Section Editor:	John Kirby, Ph.D. (kirbyj@educ.queensu.ca) Faculty of Education Queen's University Kingston, Ontario K7L 3N6 Canada
Articles:	Assessment Development Reading Comprehension Instruction Vocabulary Acquisition
Commentaries:	Commentary on Acquisition of Reading Comprehension in English
Printable Version:	(requires Acrobat Reader, available for free from Adobe)

What do we know?

Reading comprehension is the ability to understand written text. It involves interpreting meaning from text by decoding words, understanding vocabulary, and creating connections between these and the reader’s prior knowledge and experience. Unlike listening and oral comprehension, which develop fairly naturally, reading comprehension requires explicit teaching. Children need to be motivated and interested in reading to become successful readers. However, if they do not have the necessary skills or interest in the content of the texts they read, children may lose interest in reading. There are two groups of children who experience significant difficulties with reading comprehension:

1. children with reading disabilities (those who have problems with word reading)
2. children termed “poor comprehenders” (those who have language comprehension difficulties that interfere with reading comprehension).     

A key feature in learning to read and developing reading comprehension skills is the acquisition of vocabulary and an understanding of words. Over time, having a smaller vocabulary can have a cumulative effect, given that students who understand fewer words often read less and thus, their vocabularies are not as large as those of their peers who read frequently. A common sequence of vocabulary acquisition has been identified in children, with a predictable number and order of acquiring words and meanings. Home, school and person influences can alter the course of vocabulary acquisition. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds have smaller vocabularies, and it is likely that there is some inherited ability to learn vocabulary and word meanings.
 
One of the challenges in the area of reading comprehension lies in the ways in which it is assessed. Current assessment tools are problematic because it is difficult to separate and evaluate all the individual skills that contribute to reading comprehension. Reading comprehension has been typically assessed for four main purposes:

1. Screening, in which children can be identified as requiring further assessment for reading difficulties;
2. Diagnosis, in which children can be formally identified for reading difficulties;
3. Progress monitoring, in which each child's progress can be tracked; and
4. Outcome evaluation, which has a role in determining the successfulness of a school or school board curriculum, teaching effectiveness, and the implementation of new programs.

These assessments often include independently reading a passage and answering a set of related questions. Formal evaluations are usually completed after Grade 3, while teachers in the early and primary years rely on their observations of day-to-day classroom performance. Students in Kindergarten to Grade 3 are often assessed by means of story retells, answering questions or completing tasks in which the child is required to supply missing information, words or text.
 
Most reading comprehension problems appear in the early elementary years. Thus, early intervention and effective instruction are essential and should include:

1. Promoting print exposure and reading opportunities for children;
2. Direct teaching of reading skills and strategies, and when to use them;
3. Providing reading material that is appropriate for the child’s level of reading skill;
4. Focusing on understanding and drawing conclusions from reading material. 

Children use a specific set of strategies when learning to derive meaning from words and to understand passages read. These word recognition strategies can be categorized into four groups:

1. Common spelling patterns, such as "rat”, “fat”, “mat”;
2. Frequently used words, such as “and”, “the”, “or”;
3. Building on words with prefixes and suffixes, such as “jump”, “jumps”, “jumped”, “jumping”; and
4. Using context to derive meaning through words and illustrations.

Reading fluency is also important and can build upon word recognition. It can be improved through two key comprehension strategies:

1. Explicit teaching of vocabulary, letters and sounds; and
2. Guided retelling of stories with adult-prompted questions to identify key aspects, such as characters, setting, conflict, resolutions, and conclusions.

These strategies are important for children to learn to identify ideas, sequence them within stories, identify key information, and to further acquire reading skills.
 
What can be done?

Parents and Educators

• When evaluating reading comprehension levels of students, ensure that the testing format selected matches the purposes of the assessment task.
• A "one-size-fits-all" approach to teaching reading can be ineffective for children with additional learning needs. Take the time to individualize instruction for students' abilities. This also applies to English language learners, who may struggle to manage the spelling, letter systems and new vocabulary skills associated with acquiring an additional language.
• It may be a worthwhile strategy to identify overlapping vocabulary words between a student's first language and English (i.e., “colour” in both French and English). Provide students with basic vocabulary words and opportunities to participate in story retells.
• Be aware that some children may struggle to acquire both his/her first language as well as any additional languages. If you suspect that your student or child may be struggling, identify the student to the classroom and special education resource teachers, who may be able to refer on to a Speech Language Pathologist for a language assessment.
• Provide many opportunities for the child to explore print, have reading opportunities, and expose them to reading skills, such as book holding, drawing his/her attention to the direction of how we read text, and using illustrations to derive information about a story.
• The use of story-based vocabulary is important in the primary grades. Take the time to read books to children and explain the meanings of some of the vocabulary found in the story. There is evidence to suggest that this kind of exercise is beneficial for children in the upper elementary grades as well.
• Teach students to be mindful of words they are unaware of, and teach them the skills required to determine these meanings (i.e., asking for help, using a dictionary, etc.).
• Older children will also benefit from explicit teaching of new vocabulary (i.e., spelling lists).

Policymakers

• Further research is necessary to develop technological tools that provide the same results as current reading comprehension assessments, but improve the speed and efficiency with which each assessment is completed.
• There continues to be a lack of information surrounding the interplay of factors involved in developing reading comprehension skills. In order to better understand how reading comprehension works, additional knowledge is required to better help those children who struggle to learn to read and understand what is read.
• Additional assessment tools are still needed, and would be beneficial to both teachers and students if they were to include information that can drive classroom instruction.
• Research is still needed to further explore how metacognition is involved in reading comprehension as well as how cultural and linguistic differences can overlap in reading acquisition.
• The role of reading fluency as well as reading of different genres has not yet been fully explored. Further research will be beneficial to determine appropriate instruction of these skills.
• Given that we are aware of the importance of vocabulary in reading acquisition, it is important to identify and implement strategies that can improve vocabulary growth, especially when such development is delayed.
• Likewise, the degree to which improving vocabulary will impact reading comprehension and acquisition is unknown. Determining this impact can be useful for recommending classroom strategies for teachers.