Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is the ability to understand what we read — where words have context and texts have meaning. Reading comprehension skills allow us to read proficiently, learn effectively, problem-solve, strategize, conceptualize, and succeed in life. Without reading comprehension skills, many students are left behind.
Objective: To understand the text and answer the factual and inferential question based on the text.
Types of Reading Comprehension:
Unseen Passage, Prose, Poem, Newspaper cutting, News, Scientific Report –according to age group
Subskills/ types of reading comprehension
- Skimming
- Scanning
- Intensive reading
- Extensive reading/ reading for pleasure
Basically two sub skills
- Factual Comprehension
- Inferential/Global comprehension
Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas of a text.
It is quickly looking through text to get an idea of what the text concerns. Used when reading magazines, newspaper articles etc
Skimming is used to quickly identify the main ideas of a text.
It is quickly looking through text to get an idea of what the text concerns. Used when reading magazines, newspaper articles etc
Intensive reading involves learners reading in detail with specific learning aims and tasks.
It is reading carefully for an exact understanding of text. Necessary for contracts, legal documentation, application forms, etc.
Intensive reading involves learners reading in detail with specific learning aims and tasks.
It is reading carefully for an exact understanding of text. Necessary for contracts, legal documentation, application forms, etc.
In the Beginning: By improving reading comprehension skills, a reader can better connect with the ideas on a page and apply it to what they already know
- Give students a purpose for reading
- Focus students’ attention on what they are to learn
- Help students to think actively as they read
- Encourage students to monitor their comprehension
- Help students to review content and relate what they have learned to what they already know
- What kind of text is this?
- What new information did I learn, and what do I expect to learn?
- Is this text informative or entertaining, fact or fiction?
- What interests about text?
Techniques to improve reading skill
- Survey
- Question
- Read
- Recite
- Relate
- Review
When you begin to read, follow these strategies
We read paragraph for two purposes, first to develop comprehension about the text. It happens when we have command over the words which are used in the paragraph and second for drawing inferential meaning from the text. Inferential meaning demands reader to look beyond the written text.
Please follow the following strategies to develop comprehension.
- Read the text thoroughly
- Have a look on title of the passage (sometimes reflects the story)
- Find out (underline) the fact mentioned in the text. i.e.
- Simple name of character
- Place of story
- Day and date mentioned in the story
- Simple questions i.e. who was the kind? When did happen? How many characters in the story etc(these are known as factual questions)
- Reader should try to extract the meaning of underlined , italicized , bold printed words and phrases
- Reader should re-read the difficult paragraph
- Try to understand the meaning of text. Donot stuck or worry if you donot know the meaning of a word mentioned in the text. Simple solution of this problem is read the first previous line and next proceeding line. This will give you insight about the meaning of words.
- Try to find out the answer of inferential question which demands the reader to look beyond the text. (Why do you think so? How did incident take place? Given statement? Why or why not?) To answer these types of questions readers should look into the mentioned text as well as co-relate it into real life situations. Reader should give the answer even beyond the text.
- If reader is facing difficulty to find out the complex question answer then passage demands you to re-read once with little increasing comprehension level of the text.
- Slowly and gradually reader should increase vocabulary power to comprehend a written paragraph.
- Comprehension passage demand readers to have sound knowledge of basic grammar, word power and techniques to write answer properly and accurately
- Questions can also be related to grammar because written passage may focus single item of grammar in the passage i.e. if the passage consists of past indefinite then grammar question will be related to past indefinite tense.
- Generally questions’ answer can be find easily from the passage but one or two questions demands re-reading of paragraph/sentences for more than one time
- Generally reader face the difficulty to find out the answer of vocabulary related questions i.e. synonyms, antonyms, homophones, inferential meanings. Problems will be solved if the reader practices reading comprehensive passage regularly have command on vocabulary etc………….
- The only remedies to reach at the level of perfection is more and more practices regularly
- Now take a paragraph and do practices, if you feel problems …………….please contact me—————————————————–