Guiding students to comprehend text…

…not just to read.

Hello all. Welcome to the 116th edition of TEPS Weekly! 

It’s easy to check whether students can read a text aloud. But how do we know whether they are truly comprehending what they are reading?

Let’s step into a Grade 6 English classroom. The teacher calls on a student who reads English fluently to read the first paragraph of the story A Bottle of Dew aloud.

After the student reads, the teacher asks, What did Rama Natha believe? Why was Madhumati worried? The students answer correctly without needing to refer back to the story. The teacher calls on another student to continue reading the story, assured that everyone has understood the first paragraph.

The student reads the next paragraph. Then, the teacher asks, What was the sage’s name? Why was the potion difficult to make? Again, students answer the questions quickly. 

The process of reading and asking recall questions continues until the story ends. Since the teacher asks questions throughout, the students know who the characters in the story are and what they do. The teacher feels satisfied with the lesson because she believes that the students have understood the story clearly. 

Now, let’s pause here and think. The students know who the characters are and what they did. They remember the events and can retell the story well. But is that enough? Have students truly comprehended the story?

For comprehension, students have to understand the deeper aspects of the story. They need to:

• think about the reasons behind the characters' actions and feelings and how they change over time, like Rama Natha’s shift from chasing magic to valuing hard work

• see the cause and effect of actions, like how Rama Natha’s choices led to actual results and how the sage guided him with a clever plan

• make inferences, like why the sage wasn’t honest with Rama Natha from the beginning

• reflect on the story from different points of view, such as thinking about what Madhumati might have felt or done

For students to think about all this, teachers first need to understand what reading comprehension is and the processes involved in it. 

Reading comprehension is the process of understanding and making meaning from written texts.  It involves sub-processes like:

1. Decoding and Word Identification: 

   1. Decoding is the ability to map letters to their sounds. 

   2. Identification is the ability to automatically recognise a written word and associate it with its pronunciation and meaning.

2. Vocabulary and Syntactic Knowledge: 

   1. Vocabulary knowledge is the understanding of the meanings of words and how they change depending on how and where the word is used in a sentence or situation. 

   2. Syntactic knowledge is the ability to understand how words are put together to form meaningful phrases, sentences and paragraphs.

3. Comprehension Monitoring: 

   1. This is a mental process in which the reader actively checks if they understand what they are reading.

   2. It also involves identifying where the gap (or confusion) in comprehension is and taking steps to fill that gap, like finding the meaning of an unknown word or going back to re-read a part of a story to get a clear understanding. 

4. Inference Making:

   1. Inference making means using clues from the text and combining them with your background knowledge to figure out something that the author doesn't directly tell you. For example, if a text describes someone smiling and speaking in a calm voice, the reader can infer that the person is happy or relaxed, even if the text doesn’t say it outright.

These sub-processes do not work in isolation while reading. When students practise them repeatedly, they become faster at these sub-processes, which, in turn, helps in deep understanding of what they are reading.

In classrooms, teachers often misunderstand decoding as comprehension. And the common way of checking comprehension is asking questions. These questions are usually recall-based, as we saw in the example earlier. Since comprehension is a complex process involving multiple sub-processes, it must be taught intentionally – before, during and after reading.

Let’s return to A Bottle of Dew and explore how we can use comprehension strategies across different stages of reading.

Pre-Reading Strategies: Preparing students before they begin reading

Pre-reading strategies are like warming up before a game. They prepare the mind to read and comprehend well. They activate prior knowledge, build context and set a purpose for reading.

Pre-Reading Strategies	Description	Example
Activating Prior Knowledge	Linking new learning to what students already know	“Think of a time when you worked hard. What did you do then? Did it help you? How did it help you?”
Making Predictions	Guessing what might happen next, based on what students already know	Before reading, show the story title or illustrations and ask students to predict what the story might be about. “Looking at the title ‘A Bottle of Dew’, what do you think this story will be about?”
Setting the Purpose for Reading	Helping students know why they are reading a particular text and what to look for while reading	“Today, as we read this story ‘A Bottle of Dew’, let’s try to understand: What is the secret to becoming truly rich? What does the wise sage teach Rama Natha about success in life?

While-Reading Strategies: Helping students think during reading

While-reading strategies are like playing the game carefully with attention. They enable students to monitor their understanding, make connections and construct deeper meaning as they read.

While-Reading Strategies	Description	Example
Making Connections	Relating the story to: students' own experiences (text-to-self) other stories they have read (text-to-text) things happening in the world (text-to-world)	“Have you ever believed in something strongly, like Rama Natha believed in the magic potion?” (text-to-self) “Does the character Rama Natha remind you of another lazy character we have read about?” (text-to-text). The sage told Rama Natha to collect dewdrops to make a magic potion. Do you think the sage can make a magic potion, or is this just a trick? Have you heard any similar stories in the news or around you?" (text-to-world).
Creating Mental Images	Helping students visualise what they are reading through prompting questions or activities	Imagine you are Madhumati, standing in the garden early in the morning with Rama Natha. What do you see him doing? What sounds do you hear around you? What smells or colours do you notice in the garden?
Understanding Vocabulary in Context	Helping students figure out the meaning of new words by using cues from the sentence or paragraph they are reading	Choose a phrase like ‘give up’ from the story. Read aloud: “...but he did not give up.” Ask: “If you fail in a game, will you stop playing or try again?” Just like you, here, Rama Natha was also not ready to give up. So, what does ‘give up’ mean?”
Making Inferences	Using cues from the text and existing knowledge to understand something that the author has not said directly	“Why do you think the sage smiled when Rama Natha got angry? What can we understand from this?”
Making Predictions	Guessing what might happen next, based on what students already know	Pause after a key moment and ask students what they think will happen next and why. “The sage has asked Rama Natha to collect dew. What do you think Rama Natha will do now?”

Post-Reading Strategies: Helping students reflect, analyse and apply

Post-reading strategies are like thinking and reflecting after the game. They encourage critical thinking, reflection and creative engagement with what they have read, which leads to deep comprehension. 

Post-Reading Strategies	Description	Example
Summarising and Retelling	Summarising: Sharing the most important ideas of a text, very briefly Retelling: Telling the story or information again in your own words	Ask students to work in pairs and retell the story in 5 sentences using their own words.
Evaluating and Analysing (Higher-order thinking)	Evaluating: Carefully thinking about the text to decide if the information or ideas are correct, useful, and meaningful Analysing: The process of breaking down a text into its smaller components to study each part and understand their relationships, structure, and overall meaning.	“Do you think Rama Natha was wise or foolish? Support your answer with examples from the story.”  “What do Rama Natha’s actions and choices in the story tell us about his character? How do these details help us understand his personality?”
Abstraction of the Story	Expressing their understanding of a story through creative tasks, like role-play, making a poster, writing a new ending and so on	Imagine Rama Natha stopped collecting dewdrops after a year and instead added some water to the bottle to fool the sage. What do you think would have happened next? Write a new ending to the story using your imagination.

The reading strategies listed above are just some of the many ways to help students comprehend texts better. And some strategies, like ‘prediction’ or ‘making connections’, can be used during different stages of reading. From these strategies, we can see that asking well-planned questions with clear intent is the key to developing strong comprehension skills in students.

Comprehension is not just remembering what happened, but thinking about why it happened and what it means. For that, teachers need to guide students to think deeply before, during and after reading using strategies like asking the right questions, making connections, helping to create mental images and so on.

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Edition: 4.23