What is Comprehension?

Comprehension is the "essence of reading" (Durkin, 1993). It is a complex thinking process that requires the reader to construct meaning from the text.

The well-known children's author, Katherine Paterson, describes the relationship between reader and writer this way: "Once a book is published, it no longer belongs to me … The work now belongs to the creative mind of my readers … It's a wonderful feeling when readers hear what I thought I was trying to say, but there is no law that they must. Frankly, it is even more thrilling for a reader to find something in my writing that I hadn't until that moment known was there" (Paterson, 1981).

Children need explicit instruction in reading comprehension. The role of the tutor is to help children become aware of the variety of problem-solving strategies that enable them to independently understand, discuss, and interpret text. Children who are given this kind of support become more proficient readers (National Reading Panel, 2000).

Let's look at what good readers do.

Good readers have strong listening comprehension skills. Comprehension develops through reading and listening to texts read aloud (Honig, Diamond, & Gutlohn, 2000). For young children and beginning readers, listening to someone read aloud provides opportunities for them to comprehend text they would not be able to read for themselves (Gillet & Temple, 1994). Developing children's listening comprehension helps them become more skillful at text comprehension (Fountas & Pinnell, 1996).

Good readers recognize that reading is more than decoding words. Decoding is the ability to sound out a written word and figure out the spoken word it represents. While children cannot understand text they cannot decode, it is also true that decoded words are meaningless unless they are understood (Maria, 1990).

Good readers make connections. Good readers experience the wonderful sensation of getting lost in text. They relate what they read to other books, to their own experiences, and to universal themes and the world around them. These types of connections are called text-to-text, text-to-self, and text-to-world connections (Keene & Zimmerman, 1997).

Good readers think about their thinking. Good readers are aware of their own thought processes (Honig et al., 2000). Irvin (1998) points out that explicit instruction in comprehension skills helps develop children's metacognition—the ability to think about their thinking. Good readers use metacognition to "think about and have control over their reading" (Armbruster, Lehr, & Osborn, 2001).

Good readers read a lot of good books! To be good readers, children need to read a lot. Allington (2001) points out that reading practice is a powerful contributor to the development of accurate, fluent, high-comprehension reading. Your work as a tutor not only provides additional learning time, but additional reading time for the children you work with. Increasing the volume of children's reading and helping them develop comprehension strategies are characteristics of effective reading support (Donahue, Voelkl, Campbell, & Mazzeo, 1999).

What are the Comprehension Strategies?