.When a Student Experiences Difficulty with Reading Comprehension
There are two major factors that interfere with reading comprehension that are often perplexing to educators trying to figure out why certain students who read well mechanically experience reading comprehension difficulties while others do not.
One of theses factors involves attention. Students with weaknesses in attention are often unaware that they are not attending to what they are reading. How can an educator or parent spot this weakness? Generally, they are the students who will read a chapter, for example, in their history book, and then experience a blank in regard to knowing what the chapter is about! They are the students who say, “Yes, I read the chapter. I even read it twice.” or " I know what it said, I just can't tell you." In actuality, if they knew what it said, they could state it! These students are frightfully perplexed as to why they have no or very little understanding of what they have read.
Frequently, these students spend hours doing their homework trying to locate answers to questions by skimming through the book. In addition, they appear to be totally lost in terms of how or where to locate answers. As a result of their inability to attend to what they are reading and therby read with comprehension, these students end up with only the answers to specific questions . They have no, or very little idea, of what the whole chapter is about or how the pieces of information in the chapter fit together. They are going through the motions of reading without really reading.
For reading for understanding is what real reading is all about!
What can educators and parents do to help students to attend and read for meaning? First of all, students need to be made aware of the fact that when they read they must set themselves up for concentrating on what they are about to read. They must be prepared to focus on and listen to what they are saying. Even silent reading requires a form of listening! The best technique for teaching this skill is to take their history or science book and have them read a short paragraph, cover it up and state orally what they have read. If they cannot state what they have read in a paragraph, the instructor should have the students' read just one sentence at a time, cover it up and state what they have read. Once the students learns to set himself up for attending and can read for meaning one sentence at a time, then the instructor should advance the exercise to two sentences, then three etc. until the students can attend and recall the material they have read in an entire paragraph. From that point the instructor should work with the students paragraph by paragraph, advancing to page by page, until they have attained the ability to read with full attention and comprehension.
The second most prevalent reason for poor comprehension is related to word meaning. Amazingly, there are many students who can read advanced words such as multisyllable words but do not know the meaning of these words! It is very easy for an educator to overlook this deficiency because these students read the words with great ease. Often these students truly believe that they know the word meanings. But when they are asked to define the words or explain what they mean in the sentence, their definitions are often far from accurate. For example, one student defined the word rectory as a place where you go when your car is wrecked, and another defined the word prevailed as getting dressed before the wedding. Often students will pronounce words correctly and recognize that they have heard the word before, but have no idea of what the word means. Yet without the knowledge of the meaning of words, it is generally impossible to understand the meaning of a passage. The lack of understanding of word meaning knowledge can have serious consequences on students’ ability to comprehend what they read.
What should educators do to help a student with word meaning? Most importantly, as the student reads, especially his social studies and science material, he should be stopped and asked to define the meaning of words that he comes across in his reading. Another way is to have the educator go through the text of the chapter ahead of time, listing the words that may possibly not be understood by the student. The instructor should ask the student to define each word. For example, “What does agriculture mean?” If the student does not know the meaning, the instructor should teach the meaning, use it in a sentence and then put the word on a flashcard with the meaning on the back for the student to study. Most students do not object to flashcards and enjoy studying the words and their meanings, and telling them to the instructor at the next lesson. I have found that many students, even teenagers, who enjoy having a chart with a running total and stars or stickers for every five words and meanings they learn. If you have a teenager who objects to the chart format, you can have the student keep a journal of words and meanings, checking off those that he or she has learned. In this way the student can use the journal as a reference and also get a feeling for how many new words have been added to his or her word bank.
As a result of improving the attention and word meaning skills of students, the connections and measures needed to read with comprehension will be greatly increased. Students appreciate this type of help and feel very proud of their improved ability to reading with understanding.
Addie Cusimano, an educational therapist who has worked as a reading specialist, diagnostician and clinician for over thirty-five years, is the author of the book Learning Disabilities: There is a Cure. Her book answers questions as to how all students, learning disabled to gifted can reach their full learning potential.
