This article was firstly published onThe Reading TeacherVol.58, No.3 November 2004, written by Laura s. Pardo.
There are various definitions about comprehension. The author summarized them into a general one.
A common definition for teachers might be that comprehension is a process in which readers construct meaning by interacting with text through the combination of prior knowledge and previous experience, information in the text ,and the stance the reader takes in relationship to the text.
Comprehension involves a transaction between readers and texts.The authour used a model to describe the relationships.
If the reader knows more about the world, he or she will be more likely to understand the text. According to Schema Theory（图式理论）,if the reader has already stored various kinds of information in the long-term memory, it's more likely that the reader has stored many ideas in the long-term memory. Thus, when the reader comes across a new word or a new idea, he or she will get access to relevant information from long-term memory.Besides, if the context matches the reader's cutural background, it will also helps the reader's understanding. Other pertinent factors include the reader's reading skills and purpose, etc.
Based on this model, the author point out a few suggestions on how teachers can imrprove students' comprehension. Teachers have so much to do.
They teach decoding skills, help students build fluency,build and activate background knowledge, teach vocabulary words, motivate students, and engage them in personal responses to text.
Teachers should increase the decoding level of students by raising phonemic awareness and phonics in the primary grades and focusing on spelling, vacabulary and high-frequency word activities in the intermediate grades.
To increase students' influency, teachers can help or even model reading aloud.
Teachers should try to assciate the students' prior knowledge with the text. To achieve this, teachers can use information books and provide access to various topics. The author also suggested that teachers use visual aids to demonstrate how prior concepts are connected to the new ones. Reading aloud and teacher modeling are helpful to activate schema and anke connections as well.
Usually teachers teach unknown words to students before stepping into reading. To make sure the students really master these words, teachers are advised to deliver some output tasks such as speaking or writing with these new words.
In order to motive student to read, teachers can offer some interesting texts, allow them to choose in reading and writing and help them set authentic purposes for reading. The more they are engaged, the more they are inspired to read.
Text also plays a sigficant role in reading.
Teachers teach text structures, model appropriate text selection, and provide regular independent reading time.
Teachers can guide students to pick out literary elements such as plot, characters and setting. Meanwhile, teachers can teach some expository(说明的，解释的) text structure such as sequence, description, comparison and cause and effect. After class, teachers hould make efforts to provide students with independent reading time.
Sometimes if the students' social background disagree with the text, it will inferfere the transaction between readers and the text.
Teachers provide explicit instruction of useful comprehension strategies, teach students to monitor and repair, use multiple strategy approaches, scaffold support, and make reading and writing connect.
Teachers should teach students reading strategies of monitoring, predicting, inferring, questioning, connecting, summarizing, visulizing and organizing by expliciting and directing.
The author recommended teachers to use transactional strategy instruction(TSI) to encourage studetns to connect text and prior knowledge. Visulizing the connection between reading and writing together will make students more engaged.
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