meanings and discuss what the text says. Students listen to other
children read orally, talk about books, and explain their contents. Participation in any
language-rich activities, such as conversation or viewing media with dialog, will enhance
children’s listening comprehension.

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Many students prefer to listen to read-alouds rather than to read independently. These children
gain more comprehension and retention from listening because of the important added cues
they receive from the speaker, such as stress given to words or phrases, and facial expressions.
Other children prefer to read independently because they can set their own rate of reading for
maximum comprehension and retention. Both listening and reading are important, and the
teacher’s goal should be to get students to feel comfortable in both situations.

Sometimes, a student can understand a passage when it is read orally, but cannot understand it
when reading it alone. This indicates that the words are in the student’s listening vocabulary but
that the student may not have gained the skills necessary for understanding their written forms.

A person who does not do well in listening comprehension skills will usually not do well in
reading comprehension skills. Help in one area usually enhances the other because both
listening and reading contain some important, similar skills,3 as researchers going as far back
as the 1930s have noted. For example, an investigation made in 1936 found that children who
did poorly in comprehension through listening also did poorly in reading comprehension.4
Research in 1955 on the relationship between reading and listening found that practice in
listening for detail will produce a significant gain in reading for the same purpose.5 Others have
also found that teaching and learning listening comprehension skills will produce significant
gains in reading comprehension,6 and that reading and listening involve similar thinking skills.7

Findings from a number of other studies strongly support the link between reading and listening
comprehension. In one such study, a researcher sought to learn whether the reason some good
decoders in reading were poor comprehenders was an overemphasis on word accuracy when
decoding or whether it was because of a lack of listening comprehension; that is, the decoders
were “word callers” who do not have the words in their listening vocabulary. The results of the
study suggested that the students’ “listening vocabulary was not better than their reading
comprehension. So, decoding does not seem to distract or otherwise interfere with
comprehension among children whose decoding skills are well developed. [Instead, according
to the investigator] once a child has become a good decoder, differences in reading ability will
reflect differences in listening ability.

Although there are many common factors involved in the decoding of reading and
listening—which would account for the relationship between the two areas—listening and
reading are, nonetheless, separated by unique factors. The most obvious is that listening calls
for hearing, whereas reading calls for seeing. As previously stated, in the area of listening, the
speakers are doing much of the interpretation for the listeners through their expressions,
inflections, stresses, and pauses. Similarly, the listeners do not have to make the proper
grapheme (letter)–phoneme (sound) correspondences because these have already been done
for them by the speakers. It is possible for students to achieve excellent listening
comprehension but not to do as well in reading comprehension.

Readers must identify words and organize them into phrases and sentences to build basic
meaning. Readers must also be able to build a larger meaning for a whole text, to determine the
shades of meaning implied by the words, to recognize any special figures of speech, and to
synthesize the ideas expressed in a text.

In Table 9.1, we show some of the similarities between listening comprehension skills and
reading comprehension skills. We also show the different levels of listening and offer a brief
definition of each level.

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Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is a complex intellectual process involving a number of abilities. The
two major abilities involve knowing word meanings and using verbal reasoning. Without word
meanings and verbal reasoning, there would be no reading comprehension, and without reading
comprehension, there is no reading. Most people would agree with these statements; however,
disagreement surfaces when we ask, “How does an individual achieve comprehension while
reading?” In 1917, Edward Thorndike put forth his statement that “reading is a very elaborate
procedure, involving a weighing of each of many elements in a sentence, their organization in
the proper relations to one another, and the cooperation of many forces to determine final
response.”9 He stated further that even the act of answering simple questions includes all the
features characteristic of typical reasoning. Today investigators are still exploring reading
comprehension in attempts to understand it better, and through the years many have
expounded and expanded on Thorndike’s theories.

For more than half a century, research into the process of understanding has been influenced by
the fields of psycholinguistics and cognitive psychology. As a result, terms such as surface
structure, deep structure, microstructure, macrostructure, semantic networks, schemata, story
grammar, story structure, and metacognition are used by authors who provide explanations
about comprehension.

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Although it is difficult to state definitively how people achieve comprehension while reading,
researchers report that good comprehenders appear to have certain characteristics.11, 12 Good
comprehenders are skilled at inferential reasoning; they can state the main or central ideas of
information; they can assimilate, categorize, compare, see relationships, analyze, synthesize,
and evaluate information. They engage in meaningful learning by assimilating new material into
concepts already existing in their cognitive structures;13 that is, good comprehenders relate
their new learning to what they already know. Also, good comprehenders are able to think
beyond the information given; they are able to come up with new or alternate solutions. In
addition, they seem to know what information to attend to and what to ignore. Clearly, people
who have good strategies for processing information are able to bring more to and gain more
from what they are reading or listening to than those who do not have these strategies. Good
comprehenders are active, purposeful, evaluative, thoughtful, strategic, persistent, and
productive.

Schema theory deals with the relations between prior knowledge and comprehension.
“According to schema theory, the reader’s background knowledge serves as scaffolding to aid in
encoding information from the text.”14 A person with more background knowledge for a given
text will comprehend better than one with less background. Preparing readers for what they will
be reading “by actively building topic knowledge prior to reading will facilitate learning from text.”

Reading Comprehension Taxonomies

A number of reading comprehension taxonomies exist, and many appear similar to one another.
This similarity is not surprising. Usually, the individuals who develop a new taxonomy do so
because they are unhappy with an existing one for some reason and want to improve on it. As a
result, they may change category headings, but keep similar descriptions of the categories, or
they may change the order of the hierarchy. Most of the existing taxonomies are adaptations in
one way or another of Bloom’s taxonomy of educational objectives in the cognitive domain,
which is concerned with the thinking that students should achieve in any discipline. Bloom’s
taxonomy is based on an ordered set of objectives ranging from simpler skills to more complex
ones. Bloom’s objectives are cumulative in that each one includes the one preceding it.16And
most taxonomies that have evolved since are also cumulative.

In this text, we use an adaptation of Nila Banton Smith’s model.17 In her original model, she
presented literal-level reading skills as requiring no thinking. We believe that literal-type
questions do require thinking, even though it is a low-level type of thinking. In our model, we
divide the comprehension skills into four categories. Each category is cumulative in building on
the others. The four comprehension categories are (1) literal comprehension, (2) interpretation,
(3) critical reading, and (4) creative reading.

Two cautions are in order here. Grade level and age have little to do with the taxonomy. That is,
children of all ages can engage at all levels of the taxonomy. Second, we need to guard against
a strict linear type of thinking. Our own teaching experiences have shown us that there are
some children who are able to answer higher-level comprehension questions, yet have difficulty
answering literal questions. We offer the taxonomy as a way of helping you to think about the
variety of questions that need to be used to better ensure thoughtful learners.
P. 176

Literal Comprehension Literal comprehension represents the ability to obtain a low-level type
of understanding by using only explicitly stated information. This category requires a lower level
of thinking skills than the other three categories. Answers to literal questions simply demand
that the student recall from memory what the book says.

Although the ability to answer literal-type questions is considered a low-level type of thinking, it
should not be construed that reading for details to gain facts that are explicitly stated is
unimportant. A fund of knowledge is important and necessary in order to read texts in many
different content areas. It is also the foundation for high-level thinking. If we want students to
graduate to higher levels of thinking, we need to make sure that we ask more than just literal
questions.

Interpretation Interpretation is the next step in the hierarchy. This category demands a higher
level of thinking because the questions require answers that are suggested or implied by the
text, but are not directly stated. To answer questions at the interpretive level, readers must have
problem-solving ability and be able to work at various levels of abstraction. Obviously, children
with learning difficulties will have trouble working at this level, as well as in the next two
categories.

The interpretive level is the one for which the most confusion exists when it comes to
categorizing skills. The confusion concerns the term inference. Inference can be defined as
something derived by reasoning; something that is not directly stated but suggested in the
statement; a logical conclusion that is drawn from statements; a deduction; or an induction.
From the definitions, we can see that inference is a broad reasoning skill and that there are
many different kinds of inferences. All the reading skills in interpretation rely on the reader’s
ability to “infer” the answer in one way or another. However, grouping all the interpretive reading
skills under inference meant “Some of the most distinctive and desirable skills would become
smothered and obscured.”

Some of the reading skills that are usually grouped under interpretation are as follows:

●​ Determining word meanings from context

●​ Finding main ideas
●​ “Reading between the lines” or drawing inferences19
●​ Drawing conclusions
●​ Making generalizations
●​ Recognizing cause-and-effect reasoning
●​ Recognizing analogies
Critical Reading Critical reading is at a higher level than the first two categories because it
involves evaluation—making a personal judgment on the accuracy, value, and truthfulness of
what is read. To be able to make judgments, a reader must be able to collect, interpret, apply,
analyze, and synthesize the information. Critical reading involves skills such as the abilities to
differentiate between fact and opinion and between fantasy and reality, as well as to discern
propaganda techniques. Critical reading is related to critical listening because they both require
critical thinking.

Creative Reading Creative reading uses divergent thinking skills to go beyond the literal
comprehension, interpretation, and critical reading levels. In creative reading, the reader tries to
come up with new or alternate solutions to those presented by the writer.

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Assessing Comprehension
As we emphasize throughout this text, assessment drives instruction. This is true for
comprehension instruction as well as any other aspect of reading. The three questions cited in
previous chapters also apply when we think about comprehension assessment: What do I want
to know? Why do I want to know? How can I best discover it? (See Table 9.2.) There are four
ways we can answer these questions.

First, some of the assessment techniques mentioned in earlier chapters are excellent tools for
answering the questions. These include retelling, asking questions representative of the
different comprehension levels (such as those used in the informal reading inventory), and
observation.

Second, teachers can use teacher-created informal assessments, such as those shown
throughout this chapter, and then use students’ performance on these assessments to
determine whether they need additional explicit comprehension instruction.

Third, teachers can look at how students perform on comprehension-related tasks in content
reading. That is, we want students to see that teachers expect them to use comprehension skills
and strategies any time they read. For example, if teachers expect students to summarize, they
can provide a summarizing activity during social studies reading and note whether students use
what they know about summarizing in this context.
Fourth, teachers can use cloze or maze procedures, which require teachers to prepare the text
in special ways.

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Observation
Authentic texts chosen by students provide an ideal setting for observing comprehension.
Students’ reading comprehension will be best when they have interest, background knowledge,
and a purpose for reading. Keep in mind that teacher-selected passages and IRI passages will
have the feel of an assignment to many students, which is less ideal for ascertaining
comprehension. Information gathered using assigned passages must be compared with
observations of authentic reading to create a more valid overall picture of a reader. We cannot
overstate the importance of using many different reading experiences and looking for a pattern
of behavior when assessing students to determine their strengths and needs.

P. 179

The checklist in Figure 9.1 offers a menu of choices. To get the most from the menu, we suggest
using one choice for any one observation of one or more students. If zooming in on one student,
consider making a copy of the checklist and putting a date next to a specific item to mark when
it was observed, and noting whether the student was able to show evidence of using the specific
skill.

To zoom out to the whole class, consider using a whole-class matrix such as the one in Figure
9.2. Write the date and the focus skill to be observed. Then write students’ names in the spaces
provided and make notes about how different students showed evidence of using the specific
skill, or evidence of needing to focus on it. This one skill could form the focus on your
observation over a couple of days—or even a week—and could be used across content areas.
Rather than trying to focus on all students within one day, you could easily divide your class into
fifths and observe that many learners each day of the week.
If students are assessing themselves on a specific skill, consider giving them an index card and
directing them to write their name and the skill being addressed at the top. At given points in the
day, have them reflect on the skill, making a note on the card when they used it with an
accompanying example. Students could also use a self-evaluation form such as the one shown
in Figure 9.3 to analyze their reading comprehension.

Keep in mind that observations of comprehension are always indirect (teachers cannot actually
see mental, covert processes); each of the items on the checklist is a performance that helps
teachers infer comprehension. Another important point is that each authentic text has its own
unique comprehension demands. For example, one passage may support distinction between
fact and opinion (such as in a political speech), but the next might require a more literal memory
of steps or procedures (such as a magazine article on how to make a craft). In the earliest
observations, a teacher may help a student by matching checklist items to the comprehension
demanded by the text. But the checklist should soon become the student’s responsibility, and a
menu for deciding what matches best.

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In many of the same ways, the listening comprehension checklist in Figure 9.4 can be used as a
menu from which teachers or students can select after a read-aloud or as a follow-up to an
audiobook. Each of the four categories focuses on questions designed to address a different
form of active listening.

Questioning as a Diagnostic Technique

Asking questions is not only an important part of teaching and learning, but also very useful in a
diagnostic approach to assessing and teaching reading. Teachers’ questions, which can
stimulate students to use literal or higher-level thinking, yield insight into students’
comprehension. Student responses can help a teacher to see whether students are organizing
information for memory, whether they are able to see relationships and make comparisons, and
whether the materials the students are reading or listening to are too difficult or too easy.

Student-generated questions are an important part of their learning, and they are essential
diagnostic aids in giving teachers feedback on students’ ability to understand. To ask good
questions, students must know their material. As a result, those students who ask the best
questions are usually those who know the material best. When students ask confusing
questions, it is a signal that the teacher needs to slow down or reteach certain material. The
same is true when students’ responses to posed questions do not make sense.

Teachers can use questioning as a diagnostic technique to learn about their students’ thinking
ability. Here are some examples.

The teacher has the children read a short story. The story is about a boy who wants to go to
school, but he can’t because he is too young. The teacher tells the children that she is going to
make up some questions about the story, and the children have to tell her whether the questions
that she makes up can actually be answered based on information from the story. If a question
can be answered, the student should answer it; if a question cannot be answered, the student
must tell why.

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The teacher makes up the following questions:

1.​ What are the names of Ben’s sister and brother who go to school?
2.​ Why does Ben want to go to school?
3.​ Can you make up an adventure for Ben?
4.​ Why can’t Ben go to school?
5.​ What are the names of the bus driver’s children?
6.​ What does Ben do in the summer?

This technique can help the teacher learn which children are able to concentrate, as well as
which children are able to do different kinds of thinking. Questions 1 and 4 are literal questions;
question 2 is an inferential question; question 3 is a creative question; and questions 5 and 6
are not able to be answered because no such information was given in the story, either directly
or indirectly.

A more difficult questioning technique that the teacher could use with children is to have them
make up questions for a selection that they have read.

After students have read a selection, the teacher can ask them to make up three different
questions. The first question should be one for which the answer is directly stated in the
passage. The second question should be one for which the answer is not directly stated in the
passage. The third question should require an answer that goes beyond the text.
In early primary grades, the teacher can use pictures as the stimuli for questions, or the teacher
can relate a short story to the children and have them devise questions for it.

P. 182

Here are some questions that a group of fourth-grade children made up after reading a story
about Melissa and her friend Fred, who were always getting into trouble:

1.​ Who is Melissa’s best friend? (literal)

2.​ What is the main idea of the story? (inferential)
3.​ From the story, what can we say about the main character’s personality? (inferential)
4.​ Can you relate an event where you think Melissa could get into some trouble? (creative)

The children who made up the questions challenged their classmates to answer them and then
they were responsible for determining whether their classmates had answered them correctly.

Comprehension Response Analysis

The IRI passages in this book (see Appendix C) have been pre-analyzed to help teachers
gather information about different kinds and levels of comprehension, such as literal
(lower-level), inferential, main idea, and vocabulary knowledge (higher-level). The
Comprehension Response Analysis scoring sheet in Figure 9.5 can help teachers compile this
information.

P. 183

For example, a student may score well for inferential questions but not literal ones. This may
mean the reader pays attention to the big picture of a text without paying attention to details.
Another student might answer literal questions but not identify the main idea. For both
examples, the IRI Comprehension Response Analysis scores give the teacher an idea on which
to follow up when the student reads authentic text. Interpreting comprehension is complex, so
the IRI must be used to form ideas that can be checked with ongoing assessment in authentic
reading. (See the section Observation on page 191 and Figure 9.1 and Figure 9.4.)

Cloze Procedure
Can you supply the that fits this sentence? When you came to the missing word in that
sentence, did you try to gain closure by supplying a term such as word to complete it? If you did,
you were engaged in the process of closure,which involves the ability of the reader to use
context clues to determine the needed word.

The cloze procedure was primarily developed by Wilson Taylor in 1953 as a measure of
readability—that is, to test the difficulty of instructional materials and to evaluate their suitability
for students. It has since been used for a number of other purposes, especially as a measure of
a student’s comprehension.

Cloze procedure is not a comprehension skill; it is a technique that helps teachers gain
information about a variety of language facility and comprehension skills. A cloze test or
exercise is one in which the reader must supply words that have been systematically deleted
from a text at a particular grade level.

There is no set procedure for determining the length of the passage or the number of deletions
that a passage should have. However, if you wish to apply the criteria for reading levels that
have been used in research with the traditional cloze procedure, you should follow these rules.
First, only words must be deleted, and the replacement for each word must be the exact word,
not a synonym. Second, the words must be deleted in a systematic manner. The researchers
who have developed the criteria for scoring cloze tests state that “any departure from these
rules leaves the teacher with uninterpretable results.”

The traditional cloze procedure consists of deleting every fifth word of a passage that is
representative of the material being tested. The passage that is chosen should be able to stand
alone. Usually the first and last sentences of the passage remain intact. Then, beginning with
either the first, second, third, fourth, or fifth word of the second sentence, every fifth word of a
250–260-word passage should be deleted.
P. 184

At the intermediate-grade levels and higher, the passage is usually 250 words, and every fifth
word is deleted. For maximum reliability, a passage should have at least fifty deletions. At the
primary-grade level, the passage is usually shorter, and every eighth or tenth word is deleted. A
cloze technique would not yield as reliable a score for the primary-grade level as for the
intermediate-grade level, because passages for the former are shorter and have fewer
deletions.

Teachers can use cloze exercises for diagnosis, review, instruction, and testing. In constructing
the exercise, the main point to remember is its purpose. If the purpose is to test a student’s
retention of some concepts in a specific area, the exact term is usually necessary; however, if
the purpose is to gain information about a student’s language facility, ability to use context clues,
vocabulary development, or comprehension, the exact term is not as important, because often
many words will make sense in a passage.

Scoring the Cloze Test. If you have deleted 50 words, the procedure for scoring the cloze test
is fairly easy. Multiply the number of correct insertions by two and add a percentage symbol. For
example, 25 correct insertions would be equal to 50 percent. If you have not deleted exactly 50
words, use the formula illustrated by the following calculation, in which the number of correct
insertions is divided by the number of blanks and multiplied by 100 percent.

For a traditional cloze test, in which only exact words are counted as correct and every fifth word
has been deleted, a score below 44 percent would indicate a frustration level. A score between
44 percent and 57 percent would indicate the instructional level, and scores above 57 percent
would indicate the independent level. It is important to note that these criteria should be used
only if the exact words are used and if every fifth word has been deleted from the passage.
These levels are indicative of the text that was used to design the test. In other words, they tell
how the student matches up to the text to be used for instruction.

Variations of the Traditional Cloze Procedure: An Emphasis on Diagnosis Variations of the

cloze technique are sometimes used. For example, rather than deleting every fifth or tenth word,
every noun or verb is deleted, or every function or structure word (definite and indefinite articles,
conjunctions, prepositions, and so on) is deleted. This technique is used when the teacher
wishes to gain information about a student’s sentence sense. For example:

Jane threw ____ ball ____ Mary. (the; to)

Another variation of the cloze technique is to delete key words in the passage. This technique is
useful for determining whether students have retained certain information. For example:
A technique in which the reader must supply words is called the ____ procedure. (cloze)

P. 185

Cloze technique can also be adapted for other uses. Students can be presented with a passage
in which they must complete the incomplete words. For example:

Dick r___ his bike every day. (rides)

Another adaptation is to present students with a passage in which every nth word is deleted.
(Choose the number for n beforehand.) They must then choose words from a given word list
that best fit the blanks.

Here is an example of an exercise using the cloze technique for an upper primary grade. Notice
how explicitly the instructions are stated for the students, and also notice that the first and last
sentences of the passage are given intact.

In addition, note that the deletion pattern is not the same throughout the passage.

Directions: Read the first and last sentences, which have no missing words in them, to get a
clue as to what the story is about. Then read very carefully each sentence that has a missing
word or words in it. Using context clues, figure out a word that would make sense in the story
and put it in the blank.

In the forest live a kind old man and woman. (1)______ have been living in (2) ______
forest for almost ten (3)______ . They had decided to (4)______ to the forest
because they (5)______ nature.

The kind old (6) ______ and woman make their (7)______ by baking breads
and cakes and (8) ______ them to the people who (9) ______ the forest.
Everyone who (10) ______ the forest usually buys (11) ______ bread or cake
from the old (12)______ . The kind old man and woman are happy in the forest.

Answers: 1. They; 2. the; 3. years; 4. move; 5. love; like; 6. man; 7. living; 8. selling; 9. visit; 10.
visits; 11. some; 12. couple.
Here is an example of an exercise using cloze technique for an intermediate grade.

Directions: Read the first and last sentences of the story to get a clue as to what the story is
about. Then read each sentence that has a missing word or words very carefully. Using context
clues, insert a word in each blank so that the story makes sense.

Everyone was looking forward to Friday night because that was the night of the big basketball
game. This (1) ______ would determine the championship (2)______ Deerville
High and Yorktown (3) ______ . For years Deerville High and (4)______ High have
been rivals. This (5) ______ was very (6) ______ because so far (7) ______
school had won (8) ______ equal number of games. (9) ______ game on Friday
night would break the (10) ______ .

Friday night finally arrived. The game (11) ______ the championship title (12)______
being played in the Deerville High (13)______ because the game (14) ______
year had been played (15) ______ the Yorktown High gym. (16) ______ gym was so
(17) ______ that many spectators were without (18) ______ . When the two teams
(19) ______ the gym from the dressing areas, (20) ______ were thunderous (21)
______ and whistles from the (22) ______ . Each team went through (23) ______
warm-up drills of (24) ______ baskets and passing. Then the buzzer (25) ______ .
The game would begin (26) ______ a moment. Just as the referee (27) ______ the
ball in the (28) ______ for the starting jump ball, the lights (29) ______ the gym
went (30) ______ . There was complete darkness. Everyone (31) ______ taken by
surprise. Almost immediately a (32) ______ on the loudspeaker (33) ______ that
the game would have (34)______ be postponed because of a (35) ______ failure.
The game would take (36) ______ next Friday. All were (37) ______ to remain
where they (38) ______ until someone with a flashlight came to help them. Everyone
was disappointed that the game had to be cancelled.

P. 186

Answers: (1) game; (2) between; (3) High; (4) Yorktown; (5) game; (6) important; (7) each; (8)
an; (9) The; (10) tie; (11) for; (12) was; (13) gym; (14) last; (15) in; (16) The; (17) crowded; (18)
seats; (19) entered; (20) there; (21) cheers; (22) spectators. audience, or crowd; (23) its; (24)
shooting; (25) sounded or rang; (26) in; (27) threw; (28) air; (29) in; (30) out; (31) was; (32)
voice; (33) announced; (34) to; (35) power; (36) place; (37) told; (38) were.
Maze Procedure
Some teachers prefer to use a maze instead of a cloze procedure because they find it easier for
students to use. Because words are added rather than deleted every fifth word, these teachers
believe that it gives students more support. To compensate for this ease, the scoring is a little
different. Students have to achieve at higher levels to reach independent, instructional, and
frustrational levels.

Basically, the maze is the same as the cloze with the exceptions of adding words and
establishing cut-off scores. The Venn diagram shown in Figure 9.6 shows how the two are alike
and different.

Meta-Comprehension Strategy Index

The Meta-Comprehension Strategy Index is another meaningful way to assess students’
awareness of the strategies they use in understanding what they read. Complete
information–including the test, administration and scoring procedures, and suggested
instructional techniques–can be found in The Reading Teacher (Schmitt, March, 1990):
454–461.

P. 187

Teaching Comprehension
Time spent in reading seems to be an important variable for success in reading, whether it is
direct instructional time or time spent reading independently. However, we cannot count on
students reading outside school, because of the many other competing enjoyable activities and
responsibilities that compete for their time and attention. Therefore, we must plan for students to
have time to read in school, as well as time for explicit instruction in reading comprehension.

There are various teaching strategies that can be used with explicit instruction; some are less
structured than others. Explicit instruction requires teachers to present strategies to help their
students comprehend the material being read; this is done in addition to asking children
questions before, during, and after they read. “Direct [explicit] instruction in comprehension
means explaining the steps in a thought process that gives birth to comprehension.”21 The
instructional pattern that teachers use to help students gain comprehension will vary based on
the concept being learned, the composition of the class, and the ability of the teacher.

Providing supportive instruction throughout a reading activity is critical. Before reading, prepare
the students for the reading activity by doing some of the following: previewing the reading
selection, going over new vocabulary or difficult words, teaching any strategies that students will
need to read the material, and actively building topic knowledge.

During reading, give students a number of questions to think about as they read, or encourage
students to ask questions about the text material. Challenge students to act as investigative
reporters while they are reading.

After reading, students can answer their own questions or the teacher’s questions, state the
main idea of the selection, summarize it, discuss their feelings toward the material, or tell how
they used a specific comprehension strategy, such as visualizing. There are numerous
comprehension teaching strategies that can be used as a part of an explicit reading lesson.

When teaching comprehension, focus first on listening comprehension so the students can learn
the strategy or skill without the demands of word identification. Then teach the same skill, but
have students do the reading, which places emphasis on reading comprehension (transfer of
learning).

Purpose is what guides the selection of the specific teaching strategy chosen for any given
lesson. The following sections provide nine suggestions for teaching strategies.

P. 188

The Directed Reading–Thinking Activity

The Directed Reading–Thinking Activity (DR–TA) can be an especially effective approach in the
hands of good teachers, whether they use a basal reader series or trade books.

DRTA requires that students be active participants. “The reading–thinking process must begin in
the mind of the reader. He must raise the questions and to him belongs the challenge and the
responsibility of a judgment. The teacher keeps the process active and changes the amount of
data to be processed.”Here is an outline of the process:

1.​ Student actions

 1.​ Predict (set purposes)
2.​ Read (process ideas)
3.​ Prove (test answers)
2.​ Teacher actions
1.​ What do you think? (activate thought)
2.​ Why do you think so? (agitate thought)
3.​ Prove it. (require evidence)

To use DRTA effectively, teachers must know how to encourage students to ask questions that
stimulate higher-level thinking; teachers must be well-versed in facilitating the inquiry process.

Think Aloud
Many good teachers probably have used this approach but not been aware of it. Often when a
teacher has students who have difficulty understanding something that is being explained, the
teacher may “model” the skill for them. That is, the teacher “thinks aloud” or verbalizes thoughts
to give students insight into the process. The teacher literally states out loud exactly the steps
that she goes through to solve the problem or gain an understanding of a concept. Many
reading program authors are including modeling as part of their instructional plans.

Here are some suggested teaching procedures:24

1.​ Choose a passage to read aloud. The passage should have some areas that will pose
some difficulties, such as unknown words. It could also contain an excellent description
that would be perfect for teaching students about visualizing.
2.​ Begin reading the passage orally while students follow. When you come to a trouble
spot, stop and think through it aloud while students listen to what you say.
3.​ When you have finished reading, invite students to add any thoughts to yours.
4.​ Partner the students up and have them practice.
5.​ Remind students to use the strategy when they are reading silently. A self-evaluation
form such as the one shown in Figure 9.3 might help students evaluate how well they
read.

Repeated Reading
Repeated reading is a technique that has gained favor among a number of teachers to help
students who have poor oral reading skills to achieve fluency in reading. Repeated readings
also offer students chances for deeper comprehension. A suggested procedure for repeated
readings follows:25

Passage length: short; about 50–100 words

Types of passages: any reading materials that will be of interest to the child

P. 189

Readability level of passage: Start at independent level; proceed to more difficult passages as
the child gains confidence in oral reading; controlled vocabulary is not imperative.

Assisted reading: Use the read-along approach (assisted reading with a model or tape) to help
with phrasing and speed; use when speed is below 45 words per minute (WPM), even though
the child makes few errors.

Unassisted reading: Use when the child reaches 60 WPM.

Reciprocal Reading Instruction

Reciprocal reading instruction, which is used in a group setting to help students gain
comprehension skills,26 is a teacher-directed technique because it requires the teacher to first
model the four steps for students before having them perform the task. Also, like all techniques,
reciprocal reading instruction is only as good as the teacher presenting it.

The four steps involved in this technique are summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and
predicting. When the students in the group have all read a specified passage, the teacher
models the four steps for them. After the teacher has modeled the passage using all four steps,
he has the students do the same. The amount of help given and the number of times that the
teacher will model the procedure for the children will vary depending on the individual needs of
the children.

Literature Webbing
Success breeds success! If children have good experiences in reading at an early age, these
experiences will help instill good attitudes about reading in them. Predictable books appear to
be one way to provide these experiences.27 Literature webbing is a story map or graphic
illustration that teachers can use as one approach to guide them in using predictable trade
books with their students.

The literature webbing strategy lesson (LWSL), which is an adaptation by Reutzel and Fawson
of Watson and Crowley’s Story Schema Lessons to “provide support for early readers,”28
includes a six-step process. The preliminary preparation includes the teacher’s reading of the
text and excerpting a number of samples from it that are large enough that children can make
predictions about them. (The excerpts can be accompanied by enlarged illustrations if this
procedure is used early in the year.) After the excerpts are chosen, the title of the book is written
in the center of the board, with various web strands projecting from the title. (There are three
more strands than needed for the number of excerpts. These strands, which are used for
discussion purposes, are personal responses to the book, other books we’ve read like this one,
and language extension activities.)

Then the children follow these six steps:29

1.​ Sample the book by reading the randomly ordered illustrations and text excerpts that are
placed on the chalk tray below the literature web.
2.​ Predict the pattern or order of the book by placing the excerpts in clockwise order around
the literature web.
3.​ Read the predictable book straight through. (It may be a big book or a number of copies
of the normal-sized text.)
4.​ Confirm or correct the students’ predictions.
5.​ Discuss the remaining three strands that are on the board. (See above.)
6.​ Participate in independent or supported reading activities.

Questioning Strategies
Some children need help in developing higher-level reading comprehension skills. Asking many
types of questions that demand higher-level skills will better ensure that students become
thoughtful and insightful readers.
P. 190

The kinds of questions the teacher asks will determine the kinds of answers he receives. In
addition to asking a question that calls for a literal response, use questions that call for higher
levels of thinking. This process can begin as early as kindergarten or first grade. For example,
suppose the children are looking at a picture in which a few children are dressed in hats, snow
pants, jackets, and scarves. After asking the children what kind of clothes the children in the
picture are wearing, try to elicit from students the answers to the following questions: “What kind
of day do you think it is?” “What do you think the children are going to do?”

This type of inference question is very simple because it is geared to the cognitive development
level of the children. As the children progress to higher levels of thinking, they should be
confronted with more complex interpretation or inference problems. Work with children
according to their individual levels. Expect all the children to be able to perform, but avoid
putting students in situations that frustrate rather than stimulate them.

Critical reading skills are essential for good readers. Use primary-graders’ love of folktales to
begin to develop some critical reading skills. For example, after the children have read The Little
Red Hen, ask questions such as the following:

1.​ Should the Little Red Hen have shared the bread with the other animals? Explain.
2.​ Would you have shared the bread with the other animals? Explain.
3.​ Do you think animals can talk? Explain.
4.​ Do you feel sorry for the other animals? Explain.
5.​ Do you think this story is true? Explain.

Creative reading questions are probably the most ignored. To help children in this area, learn
how to ask questions that require divergent rather than convergent answers. Some questions
that should stimulate divergent thinking on the part of the reader would be the following:

1.​ After reading The Little Red Hen, try to come up with another ending for the story.
2.​ Try to add another animal to the story of The Little Red Hen.
3.​ Try to add another part to the story of The Little Red Hen.

Divergent answers require more time than convergent answers. Also, there is no one correct
answer.

Following are a short reading selection and examples of four different types of comprehension
questions. Read both as practice in recognizing the different types of questions at the four
levels.

One day in the summer, some of my friends and I decided to go on an overnight hiking trip. We
all started out fresh and full of energy. About halfway to our destination, when the sun was
almost directly overhead, one-third of my friends decided to return home. The remaining four of
us, however, continued on our hike. Our plan was to reach our destination by sunset. About six
hours later, as the four of us—exhausted and famished—were slowly edging ourselves in the
direction of the setting sun, we saw a sight that astonished us. There, at the camping site, were
our friends who had claimed that they were returning home. It seems that they did indeed go
home, but only to pick up a car and drive out to the campsite.

The following are the four different types of comprehension questions:

Literal comprehension: What season of the year was it in the story? What kind of trip were the
people going on?

P. 191

Interpretation: About what time of day was it when some of the people decided to return home?
How many people were there when they first started out on the trip? In what direction were the
hikers heading when they saw a sight that astonished them? At about what time did the sun
set?
Critical reading: How do you think the hikers felt when they reached their destination? Do you
feel that the people who went home did the right thing by driving back to the site rather than
hiking? Explain.
Creative reading: What do you think the exhausted hikers did and said when they saw the two
who had supposedly gone home?

Question–Answer Relationships (QARs)

The more children understand what they do when they are in the act of answering questions,
the better they can be as question solvers. Raphael has designed an instructional strategy,
Question–Answer Relationships (QARs), that teachers can use to help their students gain
insights into how they go about reading text and answering questions. It helps students “realize
the need to consider both information in the text and information from their own knowledge
background.”30

In the QAR technique, students learn to distinguish between information that “they have in their
heads” and information that is in the text. The following steps can help children gain facility in
QAR. Note that the amount of time children spend at each step is determined by the individual
differences of the students.
Step 1. Students gain help in understanding differences between what is in their heads and
what is in the text. Ask children to read a passage, and then present questions that guide them
to gain the needed understandings. Here is a short sample:

Mike and his father went to the ball game.

They were lucky to get tickets for the game.

They saw many people they knew.

At the game, Mike and his father ate hot dogs.

They also drank soda.

Ask the students the following questions:

●​ Where did Mike and his father go? (to the ball game)
●​ Where did they see the people? (at the ball game)

Point out to the children that the first answer is directly stated, whereas the second is not; it is
“in their heads.”

Step 2. The “In the Book” category is divided into two parts. The first deals with information that
is directly stated in a single sentence in the passage, and the second deals with piecing
together the answer from different parts of the passage. (Raphael calls this step “Think and
Search,” or “Putting It Together.”)

Give the children practice in doing this.

Step 3. This is similar to Step 2 except that now the “In My Head” category is divided into two
parts: “Author and Me” and “On My Own.”32 Help students recognize whether the question is
text-dependent or independent. For example, answering the first question below would require
the student to read the text, even though the answer would come from the student’s background
of experiences. However, the student can answer the second without reading the passage.

○​ How else do you think the cat could have escaped?

○​ How would you feel if you were lost?
P. 192

The QAR approach can be very useful in introducing children to inferential reasoning; it helps
them to better understand what information is directly stated and what is implied. Teachers can
modify the QAR approach to suit their students’ needs.

Re-Quest
Re-Quest is short for reciprocal questioning. It is different from reciprocal teaching, and was
developed to increase students’ comprehension.33 But it is also tied to engagement and
motivation. Students get used to being “quizzed” about things they have read. This is not
authentic communication, and they know it. In Re-Quest, students get a turn to think of
questions and get answers from someone else. This reverses the typical power structure of
questioning in the classroom. When paired with Question–Answer Relationships, Re-Quest
becomes a tool for higher-level thinking. Coach students to ask questions that can be answered
in two ways: (1) by looking at or remembering what was in the text, or (2) by problem solving,
putting clues together, or using outside knowledge and opinion.

Decide with the students on a length of passage to read before stopping. In the original method,
Manzo and Manzo stopped after every sentence for students who were losing comprehension
at that level. You may stop after paragraphs, pages, or even chapters. Decide on an appropriate
turn-taking strategy that involves both the teacher and the students reading. Decide whether
you will read silently or orally. If reading orally, take turns reading and listening.

●​ Teacher reads.
●​ Stop at the determined place.
●​ Students ask questions for teacher (or other students) to answer.
●​ Student reads.
●​ Teacher gets to ask questions for students to answer.
●​ Continue taking turns.
●​ Use QAR procedure to reinforce higher-order thinking in questions.

Questioning the Author

Having a questioning mind, one that actively seeks to construct meaning from a text by using
the author’s words and one’s own background relative to the text at hand, is a hallmark of good
readers. Questioning the Author (QtA) is a comprehension strategy that guides readers in
developing this questioning mind.34 Through questioning, teachers lead students to evaluate an
author’s intent for writing the text and why the author included—or omitted—information. It
includes the following teaching procedures:

1.​ Select a text that presents opportunities to consider an author’s overall purpose, the
author’s choice of words, ideas supporting the author’s purpose for writing the text , or
patterns found within the text, such as Don’t Talk to Me About the War (Adler, 2008).
2.​ Read the text carefully, placing sticky notes to indicate places in the text that will elicit
discussion of the following:
○​ What the author is trying to say?—in other words, the overall purpose
○​ What the choice of words does to help the purpose
○​ What the author has left out and why
○​ Whether the author is clear in her presentation of ideas
○​ How the author encourages the reader to connect to the text and make
inferences

P. 193

3.​ Introduce the general topic of the lesson—in this case, war—connecting it to prior
learning whenever possible.
4.​ Guide students through an interactive read-aloud, stopping at the places in the text that
you previously identified. Elicit responses from students using techniques such as
think–pair–share, partner nominations (i.e., choosing a partner’s response for sharing
with others), and gestured response (e.g., thumbs up, thumbs down).
5.​ As a class, determine the author’s overall message, and ask students to think about how
it applies in their own lives.

Teaching Specific Comprehension Skills

The comprehension taxonomy presented on pages 189–190 contains several comprehension
skills for each level. Identifying the main idea of a paragraph, identifying the central idea of a
passage, using visuals, and making inferences are just four skills. All of these are
interpretive-level reading skills, and we present them here for both primary- and
intermediate-grade children as examples of how skills can be assessed and taught.
Main Idea of a Paragraph
The main idea is probably the skill on which teachers and students spend the most time; this is
good, because it seems to pose difficulty for some students. Students have more difficulty
coming up with the main idea themselves than they do choosing one from a given list. In fact,
identifying the main idea is much more difficult for many students, even if it is directly stated.35

Because of the difficulty of the main idea construction (identification) task, sufficient time must
be allotted to provide the needed “think time.” In addition, researchers have reported “that if
readers’ prior knowledge for the text topic is not sufficient, the difficulty of main idea construction
is compounded.”Also, if the paragraph is not well constructed and cohesive, it becomes more
difficult to discern its main idea.

Confusion in finding the main idea may exist because the very concept of a “main idea” seems
to mean different things to different people. One researcher investigating the literature found
that “educators have increasingly given attention to main idea comprehension, but with no
concomitant increase in the clarity of what is meant by main or important ideas. The exact
nature of main ideas and the teaching practices intended to help students grasp main ideas vary
considerably.

P. 194

Even though the concept of main idea is nebulous to some researchers, and the “notion that
different readers can (and should) construct identical main ideas for the same text has been
questioned,”38 finding the main idea in a text is a very important skill for reading, writing, and
studying that can and should be taught. It is possible that the skepticism concerning the ability
to teach main idea comprehension may result from “the failure to teach students to transfer their
main idea skills to texts other than those found in their readers.”39 Some studies have found
that “students who have been taught to identify main ideas using only contrived texts such as
those found in basal reader skills lessons will have difficulty transferring their main idea skills to
naturally occurring texts.”40 (The majority of reading programs in the recent past and present
time have been literature-based, using whole pieces of literature rather than “contrived texts,”
which should counter the former criticism.)

In reading and writing, finding the main idea is very useful. In reading, the main idea helps
readers to remember and understand what they have read. In writing, the main idea gives unity
and order to a paragraph.
The main idea of a paragraph is the central thought of the paragraph. It is what the paragraph is
about. Without a main idea, the paragraph would just be a confusion of sentences. All the
sentences in the paragraph should develop the main idea.

Finding the Main Idea of a Paragraph. To find the main idea of a paragraph, readers must find
what common element the sentences share. Some textbook writers place the main idea at the
beginning of a paragraph and may actually put the topic of the paragraph in bold print in order to
emphasize it. However, in literature, this is not a common practice. In some paragraphs the
main idea is indirectly stated, or implied, and you have to find it from the clues given by the
author.

Although there is no foolproof method for finding the main idea, there is a widely used
procedure that has proved to be helpful. To use this procedure, you should know that a
paragraph is always written about something or someone. The something or someone is the
topic of the paragraph. The writer is interested in telling her readers something about the topic
of the paragraph. To find the main idea of a paragraph, you must determine what the topic of the
paragraph is and what the author is trying to say about the topic that is special or unique. Once
you have found these two things, you should have the main idea. This procedure is useful in
finding the main idea of various types of paragraphs.

Reread the preceding paragraph and state its main idea. Answer: A procedure helpful in finding
the main idea of a paragraph is described.

Now read the following paragraph. After you have read the passage, choose the statement that
best states the main idea.

Frank Yano looked like an old man, but he was only 30. Born to parents who were alcoholics,
Frank himself started drinking when he was only 8. He actually had tasted alcohol earlier, but it
wasn’t until he was 8 or 9 that he became a habitual drinker. His whole life since then had been
dedicated to seeking the bottle.

1.​ Frank Yano looks old, but he’s not.

2.​ Frank Yano enjoys being an alcoholic.
3.​ Frank Yano was a child alcoholic.
4.​ Frank Yano has been an alcoholic since childhood.
5.​ Frank Yano would like to change his life of drinking, but he can’t.
6.​ Frank Yano’s parents helped him become an alcoholic.

Answer: #4
P. 195

Numbers 1 and 3 are too specific, because they each relate to only one detail in the paragraph.
Numbers 2 and 5 are not found in the paragraph; that is, no clues are given about Frank Yano’s
wanting to change his life or about his enjoying his life as an alcoholic. Number 6 is also too
specific to be the main idea, because it relates to only one detail. Number 4 is the answer
because what is unique about Frank Yano is that he has been an alcoholic since early
childhood. All the details in the paragraph support this main idea.

The main idea of a paragraph is a general statement of the content of a paragraph. You must be
careful, however, that your main idea statement is not so general that it suggests information
that is not given in the paragraph.

Textbook authors usually see to it that their paragraphs have clear-cut main ideas. The main
ideas of paragraphs in other books may be less obvious. The literary author is usually more
concerned with writing expressively than with explicitly stating the main ideas. The main idea
may be indirectly given. If this is the case, the steps presented earlier are especially helpful.
Let’s look again at the steps involved in finding the main idea.

1.​ Find the topic of the paragraph.

2.​ Find what is special about the topic. To do this, gather clues from the paragraph, find out
what all the clues have in common, and make a general statement about the clues.

Guidelines on Topic Sentences and Main

Ideas
1.​ The topic sentence is usually the first sentence in a paragraph, and it states what the
paragraph will be about by naming the topic. From the topic sentence, you can usually
anticipate certain events. You can usually determine that the following sentences will
supply supporting details as examples, contrasts, similarities, sequence of events,
cause-and-effect situations, and so on to support the main idea.
2.​ The main idea can be developed in many different ways. Whatever technique is used to
develop the main idea, it must support and add meaning to the main idea.
3.​ A topic sentence may or may not contain the main idea.
4.​ It is possible for any sentence in the paragraph to be the topic sentence.
5.​ Some paragraphs may not have a topic sentence.
6.​ Do not confuse the topic sentence with the main idea. The topic sentence usually
anticipates both the main idea and the development of the main idea.
 7.​ Even though the topic sentence is stated explicitly (fully and clearly) in a paragraph, the
main idea may not be stated explicitly.

Some students may already know how to identify main ideas and others may not. In Figure 9.7,
we provide a sample informal assessment for teachers to use to determine who can and cannot
identify main ideas.

Instructional Suggestions for Primary Grades. Here are some instructional techniques and
materials to use with your students who need some additional explicit instruction.

1.​ Present the following paragraph to your students:​

Sharon was sad. She felt like crying. She still couldn’t believe it. Her best friend, Jane,
had moved away. Her best friend had left her. What would she do?​
Ask your students what the topic of the paragraph is, or about whom or what the
paragraph is written.​
Answer: Sharon​
Ask your students what the writer is saying that is special about Sharon.​
Answer: Sharon is sad because her best friend moved away.​
Tell your students that to find the main idea of the story, they need to figure out who or
what the story is about and what is special about the who or what of the story.

P. 196

2. Present your students with exercises such as the following. Ask your students to read the
short story below. Also ask them to read the statements that follow the short story, and to
choose the one that best states the main idea of the story. Then ask your students to write a title
for the story that gives readers an idea of what the story is about.​
Tom and Jim live on the moon. They spend a lot of time in their house. They have to, because it
is very hot when the sun is out. It is also very cold when the sun is not out. On the moon,
daylight lasts for 14 Earth days. Darkness or nighttime lasts for 14 Earth days, too.

1.​ It’s cold on the moon.

2.​ Tom and Jim stay in their house a lot.
3.​ The moon’s weather
4.​ Tom and Jim’s house
5.​ The moon’s weather forces Tom and Jim to stay in their house.
6.​ Tom and Jim like to stay in their house.

Answer: #5. Sample title: The Moon’s Weather.

3. Discuss with your students the difference between the title and the main idea. Help them to
see that the title and the main idea are not necessarily the same, and that the main idea is
usually more fully stated than the title.
4. Another way of teaching main ideas is to use your hand. Trace a figure of your hand on an
overhead transparency. Provide children with a statement (the main idea), which you write in the
palm of the hand. For example, write the sentence “We are having fun at school today.” Next,
ask children to volunteer some ideas that prove they are having fun at school. As they volunteer
their ideas, write each one in a finger. These are actually the supporting details, but students do
not need to know this at this point in the lesson. Now invite the class to read the entire “hand”
with you. Once finished, tell students that they have just learned about main idea and supporting
details. Just like the palm of your hand holds your fingers together, the main idea holds the
details together. You may also want to show them how to rewrite the statements on the hand
into paragraph form. See Figure 9.8 for a sample completed hand.

P. 197

As with primary students, some intermediate students may already know how to identify the
main idea and others may not. In Figure 9.9, we provide a sample informal assessment for the
intermediate-grade level.

P. 198

Instructional Suggestions for Intermediate Grades Here are some instructional techniques
and materials that you can use with your students who need additional explicit instruction:

1.​ 1. Have your students read the following two paragraphs. After they read them, try to
elicit from them which is the better paragraph and why. You should tell them that the first
one makes sense because it is well organized. Readers can tell what the author is trying
to say because there is only one main idea and all the sentences in the paragraph
expand on the main idea. Point out how disorganized the second paragraph is and how
 difficult it is to discover what the main idea is, because each sentence seems to be about
a different topic.

Organized Paragraph
All through school, John’s one goal was athletic success so that he could be in the Olympics.
John’s goal to be in the Olympics became such an obsession that he could not do anything that
did not directly or indirectly relate to achieving his goal. He practiced for hours every day. He
exercised, ate well, and slept at least eight hours every night. Throughout school, John allowed
nothing and no one to deter him from his goal.

Disorganized Paragraph
All through school, John’s one goal was to be the best, so that he could be in the Olympics. He
practiced for hours every day. John’s family was unhappy about John’s obsession to be in the
Olympics. John’s social life was more like a monk’s than that of a star athlete. John’s coach was
a difficult man to please.

2. Have your students reread the organized paragraph. After they read the paragraph, have
them choose the word or words that best answer the two questions that follow.

a.​ What is the topic of the paragraph?

1.​ Exercise and practice
2.​ Work
3.​ Olympics
4.​ John’s goal
5.​ Athletic success
6.​ Attempts

Answer: #4

b.​ What is the author saying about John’s goal to be in the Olympics (the topic) that
is special and that helps tie the details together?
1.​ That it needed time and patience
2.​ That it was a good one
3.​ That it was not a reasonable one
4.​ That it was the most important thing in John’s life
5.​ That it required good health
6.​ That it was too much for John

Answer: #4
P. 199

Tell your students that if they put the two answers together, they should have the main idea of
the paragraph. Main idea: The goal, being in the Olympics, was the most important thing in
John’s life.

3. Choose a number of paragraphs from the students’ social studies or science books. First
have them find the topic of each paragraph, and then have them state the main idea of each
paragraph. Go over the procedure for finding the main idea with them.

Finding the Central Idea of a Group of

Paragraphs
We generally use the term central idea rather than main idea when we refer to a group of
paragraphs, a story, or an article. However, the procedures for finding the main idea and for
finding the central idea are the same.

The central idea of a story is the central thought of the story. All the paragraphs of the story
should develop the central idea. To find the central idea of a story, students must find what
common element the paragraphs in the story share. The introductory paragraph is usually
helpful because it either contains or anticipates what the central idea is and how it will be
developed. The procedure for finding the central idea of a story is similar to that for finding the
main idea of a paragraph.

You may wish to use the informal assessment for central idea that we show in Figure 9.10 to
determine which students might need some instruction. The informal assessment in Figure 9.11
is intended for intermediate-grade students.

P. 200

Instructional Suggestions for Upper Primary Grades. Here are some instructional
techniques you can use with your students who need additional explicit instruction.
 1.​ Choose a short story the children know and enjoy reading. Have them state what the
topic of the story is. Then have them go over the story and try to state the most important
thing about the topic. Have them put the two together.
2.​ Have the children write their own short stories. Have them state the central idea of their
short stories. Have them go over each of their paragraphs to see if each one helps
develop their central idea. Have them write a title for their stories.

Instructional Suggestions for Intermediate Grades Here are some instructional techniques
you can use with your students who need additional explicit instruction.

P. 201

1.​ Choose a story the students have read. Ask them to state the topic of the story. Then
have them reread the story to state the most important thing about the topic. Ask them to
put these together. Then have them review the story to determine whether everything in
the story is related to their central idea.
2.​ Ask students to write their own stories. Have them state the central idea and write a title
for their stories.
3.​ Choose some short stories and follow the same procedure for finding the central idea.
Present the short stories without the titles. Ask the students to make up a title for each
short story. Discuss the fact that the title and the central idea are not necessarily the
same, and explore what the differences are.

Visual Representations and Main Idea. It is difficult to read a textbook, magazine, or

newspaper without finding a variety of visual representations in the form of graphs, diagrams,
and charts. Visuals provide relief from print, and a graphic representation is often worth a
thousand words. Graphs, diagrams, and charts grab readers’ attention, and pack a great
amount of information into a small space. USA Today uses pictorial representations every day in
each section of the newspaper for these reasons.

Writers use graphs, diagrams, and charts to convey information, and each one–like a
paragraph–has a main idea. To understand charts, diagrams, and graphs, you must be able to
get the main idea of them. Not surprisingly, the technique readers use to do this is similar to that
for finding the main idea of a paragraph.

Figure 9.12 is a graph from Health Behaviors by Rosalind Reed and Thomas A. Lang (1988).41
Let’s go through the various steps to get the main idea of it. Remember, to find the main idea,
we must first find the topic of the chart, diagram, or graph and then note what is special or
unique about it. All the details should develop the main idea. (Note that writers also usually give
clues to the topic of their graphs, diagrams, and charts.) Here are the steps readers would go
through:

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1.​ Look carefully at the graph to determine its topic. Notice that it deals with smokers and
nonsmokers, and their mortality rates for selected diseases. Therefore, the topic is:​
The mortality rates of smokers and nonsmokers for selected diseases.
2.​ Next, find what is special about the topic. In looking at the graph again, note that the
writer is obviously making a comparison between smokers and nonsmokers. The
comparison is about various types of diseases. In addition–and what is most crucial–is
that the smokers have consistently higher mortality rates for all presented diseases.
Therefore, the main idea must be:​
​ The mortality rates for smokers are consistently higher than for nonsmokers for
all selected diseases.

Drawing Inferences
Many times writers do not directly state what they mean, but present ideas in a more indirect,
roundabout way. That is why inference is called the ability to “read between the lines.” Inference
is defined as understanding that is not derived from a direct statement but from an indirect
suggestion in what is stated. Readers draw inferences from writings; authors make implications
or imply meanings.

The ability to draw inferences is especially important in reading fiction, but it is necessary for
nonfiction, also. Authors rely on inferences to make their stories more interesting and enjoyable.
Mystery writers find inference essential to maintaining suspense. For example, Sherlock Holmes
and Encyclopedia Brown mysteries are based on the sleuth’s ability to uncover evidence in the
form of clues that are not obvious to others around them until the author explains their
significance.

Inference is an important process on which authors rely. Good readers must be alert to the
various ways that authors encourage inference.

Implied Statements. As noted, writers count on inference to make their writing more interesting
and enjoyable. Rather than directly stating something, they present it indirectly. To understand
the writing, the reader must be alert and be able to detect the clues that the author gives. For
example, in the sentence Things are always popping and alive when the twins Herb and Jack
are around, you are given some clues to Herb and Jack’s personalities, even though the author
has not directly said anything about them. From the statement, you could make the inference
that the twins are lively and lots of fun to be around.

You must be careful, however, that you do not read more into some statements than is intended.
For example, read the following statements and put a circle around the correct answer.
Example: Mary got out of bed and looked out of the window. She saw that the ground had
something white on it. What season of the year was it? (a) Winter, (b) summer, (c) spring, (d)
fall, or (e) can’t tell.

The answer is “(e) can’t tell.” Many people choose “(a) winter” for the answer. However, the
answer is (e) because the “something white” could be anything; there isn’t enough evidence to
choose (a). Even if the something white was snow, in some parts of the world, including the
United States, it can snow in the spring or fall.

Good readers, while reading, try to gather clues to draw inferences about what they read.
Although effective readers do this, they are not usually aware of it. As Sherlock Holmes says in
A Study in Scarlet, “From long habit the train of thought ran so swiftly through my mind that I
arrived at the conclusions without being conscious of intermediate steps.”

In Figure 9.13 and Figure 9.14, we provide an informal assessment procedure that you can use
to assess inference at the primary-grade and intermediate-grade levels.

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Instructional Suggestions for Primary Grades. Here are some instructional procedures and
materials to use with your students who need additional explicit instruction.

1.​ Present the following short selection to your students:​

Sharon and Carol are going out to play. They are dressed very warmly.​
Ask your students what they can say about the weather outside. They should say that it
must be cold outside because the children are dressed very warmly. Even though the
writer didn’t say that it was cold outside, there was enough evidence to make this
inference.​
Now ask the children to tell you what season of the year it is. They should say that they
can’t tell because there is not enough evidence. It could be cold in the fall and spring.
 Some children might be able to state that they can’t tell because different parts of the
country and the world have different climates.

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2.​ Give your students a number of opportunities to make inferences from stories they are
reading if enough evidence exists.

Instructional Suggestions for Intermediate Grades. Here are some instructional procedures
and materials that you can use with your students who need additional explicit instruction.

1.​ Present your students with the following statements:​

Jack looks out of the train window. All he sees are miles and miles of leafless trees.​
Ask students whether Jack just began to look out of the window. Students may answer
yes, no, or don’t know. Direct them to read back the words and then discuss how they
arrived at their answer.

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​
Ask students whether jack is traveling through a densely or sparsely populated area. Some may
choose dense, others sparse, and still others may not know. Direct them back to the words in
the text to learn whether their answer comes from their own inferences or from the words.

2.​ Have students read a number of stories and see what inferences they can draw from
them. Help them to recognize that enough evidence should exist to make an inference.
Tell them that many times people “jump to conclusions” before they have enough
evidence. This can cause problems. Taking an educated guess is helpful in scientific
activities and in searching for the answers to difficult questions. Students should be
encouraged to make educated guesses, but they need to recognize when they do not
have enough evidence to do so.
Teaching Specific Comprehension
Strategies
In addition to specific comprehension skills, there are comprehension strategies (i.e., mental
processes) that may require some explicit instruction. As with the skills noted above, remember
that students need plenty of time to read in order to actually apply these skills and strategies.
The six strategies—making connections, making predictions, monitoring understanding,
visualizing, questioning, and retelling/summarizing—are all research-based. A brief overview of
each of these strategies is provided in the sections below along with some teaching suggestions
and ideas for guiding students’ practice. Table 9.3 provides a helpful list of children’s literature
selections that may be used to teach each strategy, though there are many others.

Our goal with strategic thinking is that students learn to use it as a problem-solving strategy
when text is difficult. As students become more proficient with various types of text, we expect
that the thinking they use for comprehension will become more automatic–that is, strategies will
become skills.

Comprehension Strategy: Making

Connections
Making connections is a reading comprehension strategy in which readers achieve three goals:

●​ Connect their knowledge to a selection.

●​ Connect other texts to a selection.
●​ Connect their responses to a selection.

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Instructional Suggestions. To teach students how to make connections, begin with an

introduction in which you present a short selection to students and have them, in group
discussion, say what they know about the topic, if the selection makes them think of other
stories, and how they might respond to the selection. This models for students how they might
make connections for other texts that they read.

Point out to students that these are different kinds of connections a reader can make to a
selection, and explain that making connections helps readers understand stories better and
enjoy them more. To assist in making these points and to keep them fresh in students’ minds as
you practice this strategy, post for students the three different kinds of connections a reader can
make. Your visual should contain these three points:

●​ Connections to what a reader knows

●​ Connections to other stories
●​ Connections to story responses

Keeping these points visible for students to refer back to, you can then model how to make
connections by using a selection from a read-aloud book, a magazine, or some other media.
Read a part of the story and then think aloud as you make connections. Table 9.4 provides a list
of specific questions that can be asked.

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Guiding Students’ Practice. After you have modeled the process of reading a section of text
and then asking specific questions in order to establish connections, have students practice
making connections. Allow students time to read the next section of the selection and ask
themselves the connection questions. Provide support and extra modeling as necessary to
guide students through the process of making connections.

Last, have students complete a connection chart as a group, with a partner, or individually, using
Table 9.5 as an example. Have students discuss and write their connections in each of the three
categories before, during, and after reading the selection.

Comprehension Strategy: Making

Predictions
Making predictions is a reading comprehension strategy that requires students to do the
following:

1.​ Use prior knowledge and information in a selection to make logical guesses or
predictions about events in the selection
2.​ Read on to check (verify) their predictions
3.​ Change or make new predictions based on the new information in the selection

Instructional Suggestions. To introduce this strategy to students, present a picture or read a

short selection to students and have them guess what is happening or what might happen next.
Explain that these guesses are “predictions” and that making predictions helps readers think
about the story and look for ideas the writer might tell them later. Describe how keeping these
predictions in mind as they read and then checking predictions gives them another purpose for
reading (“Did I predict correctly?”) and helps them understand what they read.

With the basic understanding of predictions in students’ minds, display the four steps, perhaps
in a table like Table 9.6, for making predictions so that students may reference them throughout
the instructional time.

Model these steps for students. First, read a selection from a book, magazine, or other media
source. Second, think aloud as you make several predictions and write them down. Then, read
more of the selection and think aloud as you check the predictions and write T (true), F (false),
or CT (can’t tell yet) after each. Last, change the predictions or make new ones from new ideas
in the selection.

Guiding Students’ Practice. After modeling this comprehension strategy, have students follow
the four steps on the next portion of the selection or on a different selection. They should read,
predict, check predictions, and change or make new predictions based on the results of their
check. You may need to guide students through the prediction process by providing additional
support and reteaching steps.

P. 208

When students are ready, have them complete a prediction equation as a group, with a partner,
or individually. Ask students to write clues from the story and ideas they know that led them to a
prediction. Then, have students check their predictions and either change them or make new
ones.

Comprehension Strategy: Monitoring

Understanding
The monitoring understanding strategy for comprehension has readers develop the ability to
recognize comprehension breakdowns when they occur and then apply fix-up strategies to
correct comprehension difficulties.

Instructional Suggestions. A good way to introduce this strategy is to read a short selection to
students, but insert several words or short sentences that do not make sense within the overall
passage. Then, ask students “Did that story make sense? Why not?” They will likely point out
the nonsense additions that you made. Explain that what they did, listening to what you read
and then identifying the things that did not make sense, was to check or monitor their reading
comprehension.

Make it clear to students that monitoring reading comprehension is an extremely important skill.
It allows readers to tell when a selection is not making sense. When a reader knows that
something is not making sense, they can then correct their understanding. Explain to students
that whenever a passage does not make sense, they can employ a “fix-up” strategy to resolve
the issue or bring clarity to the passage. Ways to better comprehend a passage include the
following:

●​ Read the sentence or paragraph again.

●​ Retell the sentence or paragraph in your own words—crossing over into the “making
connections” comprehension strategy.
●​ Ask a question or make a prediction—crossing over into the “making predictions”
comprehension strategy.
●​ Read on and see if the selection makes sense.

After students have an understanding of the basic concept of this strategy, display the two steps
for monitoring comprehension, as outlined in Table 9.7.

With the steps still visible to students, model how to monitor comprehension by selecting a
challenging selection from a book or other media. Model monitoring by reading a paragraph,
stopping, and then asking “Is this making sense?” If the answer to that question is “No,” indicate
what you find confusing. Is it the main idea that is not clear? Are you confused by a character’s
motive? Are you missing the cause–effect relationship? Or is there vocabulary you do not
understand? Whenever a problem area is identified, select one or more of the fix-up strategies
and model how to apply each by thinking aloud as you step through the process of clarification.

Guiding Students’ Practice Invite students to read the next section and practice the monitoring
strategy. Have them stop periodically and ask “Is this making sense?” Whenever they answer
“No,” encourage them to apply one or more of the fix-up strategies to aid their comprehension. If
students are struggling, step through the modeling exercise again.

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After you have guided students through a passage, it is time for them to practice on their own. A
fun way for them to do this is to make comprehension monitoring “stop signs.” Provide students
with or have them make octagonal shapes. On one side, have them write the word “STOP” in
large letters and the question “Is this making sense?” On the other side, have them write “To Fix
Up” and then the list of choices “Reread, Retell, Question, Predict, or Read On.” With this tool in
hand, instruct students to use them as they read. Instruct them to stop at the end of each
paragraph or page, put down the stop sign with the first side up, and ask themselves “Is this
making sense?” If they answer “No,” then have them turn the sign over and try one or more of
the fix-up strategies.

Comprehension Strategy: Visualizing

Visualizing is a comprehension strategy in which readers create pictures in their minds to
promote their understanding, recall, and appreciation of a selection.

Instructional Suggestions
Introduce the concept of visualizing to students by asking them to close their eyes and listen
carefully while you read aloud a short, descriptive selection. When you have finished, have
students open their eyes, and ask the following:

●​ What was the selection about?

●​ Did anyone see a picture of what they heard?
●​ Can you tell us about the picture you drew in your mind?

Explain that making a mental picture, or visualizing, is a powerful way to help listeners and
readers understand, remember, and enjoy a selection.

Next, display the steps shown in Table 9.8 to help students visualize as they are reading.

With these steps visible for students to refer to, model how to use the visualizing strategy. Read
a selection from a book or other media. As you read part of the story, look for words to help you
visualize, and pause to point these words out to students. Comment on words that tell about
actions, colors, characters, sounds, or settings. Then, use the writer’s words to paint a verbal
picture of the scene or events in the selection.

Guiding Students’ Practice Invite volunteers to read the next portion of the selection and talk
about the words that help them draw pictures in their minds. Then have them describe their
mental pictures as they read. Compare and contrast the visualizations that the students
describe. Point out how different readers can get different pictures for the same selection.
Discuss as a group how visualizing helps readers better understand, remember, or enjoy a
selection.

To help students practice visualizing, have them read a selection while completing a visualizing
chart in which they write the words that help them picture what the author is trying to convey.
When they finish the passage, review the words listed and then ask them to draw pictures of
what images came to their mind when they read or heard the passage.
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Comprehension Strategy: Questioning

Through the questioning comprehension strategy, readers learn to generate questions as they
read. This sort of self-questioning promotes active and engaged reading. It also enhances
students’ literal, inferential, and critical comprehension.

Instructional Suggestions. To introduce the questioning strategy to students, read a short

selection that requires some interpretation. As you read, stop occasionally and ask questions
like the following:

●​ Who is the main character?

●​ When does this story take place?
●​ What’s the writer’s main point here?
●​ What will happen next?

When you have finished reading the passage, ask the students if they know what you were
doing. Explain to them that you were asking yourself questions about the selection as you read,
and that this sort of questioning—readers asking themselves about the selection—is a useful
way to better understand, remember, and enjoy what one reads.

Display categories and possible questions, like those shown in Table 9.9. Explain to students
that these are the kinds of questions readers ask themselves as they try to understand a
passage.

After you review these questions, model for students how to employ self-questioning while
reading a selection from a book or other media. Think aloud by asking the appropriate setting,
event, content, and response questions. Point out to students that there are no “right” questions
and that the list shown is only of suggestions. Good questions are any that help them
understand and appreciate what they are reading.

Guiding Students’ Practice As students read selections, encourage them to engage in

self-questioning. Urge them to ask a variety of questions depending upon the content. It may
help students to create a self-questioning chart like that shown in Table 9.10. To help students
self-question as they read, have them write setting, event, content, and response questions on
the chart.
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Comprehension Strategy:
Retelling/Summarizing
The retelling and summarizing strategies have readers identify and work with the main ideas
and supporting details of a selection. Retelling requires students to restate the major events and
supporting details in a selection. Summarizing requires students to extract only the main ideas
from a selection.

Instructional Suggestions. As with all the comprehension strategies, the best way to introduce
retelling is to read aloud a short selection and then demonstrate the use of the strategy. In this
case, after you read a passage, retell it by restating the main events in order and summarize it
by constructing a statement that tells the main ideas of the selection. Then, ask students
whether they can describe the two things you just did as well as point out how these two things
were alike and how they were different. To clarify their responses, explain that the first was a
retelling (saying the events in a selection in the order in which they happened) and the second
was a summarization (saying just the main ideas of a selection).

Display the information provided in Table 9.11 and Table 9.12. With the steps for retelling and
summarizing visible to students, model how to perform these actions by selecting a short
passage to read aloud. After you read the selection, retell it, including the main events and
important details in the order in which they happened. Then, summarize the selection, thinking
aloud to show how you figured out the main ideas. With the main ideas identified, construct a
short statement to express these ideas. Ask students to differentiate between your retelling and
your summary. Their answers should include pointing out that retelling is longer, and includes
more detail or uses many words from the selection. They might also say that the summary is
shorter and includes only the main ideas from the selection.

Guiding Students’ Practice For students to begin practicing this strategy, select and read
another short selection. Invite students, in the large group setting, to offer first a retelling of the
passage and then a summary of it. Refer them to the displayed steps if necessary. As they
perform the steps, write their retelling and their summary statements side-by-side so that
everyone can see them. Then ask students to compare and contrast the retelling and the
summary for similarities and differences.
P. 212

Next, select a short passage for students to read on their own or in small groups, and have
them generate both a retelling and a summary. Encourage them to write both on the same
paper so that they can see them side-by-side, as you modeled in the large group practice. Then,
have them consider how their retelling and summary are alike and how they are different. Guide
students to thinking about how both practices are helpful for understanding and remembering
important ideas in selections.

Revisiting the Opening Scenario

After reviewing and thinking about the teaching strategies presented in this chapter, provide Ms.
Maddox with some specific suggestions on ways she can help Alan learn to use higher-order
thinking skills during reading.

Authors’ Summary
Before reading our summary statements for each outcome, we suggest you read each outcome
and summarize it in your own words.

Once finished, cross-check your response with our brief summary to determine how well you
recalled the major points.

9.1 Discuss how listening comprehension relates to reading comprehension.

●​ Both listening and reading comprehension are about ideas people construct from
language. As students achieve skill at decoding words, differences in their reading
abilities are often attributable to differences in listening vocabulary. Activity that
encourages listening comprehension can give teachers valuable information about
students’ potential in reading comprehension.

9.2 Discuss different ways to assess comprehension.

●​ There are many different ways to assess comprehension, including observation,

cloze procedure, maze procedure, oral and written retelling, questioning, and
student self-assessment. Asking and answering three questions will help to select
the technique that will target specifically what it is you want to know about students’
 comprehension. These questions are: What do I want to know? Why do I want to
know? How can I best discover this information?

9.3 Explain one comprehension teaching strategy.

●​ In the chapter, several strategies are discussed, including the DRTA, Think Aloud,
Repeated Reading, Reciprocal Reading Instruction, Literature Webbing,
Questioning, QARs, Re-Quest, and Questioning the Author. Each strategy works in
a different way to help students think while they read and to help them get the
message that reading is far more than “getting the words right.”

9.4 Explain what comprehension skills are, one way to assess them, and one way to teach
them.

●​ Comprehension skills fall under four categories in a taxonomy: Literal, Interpretation,

Critical Reading, and Creative Reading. One way to assess comprehension skills is
through questioning. Students may also demonstrate comprehension through
performance, visualization, discussion, retelling, or summarizing.

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9.5 Define comprehension strategies, one way to assess them, and one way to teach them.

●​ Strategies represent conscious techniques a student applies while reading to

help focus on comprehension. Usually these strategies represent ways of
thinking that people recognize among skilled readers but in which this
student is not versed. For example, good readers usually recognize that they
should stop and repair when they do not understand. Listening to oral
reading is a good way to assess this, because students who do not monitor
understanding may continue to read words even after comprehension has
broken down. The Think Aloud is a good teaching strategy for this situation,
because narrating what the mind does while reading helps teachers (or other
students) make the hidden aspects of good reading public for others to hear:
“Hmm. I’m going to stop here and look back a few sentences, because I
don’t think I know what is going on anymore.”