Cooter, R. B., Joseph, D. G., & Flynt, S. (1986). Eliminating the literal pursuit in reading comprehension. Journal of Clinical Reading: Research and Practice, 2(1), 9-11. With the concern that too much instructional time is being spent on developing students' literal comprehension skills - and thus cutting into the time for higher-level thinking about a text - the researchers hypothesized that literal comprehension questions were not "necessary prerequisites" for higher-order understanding. Previous studies found that between 50 - 75% of all questions that teachers ask are literal comprehension questions. Therefore, they sought to determine whether asking only inferential and evaluative types of questions would simultaneously develop elementary students' literal and inferential understanding of a text. The experimental group - the group who were asked exclusively inferential and evaluative questions during and after the reading of a text - outperformed students in the control group - who received all three types of questions - on the post-test in both literal and inferential comprehension. However, the difference in mean scores on the literal comprehension portion was not significantly different. And the score difference on the inferential comprehension subtest approached significance. Therefore, although the elimination of literal questions did not significantly improve students literal/inferential understanding, the study did make a case for the instructional reduction of literal comprehension questions because similar literal comprehension can be obtained via only higher-level questioning. |
Basaraba, D., Yovnoff, P., & Alonzo, J. (2005). Examining the structure of reading comprehension: Do literal, inferential, and evaluative comprehension truly exist? Reading & Writing, 26(3), 349-376. Acknowledging a lack of reading comprehension research (i.e. what it is, how to measure it, instructional strategies to improve it) despite it being hailed as the "essence of reading," this study attempted to support the "Levels of Comprehension Theory" by analyzing the item difficulty between multiple choice questions that were specifically composed to assess one of the reading comprehension levels: literal, inferential, and evaluative. With the "Levels of Comprehension Theory" arguing that literal, inferential, and evaluative levels of comprehension are - in that order - increasingly more difficult for students to grasp. Looking at 20 questions on a standardized reading comprehension test in winter, fall, and spring, the item analysis yielded data that supported and countered the "Levels of Comprehension Theory." In terms of support, the multiple-choice questions testing literal comprehension were on average less difficult than inferential questions. In turn, the inferential multiple-choice questions were, on average, less challenging than the evaluative items. However, within each set of multiple-choice questions for each of the three levels of reading comprehension, the questions ranged in difficult (i.e. inferential level: "knowledge-based" inference questions more difficult than "text-based/causal" inferences). Therefore, for example, an easier inference question could actually be less difficult than the hardest literal question. This suggests the interactive - and not exclusively hierarchical - relationship between the levels of reading comprehension. |
Kim, W., Linan-Thompson, S., & Misquitta, R. (2012). Critical Factors in Reading Comprehension Instruction for Students with Learning Disabilities: A Research Synthesis. Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 27(2), 66-78.
This research article examines the various factors that impact reading comprehension for students. Their target audience is middle school students with learning disabilities--"students who 'read to learn' instead of 'learn to read." As these students transition from elementary school where they have structured time in their day for reading and literacy, to middle school where they do not have a specific class period of the day dedicated to building reading skills and comprehension, their struggles with reading become more acute and challenging. According to Thompson and Misquitta (2012), "The use of self-monitoring combined with main idea strategy improved comprehension performance. It was found that both, instruction targeting comprehension alone, as well as comprehension that incorporated other reading components such as vocabulary had significant effects on comprehension" (p. 66). The authors of this study determine five critical factors that help students with learning disabilities comprehend what they are reading effectively. The first factor is instructional methods, or teachers' ability to modify their lessons and differentiate to meet the needs of all students. The second is students' ability to self-monitor their reading and comprehension. In other words, taking the time to pause and reread for comprehension takes precedence over fluency in the traditional sense. Thompson and Misquitta are very much so in favor of Flurkey's "ebb and flow" model of fluency when working with students with learning disabilities. Third, fidelity of instruction, or the teacher's ability to stay true to their intended lessons, is crucial. Fourth, national reading standards (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) must be incorporated into daily instruction. Finally, the smaller the group, the more one-on-one attention students receive in order to become better readers in all subject areas. |
Hibbing, A. N., & Rankin-Erickson, J. L. (2003). A picture is worth a thousand words: Using visual images to improve comprehension for middle school struggling readers. The Reading Teacher, 56(8), 758-769.
Finding reading comprehension benefits as well as affective-motivational effects of visual aids and mental imagery on students, this qualitative study argued that struggling adolescent readers should be provided with external visual aids - making sure that they do not mismatch the text, but instead are text-relevant - because such scaffolds them to the internal, cognitive process of mental imagery during-reading, which is a skill that is found to be inadequate, ineffective, or nonexistent in lower-ability readers and higly functional in proficient readers. Seeing visuals as being "a supportive role" with the text itself, these researchers present a television analogy to introduce students to the idea of mental imagery: if the picture in your head does not correspond to what's being read - "channel switching - then you need the proper fix-up strategies to get the "television in your mind" back to the "right channel" by creating an appropriate mind picture. With other instructional approaches tested, the researchers found the detrimental effect of text-irrelevant images on student motivation to read but the potential motivational effects of a high-quality book cover. With the traditional book and movie adaptation accounted for and the ever-increasing acknowledgement of the role of picture books in secondary unit launches, this study takes the "Dual-Coding Theory" - which argues that there is an interconnected cognitive system of verbal and nonverbal representations of knowledge - and supports how it factors into reading comprehension and how it can be improved and aided. |
Kieffer, M. J., & Lesauxm N. K. (2007). Breaking down words to build meaning: Morphology, vocabulary, and reading comprehension in the urban classroom. The Reading Teacher, 61(2), 134-144.
With the theory that a readers' limited vocabulary on an academic "key word" in a text will lead to him or her missing the meaning of the passage and losing comprehension, these researchers focused on how English Language Learner's are especially vulnerable to this avenue toward loss of reading comprehension. This is because English Language Learner's often have a developed social vocabulary by the time they hit fourth grade, but do not have the developed academic lexicon to interact successfully with the grade-level, content-area texts. There is a notorious "fourth-grade slump" in which students begin to struggle to understand grade level texts, probably due to the beginning transition to more of a content-based curriculum with jargon. Morphology seems to play a role in students' vocabulary comprehension, and thus reading comprehension, more as they get older and texts become more complex and jargon-filled. Therefore, this study looked at the role of morphology knowledge on reading comprehension, found a direct relationship - as student's morphology awareness increased, student reading comprehension increased - and proposed "word-attack strategies" to teach morphology, a related but distinct form of general vocabulary. Advocating meaningful, contextual vocabulary lessons, the suggestions conclude that vocabulary instruction should be a balanced mix between explicit instruction on a "limited number of well-chosen words with instruction in strategies with which students can acquire words independently." |
McLaughlin, M. (2012). Reading Comprehension: What Every Teacher Needs to Know. Reading Teacher, 65(7), 432-440.
An informative teaching reading comprehension "how-to" guide, Maureen McLaughlin's article, "Reading Comprehension: What Every Teacher Needs to Know" provides teachers with a structure of ten principles to follow while teaching comprehension to students. The first of these ten principles recommends that teachers endorse a Social Constructivist Nature of Reading, one which holds that readers make meaning of a text by connecting their prior knowledge to what they are reading. Once teachers adopt this framework for teaching reading comprehension, they must understand their students' roles in reading comprehension by understanding what a "good reader" looks like. Next, teachers must engage all students by being an influential teacher and understanding the needs of their students. Principle five of the reading comprehension "how-to" guide illustrates a number of teaching strategies that help students to comprehend within, about and beyond text. McLaughlin suggests that these strategies cannot be taught in isolation, but rather combined with one another during differentiated instruction in order to meet a variety of students' comprehension needs. She also suggests that students develop vocabulary knowledge and adopt multiple modes of representing their thinking because we do not all acquire knowledge one, singular way. Finally, teachers must embed formative assessments in instruction to assess student needs from day-to-day and encourage students to comprehend deeper beyond the text. For teachers from any subject who are just beginning their careers, or teachers who are in the middle of their careers, this article would be an excellent resource to look at before or during teaching comprehension. |
Ness, M. (2007). Reading comprehension strategies in secondary content-area classrooms. Phi Delta Kappan, 89(3), 229-231. As a descriptive study that set out to determine to what extent reading comprehension strategies were being taught at the secondary level and which reading comprehension strategies were the most frequently employed, Molly Ness's research revealed a lack of explicit reading instruction in middle and high school classrooms despite how with every increasing grade level, academic demands - which is often measurable by complexity of reading materials - increases. Classroom observations showed that there was only "little direct exposure to print," as secondary teachers favored lectures, discussions, and movies. Additionally, of the forty hours of instructional time observed, only 3% was spent on reading comprehension strategies. And most often, those strategies took the form of only literal questioning and written summaries. Therefore, of the eight research-based reading comprehension strategies endorsed by the National Reading Panel, only a small percentage is being actively implemented and utilized in secondary education. Even though it is widely acknowledged that reading materials become increasingly complex with each grade level advancement - and not just by the loss of pictures - explicit instruction on reading comprehension strategies decreases with each upper grade level, a counter-intuitive and counterproductive indirect relationship. The researcher suggests more professional development, literacy coaches, and other interventions to correct the lack of time spent on assessing students and teaching students with reading comprehension strategies at the adolescent levels. |