COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES ESSAY

Running head: COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES ESSAY Comprehension Strategies Essay Mavis Shreve Grand Canyon University Curriculum, Methods and Assessment: Literacy and Language Arts 4-8 EED 475 Karen Montgomery January 21, 2012 Comprehension Strategies Essay There are several components that are involved in reading.

One of the most important is comprehension. The very reason for reading is to understand and learn what is being read. That very thing is what reading comprehension means. Different strategies are needed to teach the comprehension of the different forms or types of text.Three of these types of text are narrative, expository and poetry.

(Montgomery, 2011, Section Text structure) Narrative text can be fictional or nonfictional. It is usually a story that contains characters, setting, and a plot. Narrative writing has a logical sequence and can be easier for readers to comprehend. Many times narrative texts are read just for pleasure or in a more leisure setting. It is usually more enjoyable reading.

Expository texts can be more difficult to comprehend. Textbooks and reference books fall under this type of text structure.These texts are filled with factual information and most of the time the information is not presented in a particular sequence. They are also filled with difficult and sometimes new or unknown vocabulary to the reader. All of these factors are what make comprehending this type of text more difficult. The last type of text structure is poetry.

Poetry can be fun and sometimes easier to comprehend because of that fact. There are several forms of poetry. There are rhymes, story poems, and free verse poems. Rhyming can be one of the easiest for younger students because it has a rhyme and rhythm to it.Story poems are just what they say they are stories written in poetry form. “Hiawatha” is one of these.

Then there is free verse poetry which is poetry without rhyme. (Montgomery, 2011, Section Text structure) These too can be fun and easier forms of text to understand depending on the complexity of the poem’s content. These different text structures require different teaching strategies’ to help students learn how to comprehend them. One thing that is important in teaching the comprehension of all text structures is identifying unknown vocabulary in a text, defining it and, learning and understanding the definition.This makes teaching vocabulary very important fro teachers to teach. (Santoro, 2008, table 4) One strategy that can be used for guiding the comprehension of all text structures is the use of different types of KWL charts.

One of these charts is the KWLS Chart which has the students to make a chart and write What I Know in the first column, what I Want to Learn in the second column, what I have Leaned in the third column, and what I Still need to learn in the last column. The last two columns are answered after the text has been read. (West Virginia Department of Education [WVDE], n. d. section KWL Charts The easiest to teach comprehension strategies for is narrative text structure.

One of the easiest of these strategies is story retelling. This is merely guiding the student in retelling the story they have just read. The use of the 5 W’s chart with H added chart (Morgan 2009, p. 190) is good to help the students with retelling a story. The student is instructed to ask and answer these questions after reading a story.

“Who is in the story? Where does the story take place? When does the story take place? What happens in the story? Why did these things happen in the story?How did these things happen or how did they make the characters feel? ” When students can answer these questions about the story they have read; they have comprehended the story. They are then able to summarize and/or retell the story in their own words. Teaching the skills of comprehension for expository text is very important because it is the hardest for most readers to comprehend. Since these texts contain many facts that may be presented randomly at times, the use of graphic organizers is very helpful in organizing these facts in order to analyze and understand them.For example a flow chart can be used to organize the sequence of events in a Science or Social Studies text. It helps to see how the facts flow from one point to the next.

Another great organizer is a bubble map. These are used to put the main topic in the center bubble them add bubbles around them that contain information or facts about the topic. A graphic organizer that can be used to present a cause and the effect of that cause is a Cause and Effect Chart. In this type of an organizer, the author delineates one or more causes and then describes the ensuing effects. Akhondi, 2011, figure 1) This can be done by using a tree map to chart a cause for something then come down from that and put the box telling the effect it caused.

These charts and organizers are helpful in teaching the student to organize the facts so they can latter analyze them which will help in understanding and learning them. The last form of text structure is poetry. One strategy that can work well in the comprehension of poetry is, Questioning the Author. In this strategy “… students are encouraged to respond to questions such as the following: ¦ What is the poet trying to say? What do you think the poet means by _____? ¦ What do you think of when you read the line_____? ” (Calo, 2011) Another strategy to use with poetry is “Think-Alouds”. This strategy is done with the teacher guiding the student into possible questions while reading the text aloud. The teacher models thinking similar questions to the previous strategy.

The guiding questions and/or comments by the teacher help the student learn to ask these for themselves as they read poetry on their own. This will aid in their comprehending what they are reading while they are reading.All of these types of these strategies can be helpful in teaching students skills in how to comprehend the various types of text structure. It is necessary for “Readers to practice the strategies with teacher support until the reader internalizes the strategies and masters them independently. (Lippman, 2011, Section 1) When students learn to use these strategies independently they can learn to comprehend almost anything. This will help to make reading more enjoyable for everyone, which is the ultimate goal.

References Akhondi, M. , Malayeri, F. , & Samad, A. (2011).How to Teach Expository Text Structure to Facilitate Reading Comprehension. Reading Teacher, 64(5), 368-372.

doi:10. 1598/RT. 64. 5. 9 Calo, K. M.

(2011). Comprehending, Composing, and Celebrating Graphic Poetry. Reading Teacher, 64(5), 351-357. doi:10. 1598/RT. 64.

5. 6 Lippman, S. (2011). Reading comprehension [Syllabus]. Retrieved from Grand Canyon University; Angel Learning : http://angel03.

gcu. edu/section/default. asp? id=541971 Montgomery, K. (2011). Comprehension [Syllabus].

Retrieved from Grand Canyon University;Angel: http://angel03. gcu. edu/section/default. asp? id=559124 Morgan, M.F. , Moni, K.

B. , & Jobling, A. (2009). Who? Where? What? When? Why? How? Question words – What do they mean?. British Journal of Learning Disabilities, 37(3), 178-185.

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x Santoro, L. , Chard, D. J. , Howard, L. , & Baker, S. K.

(2008). Making the Very Most of Classroom Read-Alouds to Promote Comprehension and Vocabulary. Reading Teacher, 61(5), 396-408. Retrieved from EBSCOhost West Virgina Department of Education (n. d.

). kWL Charts. Retrieved September 5, 2011, from: http://wvde. state. wv.

us/strategybank/KWLCharts. html