Comprehension

Comprehension

1. Reasons to Assess

   • Estimate general level of proficiency
   • Gauge how much student has understood the text

2. Approaches to Assessment

   • Questions
     • Literal, Inferential, Critical
     • Reading Dependency
   • Cloze
     • Deleting words in a text, students replace using context
   • Maze
     • Multiple-choice variation of CLOZE
   • Oral Retellings
     • Students verbally retell content of the text
   • Written Responses to Text
     • Students compose responses to the text selection
   • Word Lists
     • Shortcut to gauge general comprehension ability

3. Addressing Comprehension Difficulties

   • Poor Decoding
     • Instructional Strategy: Offer instruction in both comprehension AND word decoding strategies
   • Limited Prior Knowledge and Vocabulary
     • Instructional Strategy: Listen-Read-Discuss
   • Poorly Developed Strategies
     • Instructional Strategies: Explicit Strategy Instruction
     • Student-Generated Questions
     • Think-Alouds
     • ReQuest
     • Summary Writing
     • Graphic Organizers
     • Reading Guides
     • Reciprocal Teaching