Reading Comprehension is not…

…ONE skill.

Hello all. Welcome to the 178th edition of TEPS Weekly!

Sunitha ma’am is a teacher in a small town in Telangana, teaching English and EVS to Grades 3–6. Today in Grade 6, she has just completed reading a short story about ‘Cory’s Snow Day’ that was provided to her by a local NGO, as part of a reading bundle. Sunitha ma’am calls on Raghav to stand up and read the story aloud. Raghav stands up confidently and begins to read, one word at a time, loud and clear:

Cory woke up and looked out the window. 

Snow covered the road and the trees. 

A snow-plough moved carefully down the street. 

Cory watched as her father spread salt on the icy steps.

He pronounces each word perfectly.

Sunitha ma’am smiles at him, proud of how clearly he reads aloud. Then, she asks, “So Raghav, what was happening outside that day?” 

Raghav looks blankly back at her. 

She encourages him, “Look at the book and tell me… What new thing was happening that day?” 

Raghav gives no response.

“Was it a very cold day or a very hot day?”

No response.

This was a pattern Sunitha ma’am had noticed across the class – many students could pronounce the words well, but they did not seem to understand the meaning of what they were reading. “Give your class more and more books to read from this reading bundle. Reading more will improve their reading comprehension,” an educator from the NGO had told her. And so, Sunitha ma’am continued to do that. Every week, she chose a different short story from the reading bundle – but while students continued to pronounce words correctly, what also continued were their blank responses to even ‘what-where-when’ questions about the story.

What is the fundamental issue?

The fundamental issue is made up of 2 incorrect assumptions: 

One, that reading comprehension is ONE skill.

“Raghav is just not good at reading comprehension.”

Two, that simply reading more books will improve comprehension.

“Give your class more and more books to read from this reading bundle. Reading more will improve their reading comprehension.”

Let’s address one misconception at a time.

Misconception 1: Reading comprehension is ONE skill.

Reading comprehension is not ONE skill – in fact, it is not a skill at all. Reading comprehension is the outcome of several forms of knowledge and skills working together. This is best explained with the help of a model of reading comprehension called the Simple View of Reading, proposed by Philip Gough and William Tunmer in 1986.

Word Recognition is the ability to read familiar and unfamiliar written words quickly and accurately. Language Comprehension is the ability to understand the meaning of spoken language. Each skill is made up of several sub-skills. When they all work together, it leads to Reading Comprehension, that is, a person is able to read and understand the meaning of written language.

Notice that it is not: 

Word Recognition PLUS Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension 

It is:

Word Recognition MULTIPLIED BY Language Comprehension = Reading Comprehension

Why is this distinction important? It is important because if any ONE sub-skill is 0 – that is, if a student lacks, is weak at or is struggling with any one sub-skill – reading comprehension will fail or at least struggle.

Let’s go back to Raghav’s example of reading ‘Cory’s Snow Day’.

Cory woke up and looked out the window. 

Snow covered the road and the trees. 

A snow-plough moved carefully down the street. 

Cory watched as her father spread salt on the icy steps.

He was able to read the story aloud perfectly, but he was not able to answer ‘what’ questions about the story, like: ‘What was happening outside that day? What new thing was happening that day? Was it a very cold day or a very hot day?’

If we use the sub-skills of the Simple View of Reading as a checklist, we can try to identify where exactly Raghav is struggling. 

We can be pretty confident that the struggle does not lie in any sub-skill of Word Recognition, because Raghav is able to use rules of phonics as well as sight words to pronounce all words correctly. The struggle definitely lies in one or more of the sub-skills of language comprehension. Is he struggling to use clues to connect ideas to understand meanings that are not directly stated (verbal reasoning)? Does he lack the real-life context or academic knowledge needed to understand the text (background knowledge)? Is he struggling to understand the meanings of some words (vocabulary) or is lack of grammatical knowledge (language structures) hampering comprehension? Are there gaps in knowledge of the structure and purpose of the text (literacy knowledge)? 

The answer to each of these Language Comprehension could be yes or no. The point is not to find out the answer immediately. The point is to work with the student to figure out if it is one, a few or all of these forms of knowledge and skills that need strengthening. Once that is figured out, the teacher must plan, teach and give ample opportunities to build these.

We cannot go deeper into the model or each sub-skill of reading comprehension in this newsletter article. However, we conduct long-term teacher professional development programmes with schools, which include deep-dives into this and other models of reading comprehension, as well as practical sessions on how to build each skill. This is a snippet from one session of a vocabulary-building course we are conducting with a school as part of a 2-year-long TEPS Reading Comprehension Programme:

You can also enrol for an online, self-paced TEPS Course or try out a TLM of your choice: TEPS Language and Literacy Courses

Misconception 2: Simply reading more books will improve reading comprehension.

Reading more, reading for pleasure and reading regularly are research-backed ways of improving reading comprehension – there is no debate about this. However, this assumes necessary word-recognition and language-comprehension skills, which many students may not have. Without these skills, reading becomes something to be feared, struggled through, punished with. 

We must also keep in mind that reading is not a natural skill. Human beings are not born with the wiring needed for reading in their brains. It is an invented skill that needs to be explicitly taught by a skilled teacher and systematically learnt by a student. So, simply giving a student more books to read is not going to solve the reading comprehension problem.

Reading comprehension is not one skill, but the result of many forms of knowledge and skill coming together. When even one part is missing, meaning can quickly fall apart – so teachers must look beyond “more reading” and identify what each student actually needs. Once those gaps are taught and strengthened, reading comprehension and reading for pleasure can begin.

At the same time, the Simple View of Reading is just one model. Further models added important aspects that contribute to reading comprehension and its struggles, including automaticity of the reading processes in the mind, working memory limits and socio-cultural aspects. If you are interested in setting up a long-term programme for your school or organisation to strengthen reading comprehension practices, get in touch with us at info@things-education.com or +919898469961.

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Edition: 5.33