If you were to ask, most teachers would agree improving reading comprehension is about teaching students how to think
while reading. Granted, reading comprehension likely isn’t one of the
courses that you’re teaching. That said, perhaps it should be a sub-course
within all the courses that you do teach. In fact, students who can
heighten these skills with your help might be better prepared for
college than those who earn As in content courses.

If you’re a Social Studies teacher, you can teach your learners important historical facts. As an English teacher, you can teach them about the world’s great authors and the books they wrote. Even in Science you can explore the world’s most important scientific theories with them and why they’re relevant. Ultimately, though, to teach your learners to analyze historical events, English literature, and scientific and math concepts, you must teach them how to read better.

If
successful, they will be far better prepared for courses in content
areas they are unfamiliar with like those they will take in college. For
example, a student with excellent reading comprehension skills but no
background in Economics might be better prepared for a college Economics
course than a student with average reading comprehension skills who has
aced high school Economics courses.

“To prepare students for college and careers, reading comprehension needs to be a part of all subject areas,” argues the Edudemic article “Why Reading Comprehension in the Content Areas is so Important.”
“Students cannot master complex scientific concepts, comprehend
historical treaties, or follow complex logic problems without it.”

How to Begin Improving Reading Comprehension

How do you start improving reading comprehension with your math,
science, history, or English learners? The first thing is that you
should not do what so many teachers do, which is tell your students to
read about a topic they are unfamiliar with.

“Read Chapter 1 over the weekend” or “read pages 50 through 60
tonight” is not an effective way to begin teaching about a topic. What
did you do when your teachers gave you that kind of instruction? Did you
just read every word in the assignment? Try to memorize what you
thought were key facts? Did you look at the textbook’s practice tests
and try to answer the questions related to the assignment? Chances are
you didn’t, and yet this is exactly (and unrealistically) what we expect
of our own learners.

The truth is your learners need practical guidance before
they read. In that spirit, here is a step-by-step guide that can help
your students improve their reading comprehension significantly.

1. Discuss Reading Comprehension

Writing a one-page handout detailing your ideas about reading
comprehension and why it’s important can be helpful. You can include
your ideas about subjects such as taking notes, setting goals, and
asking questions. Additionally, connect the importance of improving
reading comprehension to something practical and relevant
to them like texting, emails, and blogs. Share these written thoughts
with your learners and use the handout as a reminder throughout the
school year.

2. Practice What You Preach

Telling students that improving reading comprehension is crucial and
then giving them tests that emphasize rote memorization is backward
reasoning. Instead, give them essay tests and ask them to write reports.
Your students might not be used to what appears to be subjective
grading, but it’s your responsibility to detail what you’re looking for
in their written answers and reports and explain that you’re preparing
them for college.

3. Discuss Each Assignment

Prior to each reading assignment, you should tell students what you
want them to learn from the text. Ask them a few questions and tell them
you want to discuss the answers in the next class. They should also
write down your questions and use them in group discussions of their
own.

4. Urge Thinking Before Reading

Students should read your questions and/or the book’s questions before they begin reading. This should help them know when to focus on text and when to skim it. In other words, thinking before reading can help them be selective instead of trying to comprehend every sentence. The questions can also help them formulate their own questions before they begin reading.

5. Teach Goal Setting

Teaching students to set goals before they read is also a good idea.
Initially, the goal might be to answer your questions. Eventually, they
should be able to set their own goals such as “I want to understand why
the Civil War started.” “Before reading, good readers tend to set goals
for their reading,” reports the article “What Research Tells Us About Reading, Comprehension, and Comprehension Instruction.” “They are likely to focus more of their attention on the parts of the text that are most closely tied to their reading goals.”

6. Urge Thinking While Reading

Perhaps the most important tip you can give learners about how to
read is that their reading comprehension is most likely to improve when
they stop reading. Students should be thinking while they’re
reading rather than reading continuously. Thus, they should be taught to
stop when they are confused or have a question or thought about what
they have just read. Teaching students to stop and think might lead them
to reread what they have just read or seek the answers to their
questions in the material that they haven’t read yet.

7. Urge Note Taking

It’s likely most of your high school classmates did not take notes
while they did their schoolwork. In college, though, everyone took notes
in their textbooks. Your students should know that college students
regularly highlight important material via underlining, circles, and
notes in margins. They can take notes too, in notebooks rather than
textbooks. Students should be encouraged to stop reading after they have
read something important and write down that fact, point, or argument.
They should also be writing the answers to your pre-reading assignment
questions.

8. Tell Them To Plan Ahead

Reading doesn’t
accomplish much in and of itself. Reading assignments should be
connected to future class discussions, oral presentations, tests, or
reports. Thus, you should urge students to stop reading when they think
of a point they want to make for a class discussion, oral presentation,
test, or report. They should write down their points. Emphasize that
they can prepare for a test while reading. There is nothing wrong with
giving students an idea about questions on tests. You want them to
practice improving their skills so they’re ready when they’re being
graded.

9. Recommend Visualizing

“Some good readers may also create mental images, or visualize a
setting, event, or character to help them understand a passage in a
text,” the Texas Education Agency wrote. Are students more apt to recall
what happened at the Yalta Conference if they can visualize U.S. leader
Franklin D. Roosevelt, United Kingdom leader Winston Churchill, and
Soviet Union leader Joseph Stalin talking about what to do after World
War II ended? Some will. It’s a good idea to mention to students, who
could also learn better by studying the text’s photos and captions.

10. Assign Summaries

Asking students to write summaries of what they have read sounds like
you’re requiring them to do a lot of work , but you can emphasize that
these summaries can reduce how much time they spend studying, or
cramming, for a test. Essentially, these summaries can be homework. They
can also help students prepare for class discussions and oral
presentations.

Many of these tips can be summarized in one word—practice. Yes, students can succeed at improving reading comprehension skills by practicing how to ask and answer questions while they’re reading, taking notes, setting goals, writing summaries of what they have read and more. Be honest with them about the fact that improving reading comprehension skills is a lot of hard work. Nevertheless, it’s worth it if they want to possess a useful skill for school and for life beyond it.

Culled from Wabisabi