First, are the fluent readers? Sometimes the students decoding gets in the way. If the reading is too slow and labored, and each word takes some time, then there is no room left in the brain for comprehension. It is typically, however, that a 2nd grade reader and above can begin to concentrate on comprehension.

I just took a class towards my reading specialist degree at UVA. We were given over 50 strategies that have to do with reading comprehension and/or comprehension of other materials. It doesn’t look like we can post documents on here – so if you want it email me by going through my profile.

I’m not sure of your training, but if you are a teacher then I’m sure you’ve heard scaffolding a lot. That means you provide the support they need to start figuring things out on their own. Two of the strategies that I plan to try in my 2nd grade classroom next year are Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) and Question Answer Relationships (QAR).

In DRTA the teacher reads a book aloud and stops throughout to help the students anticipate, predict, and confirm/modify their ideas. Through this think aloud process the students’ brains start clicking into the same types of questions when they are reading on their own.

With QAR you teach the student that there are 4 basic types of comprehension questions. They are: 1. right there; 2. think and search 3. on my own 4. author and me.

The skill set for these gets harder as you walk through that order. By making students aware of these root questions, they are better able to tackle how they plan to answer the question.

There are so many more great ones in the document. So I highly recommend you get in touch!

I teach an Expository reading class at the high school level, and I have realized that students can read an entire page and not have a clue what it says.

So now, before they begin reading, I tell them to set a purpose for reading. Why are they reading this text? What information should they be looking for? Most of the time, I give them the purpose and that is okay, but knowing why they are reading helps the students focus AS they are reading.

In addition, I have them interact with the text, either through sticky notes if they can’t write on the text or through annotations. This is also a way to keep them engaged, so they can then understand the text.

Even though fluency is mostly about reading quickly, accurately, and with expression, in order to do so, the reader must also possess some comprehension of the text. First off, your students should be reading just right books so they aren’t spending all their time on decoding issues, otherwise the comprehension piece falls apart.

Secondly, the following strategies are ones I have taught my 2nd graders to increase their reading comprehension.

-using our schema (our background knowledge, what we already know to make sense of what we are reading)

-making predictions

-making connections (text to self, text to text, text to world)

-asking questions (before, during, and after)

-creating inferences

-synthesizing information

-for nonfiction-learning all about nonfiction conventions (table of contents, headings, labels, captions, etc.)

Some great books to help with reader’s workshop (if that’s what you use for your classroom) are:

Debbie Miller-Reading with Meaning

Leah Mermelstein-Reading/Writing Connections in the K-2 Class (gives great reading prompts to help students)

Kathy Collins-Growing Readers

elementary school children have eager minds, that need to be fed by something interesting!!

if you’re reading a chapter book, for each chapter do something unique to get into the kids mind like try having plays or do demonstrations in a fun and creative way. just use your imagination.

and this is what costs americans billions of dollars a year, on the so called education system. as teachers, you should all be proud of yourselves on every graduation day. well, we just turned out another fine group that can’t read,write or comprehend anything it takes to get through life. but, i’ll bet it brings a big smile to your face when you think of your nice salary and all those perks. come on admit it. if they didn’t have a machine tell them how much change to give,they couldn’t even work at mcdonalds, and it’s a wonder they know what the coins are they’re handling after 12 years of your teaching. i realize there a few teachers who try,just like there a few students who come out of school, who can read and write and can count or spell. but, there is not enough of either.