Guide to Foundations of Reading
Ultimately the goal of reading is comprehension. Comprehension is the ability to make sense of what you are reading. Reader's with high levels of comprehension can understand what they have read, retain the information they have read and are able to communicate with others about what they have read. Active readers have conquered the skills of metacognition. Metacognition is thinking about thinking. There are six comprehension strategies that a teacher must know in order to correctly teach comprehension. They are:
1. Monitoring Comprehension
2. Graphic and Semantic Organizers
3. Answering Questions
4. Generating Questions
5. Recognizing Story Structure
6. Summarizing

1. Monitoring Comprehension: This comprehension strategy is knowing when you understand what you have read and knowing when you do not understand what you have read. Students should use several strategies including identifying where the misunderstanding has occurred and what the misunderstanding is.

2. Graphic and Semantic Organizers: This comprehension strategy allows students to make connections by using diagrams and charts. Specifically, semantic organizers allow students to organize central ideas and thoughts through a spider web. Graphic organizers help readers focus on the main concepts and ideas.

3. Answering Questions: This strategy helps readers focus on the main messages of the text and allows readers to acknowledge what they do and do not know about the text.

4. Generating Questions: By generating questions, students are able to know what they do and do not know about the text and if they understand the text.

5. Recognizing Story Structure: Recognizing the way stories are usually organized allows readers to better understand a text.

6. Summarizing: Allows students to determine what is the important part of what they have just read.


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COMPREHENSION
When teaching comprehension, teachers should use explicit and direct techniques.
Demonstrate and model strategies to students be conducting "think alouds"
When students are applying comprehension strategies, help them and guide them along the way until they are able to use the skills independently.
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Cooperative Learning Groups are a great tool for students. Here students work together to help make sense of the text.
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Reciprocal teaching is another great strategy. Here the students form groups. Within these groups students focus on predicting, questioning, clarifying and summarizing the text.

Accessing Comprehension:
To access comprehension, teachers can ask students information about the text. For example, a teacher can ask a student the main idea of a text, questions about the setting, characters, and the plot of the story. If the student can answer these basic questions about the text, then they have read and achieved comprehension of the material.

Activities for Comprehension:
There are some helpful activities a teacher can do inside the classroom to help students achieve comprehension.

1. Comprehension flower: Students can practice comprehension by taking turns answering the various questions of the petals of the flower. We have provided a link below so you can see a visual of this fun activity.

http://pinterest.com/pin/165999936236272863/

2. Comprehension Strategies Dice: Students can take turn rolling these rice. Students must answer the question stated of the side of the dice that lands upright. This is a fun and interactive way for students to practice answering comprehension questions. Below is link so you can purchase the dice for your own classroom!

http://www.reallygoodstuff.com/product/comprehension+strategies+dice+set.do
