{"id":22025,"date":"2024-04-18T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-04-18T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nwea.org\/blog\/?p=22025"},"modified":"2025-10-29T09:48:04","modified_gmt":"2025-10-29T16:48:04","slug":"the-science-of-teaching-reading-comprehension","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nwea.org\/blog\/2024\/the-science-of-teaching-reading-comprehension\/","title":{"rendered":"The science of teaching reading comprehension"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In many discussions on the science of reading<\/a>, phonics is featured on the main stage. This is most likely because, unlike language comprehension, word recognition is a constrained skill\u2014one with a limit\u2014that can be mastered, typically within a few years of initial teaching. However, if we don\u2019t pay attention to the bigger beast of language comprehension from the earliest grades, students without this opportunity will fall further and further behind their peers. We need to rethink our approach to teaching reading comprehension.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We think about reading comprehension as the product of word recognition and language comprehension. Nationally, we\u2019ve done a great job getting the word out on the importance of phonics. This is, arguably, the easiest part of the equation to get right. However, that\u2019s not all that needs to happen in the early years so students are successful readers later on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two pathways to teaching reading comprehension<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We at NWEA recently spoke with Natalie Wexler, an education writer and author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America\u2019s Broken Education System\u2014And How to Fix It<\/em><\/a>. Natalie reminds us that \u201cWe really have to see literacy developing along two pathways that are going to be, to some extent, pretty separate in the early years.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These pathways are word recognition and language comprehension. While phonics has a mound of intervention research on how to effectively get students to reading fluency, cognitive science<\/a> tells us that students need to acquire plenty of knowledge to be able to understand the texts they encounter, and that this must start early on. Otherwise, the opportunity gaps between kids with experiences to gain background knowledge and kids without will only grow wider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Natalie highlights how students \u201care going to be acquiring those foundational skills [of phonics and decoding] through decodable readers and practicing fluency.\u201d But she adds, \u201cThat’s not how they\u2019re going to be acquiring new knowledge and vocabulary of a new topic\u2026 That\u2019s really going to come through this other pathway, which is reading aloud text that\u2019s probably more complex than they can read themselves and engaging them in discussion of that content.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early years, these pathways to becoming a reader are largely separate. Younger students or older readers with decoding difficulties won\u2019t yet be able to read texts that are building their vocabulary and knowledge. They need to have these rich and complex texts read aloud to them. What does this mean for educators? Both paths need to be effectively taught for the best chance of literacy success in the upper elementary grades and later in life. One doesn\u2019t come before the other\u2014decoding and comprehension both must be valued in the early grades\u2014and both must have adequate instructional time devoted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is reading comprehension? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Natalie says, \u201cwe have to think of reading comprehension as a process.\u201d Sometimes you may hear teachers asking comprehension questions about a text to students. This is thinking of comprehension as a product, not a process. Assessing students\u2019 comprehension of a text by asking them questions is not the same as teaching students to comprehend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Comprehension is a metacognitive skill, one that is developed through purposely choosing text sets to build knowledge and leveraging specific reading comprehension strategies to help students acquire this knowledge and apply these metacognitive skills on their own.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So how do we go about building knowledge? <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Reading strategies should not be the focus of teaching reading comprehension. Instead, they should be used in service of teaching students new content. The most recent research<\/a> suggests we use three strategies to help students learn the content of the texts they are reading. Specifically, when combined with instruction in vocabulary and background knowledge, these strategies are most helpful in building student knowledge and understanding. We can teach students to:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  1. Identify the text structure<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  2. Using the text structure, identify the main idea<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  3. Summarize a text by expanding on the main idea<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n

    If students can summarize a text, they now have a situation model to work from. Think of it like helping them build a web of Velcro that all the details in the text can stick to. Teaching students to use these steps will help them build the metacognitive muscles they\u2019ll need to do this type of understanding on their own. By helping students arrive at a coherent understanding, teachers position readers to do the deep work of making inferences, generating questions, and making connections.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Imagine, for example, a class of first-grade students learning about animals and their habitats in science. They read an informational text about owls. Their teacher may then plan to use the book Owl Moon <\/em>by Jane Yolen to help students step into the role of the child protagonist who is going owling for the first time. Their teacher may refer to what the students learned about owls\u2019 eyesight and sleeping patterns from the informational text. With these goals in mind, the teacher may use various reading strategies and activities to help students understand what they are reading and gain knowledge about animals and their habitats.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Before reading<\/strong>, the teacher may activate students\u2019 background knowledge from the earlier lesson by asking questions like, \u201cWhat are the \u2018special powers\u2019 we learned about owls yesterday?\u201d and \u201cWhat are owls\u2019 sleeping patterns like?\u201d Activating these concepts will help students make connections during the narrative story. The teacher may also focus students on a problem\u2013solution sentence stem or a narrative story map to help them better understand the plot. The work could be displayed on an anchor chart in a student-friendly format so the class can take notes together. This could transition to students taking brief notes on a graphic organizer or dry-erase board once they are more independent spellers, typically toward the middle of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    During reading<\/strong>, the teacher may ask connecting questions to help solidify knowledge, such as, \u201cWhen did this happen?\u201d and \u201cWhy do you think Pa chose to take them owling so late?\u201d The teacher may also highlight the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary that is related to understanding the content, such as \u201cpine trees,\u201d \u201cmeadow,\u201d or \u201cclearing.\u201d The teacher can list these words on index cards so students can refer to them and use them in their writing throughout the unit. As they encounter a plot element, they can record it together on their graphic organizer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    After reading<\/strong>, the class could talk about the plot structure and use the completed graphic organizer or sentence stems to summarize the story. The teacher could also have students add descriptive words about the owl\u2019s habitat to their science journal. This could be extended to a few sentences to explain why it was so difficult to find an owl. Students may also be guided to use a graphic organizer to compare their learning about the owl habitat to the habitat of a field mouse they explored while reading Frederick<\/em> by Leo Lionni.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Notice that each of the strategies and activities\u2014from recognizing a story\u2019s structure, to summarizing, to eliciting details and answering questions, to comparing and contrasting\u2014are all in service of learning content related to the science unit on animals and their habitats. The focus of reading a new text is not on learning a certain strategy but using the strategies to learn the content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Natalie notes, \u201cThere is evidence that teaching kids comprehension strategies, or at least certain kinds of comprehension strategies, does boost their comprehension. But we\u2019ve been trying to do this in the abstract\u2026 What really will work better is teaching a topic and bringing in whatever strategy or skill is appropriate to help kids think deeply about that topic and understand that text for that topic.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Recommendations for teachers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

    When teaching reading comprehension, I encourage teachers to avoid choosing texts to focus on a particular comprehension skill or strategy. Choose texts instead based on the content focus. Here are some suggestions for how to align your instructional focus with best practices in reading science:<\/p>\n\n\n\n