COMPREHENSION SKILLS

Reading Strategies:
Reading strategies is the broad term used to describe the planned and clear
actions that help readers translate print to meaning. Strategies that improve
decoding and reading comprehension skills.

Critical reading (SQ3R Method):

SQRRR or SQ3R is a reading comprehension method named for its five steps:
survey, question, read, recite, and review. The method was introduced by Francis
P. Robinson, an American education philosopher in his 1946 book Effective Study.
The method offers a more efficient and active approach to reading textbook
material
The goal of the SQ3R reading method is to help students to efficiently and actively
work on reading and understanding (educational) texts. But it can be useful for
everyone who, in their work, studies or free time rely on written information and
want to understand it better. SQ3R Method stands for the following five steps:
Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Review.

How do you apply it?

Many people have a tendency to first read a new text completely and highlight
important passages. This method is a step-by-step plan to approach a text more
effectively. You follow these five steps: S(urvey), Q(uestion), R(ead), R(ecite) and
R(eview).

SQ3R reading method

1. Survey
First, you take a few minutes to scan the entire text. Pay attention to layout,
chapters, sections, graphs, pictures, words in bold and italics. In general, these
provide important information about the contents of the text. By quickly scanning
through the text first, you create an overview and structure. This serves as the
foundation for the active reading and understanding of the text.

2. Question

Ask yourself questions about the text that you scanned during the previous step.
You can for instance turn the chapter titles into questions. Write down the
questions. Ask yourself what you already know about the topic and what your goal
is for reading the text. Try to understand what it is that the author wants to convey.
You can use the left margin to write down your questions about the text in a
structured way. At a later stage, you can note down the answers in the right
margin.

3. Read

Read the text while keeping the structure from step 1, “S” and the questions from
step 2, “Q” in the back of your mind. Pay attention to chapters, sentences printed in
bold, explanations under graphs and images. Read ‘actively’, write down
(additional) questions while you are reading and try to find answers to previously
asked questions. Write down answers and explanations in the right margin of the
text. Take your time for the more complicated parts of the text and read it again if
you need to. Give less attention to unimportant information. Reread per part and
repeat these parts to yourself in your own words.

4. Recite

Repeat (aloud) in your own words what you have read. Ask yourself questions
about the text. Explain what you have read to someone else, you can also do this in
your imagination. Making a summary in your own words provides extra support.
5. Review

Read all the relevant parts of the text again, look at your notes. Possibly improve
on your notes, paying extra attention to the parts you found difficult. Read your
own questions on the left side of the text (cover the answers on the right) and try to
answer them. This step is the most effective if you do it a day after step 1 through
4. After following these five steps, you will have actively read a text and you will
be better able to remember and explain what it is about.

Activating background knowledge

Research has shown that better comprehension occurs when students are engaged
in activities that bridge their old knowledge with the new. For example, a simple
question like “what do you know about … (a particular topic)” will stimulate
students’ previous knowledge of that topic. This will help them connect the current
reading to their already existing knowledge and make the new reading more
stimulating and engaging. The strategy allows students to work their way up from
an already existing schema, instead of starting a new one.

Self –Questioning

Students should be motivated to frame questions before and after reading to

increase their comprehension. Each student should be able to reflect on three main
questions, namely, a right now question, an analytical question, and a research
question.

A ‘right now question’ focuses on the material presented. What is the essence of
the material read? What are the facts that are being mentioned?

An ‘analytical question’ requires students to ponder over what they have learnt.
What does the author want me to understand from this material?
A ‘research question’ encourages the students to look for information beyond what
is in the text. This allows for more comprehensive active learning to occur.

Sequencing

"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, such as 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. This strategy can be done at any age and with any subject, but it is
usually used with beginning readers.

Steps to Implement Story Sequencing:

Select a text that has a clear sequence of events: beginning, middle, end.
Inform students before the reading that they will be working on their sequencing
skills. This will allow them to focus on the steps of the story.
After the reading, have students write down certain events that occurred during the
reading.
Have them put these events in order.
At the end, students can write about the story sequence in a journal or discuss the
sequence with another student
.
Inferencing

"Inferring—making inferences—is often described as making a logical guess or

'reading between the lines.' Making an inference is a lot like the chemical process
of forming a chemical compound—when two elements combine and form a new
substance. Readers make inferences when they are able to take their own
experiences and combine them with information they gather from what they read.
The result is that they create new meaning or draw a conclusion that isn't explicitly
stated in the reading,"

Steps to Implement Inferences:

Assign a reading to students.

Pose these questions with students for discussion:
1) What is my inference?
2) What information did I use to make this inference?
3) How good was my thinking?
4) Do I need to change my thinking?"

Comparing and Contrasting

Compare and Contrast is a text structure or pattern of organization where the

similarities and differences of two or more things are explored. It is important to
remember that with the compare and contrast text structure the text should be
discussing similarities and differences. If the text only discusses similarities, it is
only comparing. Likewise, if it only discusses ways that the things are different, it
is only contrasting. The text must do both to be considered compare and contrast.

Example: Apples and oranges are both fruits, which means that they have seeds
inside of them. Each has a skin, but orange skins are thick and easy to peel. Apple
skins are thinner and do not peel easily. Oranges also contain more acid than
apples, but both fruits are delicious.

Identifying when the writer is comparing and contrasting is usually not difficult
because the speaker will bounce back and forth between two subjects and this
pattern is generally pretty easy to recognize. However, here are some signal words
that may indicate that the text is written using the compare and contrast
organizational pattern: like, unlike, both, neither, similar, and different.

Comprehending text organization patterns

This requires students to learn how to analyze or comprehend the structure of a

text. Students are taught to identify the pattern by which writers organize their
material. This may be in the form of cause-effect pattern, problem-solution pattern,
or a descriptive pattern like a list, web or a matrix pattern. Understanding the
pattern in which the material is presented allows the students to comprehend the
information better. It is important to teach all the patterns of a text structure to the
students, as each structure is different and takes time to learn. They should also be
taught to make use of subheadings, labels, captions, tables, graphs, etc. as these
help students to understand the material better

Purpose and tone of the text

What Is Mood?

Mood is the feeling you get while reading a story. This could be happiness,
sadness, darkness, anger, suspicion, loneliness, or even excitement. You can think
of mood as the atmosphere of the story.

To describe mood, you should think about the setting and the language used by the
author. In the opening story, we saw the setting as dark and the weather angry. The
narrator used language that created fear, such as cold and black.

The mood of a story can change how we identify the thesis and the characters. For
example, if we read a short story about a lovable nanny, we would expect positive
words like cheerful, loving, and caring. However, we could take that same idea of
a nanny and make it more of a horror story by changing the atmosphere with
aggravated, cold, and enraged. We have the same character, but the author's
message and description is much different.

What Is Tone?
Tone is the author's attitude toward a subject. The tone can be identified by looking
at word choices and phrases. Take time to look at the language. An author uses
words to create meaning. For example, a dog described as a lovable puppy is
positive, but one described as a fierce fighter is more frightening.

You should also decide if a word is abstract, concrete, general, or specific. It is

important to note if an author is using a general word, like car, or a more specific
word, like Ford Focus. An abstract word is one that may carry different meanings,
such as pleasant, while a concrete word will show us the meaning.

Finding the main idea, important facts, and supporting details

Recognizing the main idea is the most important key to good comprehension. The
main idea is a general “umbrella” idea; all the specific supporting material of the
passage fits under it.
Three strategies that will help you find the main idea are to
1) look for general versus specific ideas;
2) use the topic (the general subject of a section) to lead you to the main idea;
3) use key words—verbal clues that lead you to a main idea.
The main idea often appears at the beginning of a paragraph, though it may appear
elsewhere in a paragraph.
Major and minor details provide the added information you need to make sense of
a main idea.
List words and addition words can help you find major and minor supporting
details.
Outlining, mapping, and summarizing are useful note-taking strategies.
Outlines show the relationship between the main idea, major details, and minor
details of a passage.
.
Drawing conclusion

Drawing conclusions is using information that is implied or inferred to make

meaning out of what is not clearly stated. Writers give readers hints or clues that
help them read between the lines, since not everything is explicitly stated or
spelled out all the time. If that were the case in books and in real life, then the
coffee shop conversation would've resulted in the woman saying exactly how
annoyed she was rather than simply saying the word 'fine' in a suggestive manner.

In order to effectively draw conclusions, readers need to:

Consider what they already know from their own experiences

Gather all of the information that the author has given them (characters'
personalities, feelings and motivations, the time period and place, conflicts, etc.)

Examples of Drawing Conclusions

For example, it is common knowledge that animals out in the wild usually run or
fly away if a human walks up to them. So, when reading Snow White and the
Seven Dwarfs to some beginning readers, you could pause after reading that all of
the animals flocked to Snow White's side as she sang to them and ask what that
says about the kind of person Snow White seems to be. By asking this question,
you're encouraging students to use what they know about animals' behavior and the
clue about how the animals are behaving in the story to draw the conclusion that
Snow White is probably an animal lover, is kind to them, and they like her and are
kind to her. The deer don't try to kick her; the birds don't try to peck at her or poop
on her. Instead, they all happily hang out together because of the type of person
Snow White is. By using the information that students know from experience and
from the text, young readers can draw this conclusion.
Knowing the difference between facts and opinions

A fact is a statement that can be proven true or false. An opinion is an expression

of a person’s feelings that cannot be proven. Opinions can be based on facts or
emotions and sometimes they are meant to deliberately mislead others. Therefore,
it is important to be aware of the author’s purpose and choice of language.
Sometimes, the author lets the facts speak for themselves.
The following is an example of a fact:
• With fewer cars on the road, there would be less air pollution and traffic noise;
therefore, the use of mass transportation should be encouraged.
Sometimes the author may use descriptive language to appeal to your emotions and
sway your thinking. The following is an example of an opinion:
• Do you like looking at a smoggy view from a congested highway? How do you
feel about fighting road hugs and bumper to bumper traffic everyday? Mass
transportation is the solution to all these problems.
Emotional language is neither right nor wrong, but the way in which it is used can
be positive or negative; it is up to you to make reasonable judgement about the
material you are reading and to draw your own conclusion.
Therefore, when you read, it is important to judge facts and opinions carefully in
order to come to the right conclusion. Ask yourself, “are the facts reliable?” or “are
the opinions based on the facts?” Once you answer these questions, you may be on
the right track for finding and sticking to the facts; you be the judge.

Investigating implied idea in a text

Why would we ever need to imply a main idea when it's so easy to say it outright?
People use implied main ideas for all sorts of reasons - from disguising their real
intentions, to keeping us on our toes. In fact, you've probably even used an implied
main idea or two in the form of what we might call 'dropping hints.' Take for
example this seemingly rambling account from a theoretical 13-year-old.

Did you know snowboarding started from surfing? They even have snowboarding
in the Olympics now! I wonder how long it takes to build a snowboard. I saw one
the other day, though, down at the mall…

Although it might look like these sentences are only thinly connected, their implied
main idea actually keeps them all tightly linked. And here's how we can tell…

Read the passage entirely first. All the details might not make sense immediately,
but you should start to see patterns. For instance, the young teenager appears to be
jumping from one idea to the next; but if we look closely, we can see that
snowboards feature prominently throughout the passage.

Examine individual details to see how they relate to the common thread. The first
sentence relates snowboarding to surfing (maybe the parents are surfers?); the
second hypes its place in the Olympic Games; while the third and last imply the
difficulties of building a board and the efficiency of finding one at the mall.

Put the details together to find out what the main idea is. We can look at the
details together to see that the implied main idea of this teenager's hint-dropping is
that he or she wants a snowboard: each detail attempts to add some sort of value to
the sport so that the parents will finally be convinced to buy the snowboard at the
mall. Re-reading the passage or summarizing it can also be helpful at this stage in
the process.

Summarizing

The last technique is to summarize the material read. Research has indicated that
the ability to summarize enhances comprehension. Block and Pressley defined
summarize as “the ability to delete irrelevant details, combine similar ideas,
condense main ideas, and connect major themes into concise statements that
capture the purpose of a reading for the reader.” A student making use of the other
four strategies will find it easier to summarize the material. They can summarize
the material in the form of diagrams, either visually or in writing.