HOW TO IMPROVE THE READING OMPREHENSION SKILLS IN STUDENTS?

B Caroline
Assistant Professor, English
Sri Lakshmi Ammaal Engineering College, Chennai

ABSTRACT: Comprehension is the ultimate goal of all reading; that is, the ability to
understand a text underlies all reading tasks. Thus, main-idea comprehension should be at
the core of all reading instruction. In most classes, comprehension is tested as the class
reviews post-reading comprehension questions. Instead of testing comprehension, we can
help our students by teaching comprehension. Simply put, reading comprehension is the act
of understanding what you are reading. While the definition can be simply stated the act is
not simple to teach, learn or practice. Reading comprehension is an intentional, active,
interactive process that occurs before, during and after a person reads a particular piece of
writing. Reading comprehension is one of the pillars of the act of reading. The use of effective
comprehension strategies that provide specific instructions for developing and retaining
comprehension skills, with intermittent feedback, has been found to improve reading
comprehension across all ages.
KEYWORDS: Comprehension, Reading, Teaching, Interactive, Instructions, Feedback
INTRODUCTION
Comprehension skills practice and discussion
The overarching goal of reading, of course, is comprehension. Yet comprehension is not
achieved easily. It requires a reasonable knowledge of grammar, the ability to identify main
ideas, an awareness of discourse structure (i.e., how textual information organized and the
signals that provide cues to that organization), and the use of multiple strategies to achieve
comprehension goals (Hedgcock and Ferris 2009; Hudson 2007; Pressley 2006). Teaching
students how to comprehend texts and discussions of how comprehension is achieved are
important elements of a wide-ranging reading curriculum. Comprehension is the ultimate
goal of all reading; that is, the ability to understand a text underlies all reading tasks. Thus,
main-idea comprehension should be at the core of all reading instruction (Grabe and Stoller
2013). In most classes, comprehension is tested as the class reviews post-reading
comprehension questions. Instead of testing comprehension, we can help our students by
teaching comprehension. Below are a few ideas that do not require more than ten minutes of
class. Below are a few ideas that do not require more than ten minutes of a class.
1.

-Ask students to anticipate, predict, confirm, or modify their predictions, and

summarize. Following this will help students relate their background knowledge to the
text and determine their goals for reading, and engage in a series of prediction and/ or
summarizing tasks at set, predetermined pauses.

2.- Ask how, when, and why questions about reading-strategy use. Bring combinations of the
following reading strategies to students conscious attention:
- Preview and form questions about the text.
-Answer questions while reading.
-Identify difficulties encountered in the text.
-Take steps, such as reading, to repair faulty comprehension.
-Judge how well goals are met.

-Take notes, underline, or highlight main ideas and summarize using notes.
Encourage strategy practice while students are reading for authentic purposes. As a
class talk about how, when, and why strategy sets are used.
3.- Model strategy use. Consider reading a text segment aloud to students while incorporating
the verbalization of strategies. For example, you might comment on reading goals.
4.- Ask students to follow up initial post reading question responses with further elaboration.
This can be done by asking students to defend their answers, explain why an answer is
appropriate, or point out where the text supports their answers.
5.- Assign summary tasks. With more demanding text, ask students to summarize what they
have read. Such tasks provide students with practice in identifying main ideas,
articulate those ideas, and establishing links across main ideas and supporting details.
6.- Use graphic organizers. Work with students to fill in simple diagrams on the board with
key words and phrases to indicate the discourse organization of a text paragraph or
section. Texts or portions of texts that are organized around problem - solution, and
comparison - contrast. Cause-effect, or timeline/ sequence frameworks lend themselves
well to such tasks. Guide students in a quick discussion of their completed graphic
organizers.
7.- Give students a list of transition words and phrases that they have encountered and ask
them to cluster into similar groups. For intermediate-level students, provide a set of
transition word categories followed by a list of transition words and phrases. The task
involves categorizing the transition words into appropriate groups. Follow this activity
ask students why they categorized the words as they did. For more advanced students,
do not provide the category names. Rather, ask students to generate a name for each
category as they create. Point out some words could be placed in more than one
category. The teacher and students can create a class chart and add transition words as
they are encountered.
Reading comprehension
Reading comprehension skills separates the "passive" unskilled reader from the "active"
readers. Skilled readers don't just read, they interact with the text. To help a beginning reader
understand this concept, you might make them privy to the dialogue readers have with
themselves while reading.
Skilled readers, for instance:

Predict what will happen next in a story using clues presented in text
Create questions about the main idea, message, or plot of the text
Monitor understanding of the sequence, context, or characters
Clarify parts of the text which have confused them
Connect the events in the text to prior knowledge or experience

Reading comprehension is defined as the level of understanding of a text/message. This

understanding comes from the interaction between the words that are written and how they
trigger knowledge outside the text/message. Comprehension is a "creative, multifaceted
process" dependent upon four language skills: phonology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics.
Proficient reading depends on the ability to recognize words quickly and effortlessly. It is also
determined by an individual's cognitive development, which is "the construction of thought
processes". Some people learn through education or instruction and others through direct
experiences. There are specific traits that determine how successfully an individual will
comprehend text, including prior knowledge about the subject, well developed language, and
the ability to make inferences. Lastly, is the ability to be self-correcting to solve

comprehension problems as they arise? When a person reads a text he engages in a complex
array of cognitive processes. He is simultaneously using his awareness and understanding of
phonemes (individual sound pieces in language), phonics (connection between letters and
sounds and the relationship between sounds, letters and words) and ability to comprehend or
construct meaning from the text. This last component of the act of reading is reading
comprehension. It cannot occurs independent of the other two elements of the process. At the
same time, it is the most difficult and most important of the three.
There are two elements that make up the process of reading comprehension: vocabulary
knowledge and text comprehension. In order to understand a text the reader must be able to
comprehend the vocabulary used in the piece of writing. If the individual words dont make the
sense then the overall story will not either. Children can draw on their prior knowledge of
vocabulary, but they also need to continually be taught new words. The best vocabulary
instruction occurs at the point of need. Parents and teachers should pre-teach new words that a
child will encounter in a text or aid her in understanding unfamiliar words as she comes upon
them in the writing. In addition to being able to understand each distinct word in a text, the child
also has to be able to put them together to develop an overall conception of what it is trying to
say. This is text comprehension. Text comprehension is much more complex and varied that
vocabulary knowledge. Readers use many different text comprehension strategies to develop
reading comprehension. These include monitoring for understanding, answering and generating
questions, summarizing and being aware of and using a texts structure to aid comprehension.

REVIEW OF LITERATURE
There is no one, widely accepted definition of reading to be found in the relevant literature.
Therefore, various definitions of reading must be considered. The simplest definition of reading is
proposed by Grabe and Stroller (2002). They define reading as the ability to draw meaning from
the printed page suggested three different categories of reading strategies (Mokhtari & Sheorey,
2002): a) Global Reading Strategies (GLOB): which include intentional and carefully planned
generalized reading strategies that help the reader adapt to reading at their own speed and with a
purpose, previewing and predicting the topic of the text, etc. b) Problem Solving Strategies
(PROB): more bottom up specific problem-solving or repair strategies that readers employ when
they come across problems in understanding textual information. c) Support Reading Strategies
(SUP): which involve simple strategies such as taking notes, underlining or highlighting the
textual information, and using reference materials like dictionaries that help the readers
understand the text. In this respect, the theoretical framework of the study relied on Sheorey and
Mokhtaris (2001) view that the readers metacognitive knowledge about reading strategies
may be influenced by their beliefs, culture-specific instructional practices and proficiency in
the L2.

Comprehensive reading curricula

Good readers, at a minimum, need to be able to identify main ideas and details; distinguish
between facts and opinions; draw inferences; determine author intent, stance, and bias;
summarize; synthesize two or more reading passages; and extend textual information to new
tasks, such as class projects, oral presentations, and written assignments (Grabe and Stoller
2013). Furthermore, capable readers need a repertoire of reading strategies and the ability to
apply them in meaningful combinations, at the right times, to achieve their reading goals
(Anderson 2009). Skilled readers also need to be able to read fluently, though at different
rates for different reading goals, while maintaining comprehension. For all of this to occur,
students motivation to read needs to be nurtured (Komiyama 2009). Fortunately, explicit
instruction that focuses on reading-skills development can greatly help EFL students become
more skilled, strategic, motivated, and confident readers.
A comprehensive approach to reading instruction not only gives students plenty of opportunities
to read but it also addresses the various aspects of reading that must coalesce for students to
become good readers. In comprehensive reading curricula, students read a lot and often. They

read level-appropriate texts, with the expectation that reading occurs in every class. Students also
read at home, where feasible. Typically, students are held accountable for more than answers to
post-reading comprehension questions. In ideal reading curricula, we see a commitment to
building student motivation for reading. Motivated students are more engaged as active members
of the classroom community and more willing to tackle challenging texts. They also read in and
out of class because they want to, not because they are told to do so. Comprehensive reading
curricula recognize the importance of reading fluency. A slow reader, who reads one word at a
time, simply cannot be a good reader. A commitment to reading-fluency practice at word,
phrase, and passage levels-is the hallmark of curricula that reflect not only the nature of good
reading but also respond to the needs of developing readers. It is widely recognized that
fluent reading at the word, phrase, and passage levels is essential for efficient reading.
However, proficient readers read at different rates, depending on their purpose(s) for reading:
reading for the gist (skimming), reading for general comprehension, reading to learn, etc.

Different Comprehension Strategies to improve Students reading comprehension

Reading different types of texts requires the use of different reading strategies and
approaches. Making reading an active, observable process can be very beneficial to struggling
readers. A good reader interacts with the text in order to develop an understanding of the
information before them. Some good reader strategies are predicting, connecting, inferring,
summarizing, analyzing and critiquing. There are many resources and activities educators and
instructors of reading can use to help with reading strategies in specific content areas and
disciplines. Some examples are graphic organizers, talking to the text, anticipation guides,
double entry journals, interactive reading and note taking guides, chunking, and summarizing.
The use of effective comprehension strategies is highly important when learning to improve
reading comprehension. These strategies provide specific instructions for developing and
retaining comprehension skills. Implementing the following instructions with intermittent
feedback has been found to improve reading comprehension across all ages, specifically those
affected by mental disabilities. There are different comprehension strategies to improve
students reading comprehension.
Question- Answer Relationships (QAR) Strategy
Questioning is effective for improving comprehension because it gives the students a purpose
for reading, focuses attention on what must be learned, helps develop active thinking while
reading, helps monitor comprehension, helps review content, and relates what is learned to
what is already known (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2001).
Raphael (1986) developed an approach called QAR or Question Answer-Relationships which
teaches students how to distinguish questions with answers that are found "in the book" and
questions with answers found "in my head." Raphael's (1986) research with QAR has proven
that when students are taught to use the strategy their ability to answer questions correctly
improves. Raphael also found that through QAR, students developed a language for talking
about the strategies they use to answer questions. Understanding how Question-AnswerRelationships work is crucial for learning.
The questionanswer relationship (QAR) strategy helps students understand the different
types of questions. By learning that the answers to some questions are "Right There" in the
text, that some answers require a reader to "Think and Search," and that some answers can
only be answered "On My Own," students recognize that they must first consider the question
before developing an answer. Question-Answer Relationships (QAR) is one strategy
purported as providing students with ways of dealing with tests of reading comprehension
generally encountered in the classroom. Question-Answer relationship (QAR) is a strategy to
be used after students have read. QAR teaches students how to decide what types of questions
they are being asked and where to find the answers to them. Four types of questions are
examined in the QAR.

Four types of questions are examined in the QAR:

Right There Questions: Literal questions whose answers can be found in the text. Often the
words used in the question are the same words found in the text.
Think and Search Questions: Answers are gathered from several parts of the text and put
together to make meaning.
Author and You: These questions are based on information provided in the text but the
student is required to relate it to their own experience. Although the answer does not lie
directly in the text, the student must have read it in order to answer the question.
1.

On My Own: These questions do not require the student to have read the passage but
he/she must use their background or prior knowledge to answer the question.

2.

Read a short passage aloud to your students.

3.

Have predetermined questions you will ask after you stop reading. When you have
finished reading, read the questions aloud to students and model how you decide which
type of question you have been asked to answer.

4.

Show students how find information to answer the question (i.e., in the text, from your
own experiences, etc.).

Why use questionanswer relationship?

It can improve students' reading comprehension.
It teaches students how to ask questions about their reading and where to find the
answers to them.
It helps students to think about the text they are reading and beyond it, too.
It inspires them to think creatively and work cooperatively while challenging them to
use higher-level thinking skills.
It also help the students to think aloud, which helps them become aware of and
analyze their own learning processes.
Paragraph Shrinking
Paragraph shrinking is an activity developed as part of the Peer-Assisted Learning Strategies
(PALS). The paragraph shrinking strategy allows each student to take turns reading, pausing,
and summarizing the main points of each paragraph. Students provide each other with
feedback as a way to monitor comprehension.
It helps students develop their reading comprehension skills.
It allows each student to take turns reading, pausing, and summarizing the main points of
each paragraph.
Concept Map
A concept map is a visual organizer that can enrich students' understanding of a new concept.
Using a graphic organizer, students think about the concept in several ways. Most concept map
organizers engage students in answering questions such as, "What is it? What is it like? What
are some examples?" Concept maps deepen understanding and comprehension.

It helps children organize new information.

It helps students to make meaningful connections between the main idea and other
information.
They're easy to construct and can be used within any content area.
Story Sequence

Sequencing is one of many skills that contributes to students' ability to comprehend what they
read. Sequencing refers to the identification of the components of a story the beginning,
middle, and end and also to the ability to retell the events within a given text in the order
in which they occurred. The ability to sequence events in a text is a key comprehension
strategy, especially for narrative texts. Sequencing is also an important component of
problem-solving across subjects.
It assists with comprehension, especially for narrative texts.
Sequence structures help students of varying abilities organize information and ideas
efficiently.
Sequencing is also an important component of problem-solving across the curriculum,
including science and social studies.
Story Map
A story map is a strategy that uses a graphic organizer to help students learn the elements of a
book or story. By identifying story characters, plot, setting, problem and solution, students
read carefully to learn the details. There are many different types of story map graphic
organizers. The most basic focus on the beginning, middle and end of the story. More
advanced organizers focus more on plot or character traits.
They improve students' comprehension
They provide students with a framework for identifying the elements of a story.
They help students of varying abilities organize information and ideas efficiently.
Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA)
The Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) is a comprehension strategy that guides
students in asking questions about a text, making predictions, and then reading to confirm or
refute their predictions. The DRTA process encourages students to be active and thoughtful
readers, enhancing their comprehension.

It encourages students to be active and thoughtful readers.

It activates students' prior knowledge.
It teaches students to monitor their understanding of the text as they're reading.
It helps strengthen reading and critical thinking skills.

Reading Guides
Reading guides can assist with developing students' comprehension. They help students
navigate reading material, especially difficult chapters or nonfiction reading. Students
respond to a teacher-created written guide of prompts as they read an assigned text. Reading
Guides help students to comprehend the main points of the reading and understand the
organizational structure of a text.
It can be developed for a variety of reading material and reading levels.
It helps guide students through what they are about to read, and helps students
monitor their comprehension while reading.
It helps students to follow the main points of the reading and understand the
organization of a text.
It helps readers to think actively as they read and have a purpose for reading.
Jigsaw
Jigsaw is a cooperative learning strategy that enables each student of a "home" group to
specialize in one aspect of a topic (for example, one group studies habitats of rainforest
animals, another group studies predators of rainforest animals). Students meet with
members from other groups who are assigned the same aspect, and after mastering the
material, return to the "home" group and teach the material to their group members. With this
strategy, each student in the "home" group serves as a piece of the topic's puzzle and when

they work together as a whole, they create the complete jigsaw puzzle.
It helps build comprehension.
It encourages cooperative learning among students.
It helps improve listening, communication, and problem-solving skills.
Reciprocal Teaching
Reciprocal teaching refers to an instructional activity in which students become the teacher in
small group reading sessions. Teachers model, then help students learn to guide group
discussions using four strategies: summarizing, question generating, clarifying, and
predicting. Once students have learned the strategies, they take turns assuming the role of
teacher in leading a dialogue about what has been read.
It encourages students to think about their own thought process during reading.
It helps students learn to be actively involved and monitor their comprehension as
they read.
It teaches students to ask questions during reading and helps make the text more
comprehensible.
The listen-read-discuss strategy
The listen-read-discuss strategy helps students comprehend text. Before reading, students
listen to a short lecture delivered by the teacher. The students then read a text selection about
the topic. After reading, there is a large group discussion or students engage in small group
discussions about the topic. During the discussion, students compare and contrast the
information from the lecture with the information they read.

It helps students comprehend material presented orally.

It builds students' prior knowledge before they read a text.
It engages struggling readers in classroom discussions.
This simple, flexible strategy can be used across all curriculum areas with almost any
text.

CONCLUSION
Comprehension is the essential higher level skill of actually understanding the material being
read. Obviously, comprehension is the goal of proficient reading. We can help students
develop these critical comprehension skills with various direct instruction strategies. Most
activities that develop comprehension skills can be effectively applied as a part of guided
reading. Comprehension is just one skill necessary for proficient reading. Reading
comprehension is made of many different skills. These skills are created and developed by
using a variety of reading strategies to encourage students to interact with text in meaningful
ways. We hope you can use some of the comprehension strategies weve listed above and we
want to hear what comprehension strategies work best for you.

REFERENCES
Brewster, J., G. Ellis, and D. Girard. 2002. The primary English teachers guide. Harlow, UK:
Pearson Education.
Core Skills: Reading Comprehension: Reproducible Grade 8 by Donna Loughman
Ezell, H. K., F. W. Kohler, M. Jarzynka, and P. S. Strain. 1992. Use of peer-assisted
procedures to teach QAR reading comprehension strategies to third-grade children.
Education and Treatment of Children 15 (3): 205227.
Peregoy, S. F., and O. F. Boyle. 2008. Reading, writing, and learning in ESL: A resource

book for teaching K12 English learners. 5th ed. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Raphael, T. 1982. Improving question-answering performance through instruction. Reading
Education Report No. 32. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: Center for the
Study of Reading.
Reading Comprehension Success in 20 Minutes a Day by Learning Express Editors 8th
Grade Reading Comprehension Success by Elizabeth Chesla.
Steck-Vaughn Core Skills Reading Comprehension: Workbook Grade 8 by STECK-VAUGHN.