Reading Tools: Comprehension Part II

But wait!  There's More!

In the first section of this post (published 6/27/18) I discussed what comprehension is, along with contextual clues, working memory, and making connections.  But comprehension is so much to, well, comprehend, that I decided to split it up into two posts.

Look for Key Words:  This strategy for comprehension is useful in s testing situation.  Sometimes a key word refers to a phrase than one word.  usually these words are names, dates, facts, locations, or other nouns in a passage.  Sometimes those nouns are qualified with another word that gives the passage a deeper for more specific meaning.  These may include words like most, longest, increasing, less, first, slowest, etc.  Identifying key words helps a reader to get the big picture in a story.

Summarize the Story:  This strategy involves breaking down the elements of the plot.

• Characters- The "who" in the story.  Name the individuals involved in the plot.
• Setting- The "where" in the story.  Talk about the place, or places, in which the story's events occur.
• Problem- Something happens that the characters need to resolve.  What is it?  Why is it a problem?
• Solution- What the characters do, or what happens int he post that solves the problem.

Visualization: As your reader grows, they will eventually be reading books with fewer pictures.  Children's books contain a lot of illustrations in order to convey meaning, but older readers are expected to be able to create these images in their mind.  One way to promos this is with poetry.  Poetry is very visual, yet not always illustrated.  Have your reader close his ir her eyes and visualize what they see as your ready  poem like this one:

My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree 

Toward heaven still, 

And there's a barrel that I didn't fill 

Beside it, and there may be two or three 

Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. 

But I am done with apple-picking now. 

-from "After Apple Picking," by Robert Frost