The best way to answer the question is to examine the thought processes and behaviours of proficient readers. Research on reading comprehension and the cognitively-based comprehension strategies used by proficient readers conducted by Pressley and Block (2002) indicate that good readers know and select from a number of strategies:
• Previewing and predicting
• Activating prior knowledge
• Attending to vocabulary
• Monitoring their understanding and solving problems
• Questioning the text during and after they read
• Summarising by identifying key points or concepts
• Visualising in order to respond
• Making inferences and deductions about what they read
• Synthesising ideas from a text
• Empathising with characters
• Adopting a critical stance
• Read selectively, choosing texts that serve their goals and purposes
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The strongest and weakest readers are easier to spot, while children with strong word reading skills and weak comprehension are perhaps the easiest to miss. If we hear a child read fluently it may mask the fact that they do not fully understand what they are reading. These children can benefit from lots of group- and teacher-led talk as well as learning to use specific cognitive strategies to enable them to access texts independently.
So why might a child struggle to obtain meaning from what they read? Are there typical ‘blockers’ to comprehension? Typically, the learner will be encountering any number of the following issues:
Limited word level skills – it may be the case that a child has never really grasped the phonic approach.Low motivation to read – it’s so important for all the adults in children’s lives to try to instil a love of reading from an early age, if a child experiences difficulty understanding what they read it will inevitably have an impact on their motivation.Anxiety and lack of self-belief – if a child struggles with reading this is likely to impact on their perception of their own abilities.Lack of self-regulation – this could include any or all of: poor working memory, weak information retention/ retrieval, lack of independent problem solving skills.Lack of generic ‘life’ experience – a limited frame of reference to bring to what they read, due to a lack of interaction with potential role models, and an absence of diverse and varied personal experiences to draw upon.Weak vocabulary – usually resulting from lack of exposure to richer forms of language both aurally and through reading.
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