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Overcoming Barriers to Understanding Printed Text
The key to helping students understand what they are reading is to provide them with strategies and techniques that can be used to extract and retain meaning. These strategies include teaching students how to:
- monitor their comprehension and make adjustments as they move along
- use graphic or semantic organizers that help students draw conclusions about what they are reading
- ask questions of themselves and seek assistance from others to clarify the meaning of what is being read
- summarize (orally and in writing) what is being read, both for short and long passages
- successfully apply more than one strategy during reading
Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR): An Example of a Multiple-Strategy Approach
CSR is a comprehension building strategy that has been successfully used with students in grades 4 through middle school (see the Vaughn & Edmonds article for more detail).
It involves teacher modeling, student role-playing and in-class "think-alouds" to help students learn when, how and why to apply different strategies. Students are then assigned to collaborative groups and students are given an assortment of roles that allow for peer support and corrective feedback. Essential components of strategic reading are practiced and students monitor their comprehension while reading and learning new words and concepts.
Additional Resources
Look here for more information about reading comprehension and strategies to help students to become more accomplished readers:
- A summary of the NICHD Research Program in Reading (pdf)
- NICHD Reading Research: From Research to Practice
- Vaughn, S. & Edmonds, M., (2006). Reading Comprehension for Older Students. Intervention in School and Clinic, 41, 3,131-137. PRO-ED., Austin, TX.
- Reading Strategies and Activities Resource Book for Students at Risk for Reading Difficulties, Including Dyslexia
A resource that presents sets of instructional strategies for beginning reading and is specifically and carefully designed for classroom teachers to use with students who are at-risk for reading difficulties, including dyslexia. - 'Reading Next: A Vision for Action and Research in Middle and High School Literacy.'
This report, published by the Alliance for Excellent Education in 2004, offers information about instructional elements for enhancing reading comprehension in adolescents. - Text Comprehension
A Reading 101 feature from Reading Rockets.
Sheldon H. Horowitz, Ed.D. is the Director of LD Resources & Essential Information at the National Center for Learning Disabilities.
