As my title implies, comprehension is crucial to effective reading and many teachers are endeavoring to enhance kids' comprehension in order to help them become smart readers. In schools around the country, students are reading every day. However, "few kids can actually demonstrate their understanding of a concept if they have not been taught to think about the information."(Harvey, S. & Daniels, H. 2009 P28). Reading is thinking and it is connected with our daily mental activities. We cannot examine reading comprehension outside socio-cultural context.
According to a research on reading comprehension teaching and investigation, reading comprehension involves interactions among the text, the reading activity, and reader characteristics (Snow, 2002). The three parts are closely associated with each other. Understanding the text is starting point of reading activity and through reading, we not only acquire knowledge from the text, but also merge our unique thinking with the content. A smarter reader is the one who "actively integrate it to the experiences. Situations and circumstances in our daily lives". (Harvey, S. & Daniels, H. 2009 P31)
Within the text part of comprehension, the extent of vocabulary largely affects the readability. It is very common when students express their frustration in reading to us simply because there are too many new or age inappropriate words in the text. Comparing with oral language, the syntax in the text may also pose a great challenge, especially to the heritage language learners in my classroom whose oral language are often out of proportion to their language reading and writing development. "The more intricate the syntax of a text, the more difficult the text may be to comprehend."(McBride-Chang, C. 2004.P161).
It is also worth noting that the mental model is of significant importance when the reader try to interpretate and understand the concepts in the text. I personally experienced the change of mental model in different cultural background when I came to US two years ago. If you agree with me that we are supposed to know the meaning of our own names better than any other words in the word, you could easily understand my astonishment: I came across a road sign which has my last name ‘Xing’ on it in large capital letters, just as the way I sign my name. I could never imagine before that my last name on the road sign also indicates a scenario of approaching a pedestrian crossing. Besides mental model, the context and structure are also important aspects of the text. A trained reader will automatically utilize different strategies in comprehending various structures of texts. Teachers and parents need to build in abundant books for kids to read extensively and sufficient time to discuss the information kids get from the books.
Pertaining to reading activity, we adopt different types of reading (e.g. in-depth vs. skimming) to fit different reading purposes (for exam or for enjoyment). The comprehension continuum consists of at a number of different levels: From the lowest level of "recognition" to a greater level of "recall and comprehension" and to a much higher level of "application" as well as other cognitive skills in the equal level of application, such as analysis, synthesis and evaluation.
In practice, teachers usually lead students through the different levels of reading. We highlight the new words which will later be tested and use word maps or other graphic display to decode and demonstrate the words to students. After reading, students are often encouraged to retrieve the necessary information from memory. We may ask a couple of questions either for them to recall the details of the text or answer in their own words and from their own perspectives. For the much higher level, we may guide students to merge their thinking with the content and apply the information from the text into tackling new problems. After reading the text about a famous scenic spot and learning how to introduce a place, I assigned students a learning project to independently do researches on a city which they had interests in and they were encouraged to glean and synthesize information from different sources(printed and online) to prepare for their project presentation. For my recent lesson "The farmer and the snake" (Aesop's Fables), I will ask students to retell the story from different angles and to adept the text into dialogue in order to act it out.
The readers are probably the most important aspect of reading comprehension. "It is worthwhile considering group differences in reading comprehension in an attempt to understand what cognitive abilities most clearly distinguish readers of different levels"( McBride-Chang, C. 2004. 164). In order to enhance word recognition of Chinese, strengthening decoding skills of Chinese Characters (Semantic and Phonetic radicals) can be quite effective in helping students understand more about Chinese characters and guess the meaning and pronunciation of unknown characters appear in future reading. Creating a safe environment for kids to paraphrase the text in their own words (or even in their primary language) and comparing the concepts appeared in the text with students' background knowledge will also be helpful. After learned two common Chinese Rhetoric "Hyperbole" and "personification" (kua zhang\ ni ren) which appear in the text, my students actively compared them with English Rhetoric and we shared many examples and made sentences together. I am sure they will become increasingly adept at utilizing learning strategies to understand what they read in the future.
Metacognition is another prominent factor in reading comprehension. "It refers to the ability to reflect on one's own cognition, one's own thoughts". (McBride-Chang, C. 2004.P169). "When kids respond to text by talking, drawing, or writing, their thinking and understanding shine through". (Harvey, S. & Daniels, H. 2009. P35). For kids, they do not have to be smart enough to begin reading; they get smarter though reading every day. For teachers and parents, it is our responsibility to guide students to value reading as a positive meaning construction process and see themselves as real productive readers.