CT Foundations of Reading
Comprehension
Levels of comprehension - answer1. Literal Comprehension
2. Inferential Comprehension
3. Evaluative Comprehension
(picture going up a staircase)
Literal Comprehension - answer-What is actually stated in the text
-Facts/details
-Surface understanding only
Inferential Comprehension - answer-What is implied or meant, rather than what is
actually stated
-Using prior knowledge
-Relating background knowledge to what is read to aid comprehension
-Attaching new learning to old information
-Making logical leaps and educated guesses
-Reading between the lines to determine what is meant by what is stated
-The passage suggests.....
EX: "The roads were icy. Mike drove carefully." You must infer that Mike drove carefully
bc the roads were icy
Evaluative Comprehension - answerTaking what was said (literal), then what was meant
by what was said (inferential) and then extending (apply) the concepts or ideas beyond
the situation.
Analyzing or synthesizing information from other sources and applying it to other
information
EX: Author's point of view (opinion)
Did the author convey a message that could be applied to other circumstances?
Comprehension Instruction - answerBefore reading: Good readers think about what
they already know about the topic
KWL chart
During reading: reader constructs meaning
After reading:
Schema Theory - answer-People organize information into schemas, or structures
-Schemas help us organize our knowledge of everything: people, places, etc.
-Ordering food in a restaurant, roasting a chicken
, What do readers bring to the text? (Comprehension) - answer-Motivation
-Memory
-Attention
-Knowledge of the text structure
-Vocabulary knowledge
Pre-reading - answer-Introduce background knowledge, vocabulary
-Introduce concepts, preview text structure
-Skimming/Previewing:
Table of Contents
Chapter headings
Subheadings
Illustrations
graphs/tables/charts
Index
Bibliography
-Set-up own purposes for reading by creating questions and/or predicting (based on the
above)
-Student Predictions, Student question formulation, Set-up own purposes for reading by
creating questions
Self monitoring before reading - answerInner Dialogue (Question Answering)
1. Why am I reading this? [purpose] To learn about the Japanese culture.
2. What will I be learning? [Skim] The pictures show all different parts of the Japanese
culture.
3. How is this organized? [Preview] Each letter of the alphabet tells me about Japan.
4. What do I already know about this? [Schemata] I saw "sushi" on restaurant menus.
During reading monitoring comprehension - answer-The core need of a competent
reader is to build coherence as they are reading. Good readers move through text:
•Attending to the content
•Shifting their attention to what is important
•Connecting what they are reading to related content from text or background
•Striving for coherence
Cohenerence - answer-Linking background knowledge with the content of the text.
-The ability to understand individual sentences
-link the ideas in a given sentence to ideas in the sentences that come before and after
it
A. Local coherence: An integrated representation of the ideas contained in a pair of
adjacent sentences.
Comprehension
Levels of comprehension - answer1. Literal Comprehension
2. Inferential Comprehension
3. Evaluative Comprehension
(picture going up a staircase)
Literal Comprehension - answer-What is actually stated in the text
-Facts/details
-Surface understanding only
Inferential Comprehension - answer-What is implied or meant, rather than what is
actually stated
-Using prior knowledge
-Relating background knowledge to what is read to aid comprehension
-Attaching new learning to old information
-Making logical leaps and educated guesses
-Reading between the lines to determine what is meant by what is stated
-The passage suggests.....
EX: "The roads were icy. Mike drove carefully." You must infer that Mike drove carefully
bc the roads were icy
Evaluative Comprehension - answerTaking what was said (literal), then what was meant
by what was said (inferential) and then extending (apply) the concepts or ideas beyond
the situation.
Analyzing or synthesizing information from other sources and applying it to other
information
EX: Author's point of view (opinion)
Did the author convey a message that could be applied to other circumstances?
Comprehension Instruction - answerBefore reading: Good readers think about what
they already know about the topic
KWL chart
During reading: reader constructs meaning
After reading:
Schema Theory - answer-People organize information into schemas, or structures
-Schemas help us organize our knowledge of everything: people, places, etc.
-Ordering food in a restaurant, roasting a chicken
, What do readers bring to the text? (Comprehension) - answer-Motivation
-Memory
-Attention
-Knowledge of the text structure
-Vocabulary knowledge
Pre-reading - answer-Introduce background knowledge, vocabulary
-Introduce concepts, preview text structure
-Skimming/Previewing:
Table of Contents
Chapter headings
Subheadings
Illustrations
graphs/tables/charts
Index
Bibliography
-Set-up own purposes for reading by creating questions and/or predicting (based on the
above)
-Student Predictions, Student question formulation, Set-up own purposes for reading by
creating questions
Self monitoring before reading - answerInner Dialogue (Question Answering)
1. Why am I reading this? [purpose] To learn about the Japanese culture.
2. What will I be learning? [Skim] The pictures show all different parts of the Japanese
culture.
3. How is this organized? [Preview] Each letter of the alphabet tells me about Japan.
4. What do I already know about this? [Schemata] I saw "sushi" on restaurant menus.
During reading monitoring comprehension - answer-The core need of a competent
reader is to build coherence as they are reading. Good readers move through text:
•Attending to the content
•Shifting their attention to what is important
•Connecting what they are reading to related content from text or background
•Striving for coherence
Cohenerence - answer-Linking background knowledge with the content of the text.
-The ability to understand individual sentences
-link the ideas in a given sentence to ideas in the sentences that come before and after
it
A. Local coherence: An integrated representation of the ideas contained in a pair of
adjacent sentences.
