Strategies to Facilitate Reading Comprehension in College
Transition Students
RESEARCH TO PRACTICE BRIEF
Issue 5 – May/June 2005
By Kathrynn Di Tommaso
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Why teach reading strategies to adults
in transition to college?
Difficulties in reading comprehension are common for students
transitioning to college, and the need to provide students with
concrete strategies in approaching reading tasks is well documented
(Malena & Atwood Coker, 1987). Research in reading comprehension
has studied the different reading processes of good readers and
poor readers to determine how good readers come to understand
and retain what they have read (Long & Long, 1987). Studies
have shown that students skilled in reading comprehension tend
to interact with course material actively through paraphrasing,
summarizing, and relating the material to personal experience
while students less skilled in reading comprehension tend to
underline or reread passively without the use of specific strategies
(Dowhower, 1999; Duffy et al, 1987; Long & Long, 1987).
Without the use of reading strategies, students experience difficulty
inferring conceptual meaning while reading, relating to what
they have read, self-monitoring their learning and understanding,
and evaluating texts for clarity and consistency (Duffy et al,
1987; Long & Long, 1987; Underwood, 1997). These difficulties
can also lead to decreased engagement in the current reading
task, as well as a lack of motivation when approaching future
reading tasks (Dowhower, 1999). As students transitioning to
college encounter text of increasing difficulty, the need to
approach reading tasks strategically greatly increases (Dowhower,
1999). Research has demonstrated that direct instruction in strategy
use can improve the reading comprehension skills of students,
and students lacking in these skills who receive such instruction
often become indistinguishable from more skilled readers (Dowhower,
1999).
What does research say about “skilled
readers”?
The act of reading involves a communication between author and
reader during which skilled readers use their background of concepts
and experiences to ask how they can make sense of the content
they are reading (Bacon, 1983). Skilled readers make connections
between texts, from the text to the outside world, and from the
text to their own experience while reading. They tend to make
mental pictures of what they read, and ask questions to themselves
and to their instructors to enhance their understanding of the
text (Keene & Zimmerman, 1997; Tovani, 2000). The following
strategies have been demonstrated to assist less skilled readers
in performing the skills necessary for successful comprehension: determining
importance while reading; self-monitoring comprehension; making
predictions and inferences about text; and questioning while
reading (Dole et al, 1991; Irwin & Baker, 1989; Pearson,
1985; Pressley et al, 1990).
What are specific strategies I can teach my students?
Visual Structures or Graphic Representations
Visual structures include spatial learning techniques such as
maps, chains, charts, webs, trees, matrices, and diagrams that
provide a visual representation of text content to facilitate
comprehension. Visual representations show key parts of a reading
and the relationship among those parts, allowing for a holistic
understanding that can help students understand important ideas
and the organization of texts (Dowhower, 1999; Jones, Pierce & Hunter,
1989). When constructing a graphic representation, students first
survey the text with attention to the title, subheadings, and
illustrations to determine the topic and objectives of the text.
Students then begin to form a theory of the structure of the
text and which graphic representation (map, chart, web, etc.)
might best represent it. Students then read the text with that
graphic representation in mind and so approach their reading
with specific purposes (Jones, Pierce & Hunter, 1989). After
reading the text, students complete the graphic representation,
using the questions or categories provided by the instructor
in the appropriate frame as a guide.
Students may add information about their personal experiences
with the topic or any background knowledge that they may possess.
To facilitate comprehension further, students can then use the
information in the graphic representation that they have created
to write a summary of the text. Researchers claim that “graphic
organizers and outlines are fundamental to skilled thinking because
they provide information and opportunities for analysis that
reading alone and linear outlining cannot provide” (Jones,
Pierce & Hunter, 1989, p. 25). Graphic representations can
also foster nonlinear thinking and promote “in depth processing
and rich contextual associations” in that they can be read
from left to right or top to bottom unlike linear outlines or
written summaries (p. 21).
Depending on their specific goals, instructors may also choose
a specific type of graphic representation for students to complete.
Story grammar (or story structure) for example, is widely discussed
as facilitating comprehension of texts with narrative story parts
such as characters or plot. Students fill in maps that are labeled
with such elements as setting, problem, goals, and resolution,
forcing them to read actively in order to complete the reading
task (Davis & McPherson, 1989; Dowhower, 1999). The theme
of the story is generally indicated in the center of the story
map, and main events are organized chronologically from the left,
clockwise in circles with lines that connect to the theme. Other
important elements of the story are then attached chronologically
to the main event circles. Instructors can also create variations
of this story map to include inferences based on the explicit
information recorded in the map or to represent cause and effect
or comparison/contrast relationships in the text (Davis & McPherson,
1989).
Fishbone maps (or “The Herringbone”) are
also widely discussed in the literature and can help students
organize and understand information in dense textbook chapters
by providing a representation of the causes and the end result
of a complex historical event or a scientific phenomenon (an
election, a war, a nuclear explosion, global warming, etc.).
Students plot answers to who, what, when, where, how, and why
questions on the diagram of a fish skeleton and then write the
main idea of the selection across the backbone of the skeleton
(Jones, Pierce & Hunter, 1989; Walker, 2000). For example,
if students were reading about the biological basis of behavior
in the beginning chapter of a Psychology textbook, they could
use a fishbone map to represent a reading selection on the functions
of the endocrine system or the nervous system. Students would
use each bone on the skeleton to answer specific questions about
how the system functions (what it does, when, how and why it
does it, etc.) and then write the general purpose of the system
along the backbone. (For a detailed lesson plan using “The
Herringbone,” please see “GED 2002 Teachers’ Handbook
of Lesson Plans” by Iris Strunc at the following website: http://www.floridatechnet.org/GED/LessonPlans/
LanguageArtsReading/ readinglesson34.pdf)
Similarly, spider maps can be used for longer textbook passages
as students write the theme or topic in a center circle and then
branch main idea lines from it. Details are then written branching
off from the main idea lines (Jones, Pierce & Hunter, 1989).
In addition, instructors can ask students to fill out compare
and contrast matrices with columns to show similarities and differences
between two characters in a reading or between two things, places,
ideas, or events in a textbook chapter (Jones, Pierce & Hunter,
1989). For example, a matrix can be used with a selection from
a Biology textbook to compare and contrast qualities of a plant
cell and an animal cell with rows for different attributes to
each cell. Arrows can also be added to maps to represent the
series of events, a cycle, or the nature of an interaction (Jones,
Pierce & Hunter, 1989). (For more information on graphic
representations, please see http://www.graphicorganizers.com/downloads.htm.
Listening-Thinking Activity (LTA) and Directed Reading-Thinking
Activity (DR-TA)
These strategies assist students in developing background knowledge
and establishing a purpose while reading in order to develop
their reading comprehension skills ( Walker, 2000). In LTA and
DR-TA, the teacher develops students’ predictive comprehension
by asking them what they think a certain text is about based
on the title. The teacher then reads a section of the text (LTA)
or directs the students to read a specific section (DR-TA) and
students revise their predictions; this process is repeated until
the entire text is discussed as a whole (Bacon, 1983; Dowhower,
1999; Irwin & Baker, 1989; Walker, 2000).
Reciprocal Questioning (ReQuest)
In this strategy, students develop comprehension skills through
improving their self-questioning abilities ( Walker, 2000). The
students and the instructor read a passage silently and the instructor
models appropriate questions that could be asked about the selection
while integrating background knowledge and textual information;
the students and the instructor then take turns asking and answering
each other’s questions about the text (Bacon, 1983; Walker,
2000). This strategy has been shown to improve the reading comprehension
of less skilled readers by teaching them to formulate questions
as they read (Bacon, 1983). In addition, instructors can use
their answers to the questions that are generated to model how
to make inferences and predictions when reading a text.
Question-Answer Relationships (QAR)
Several studies have demonstrated the benefits of focusing students’ attention
on how they should vary their approaches for answering questions
(Pearson, 1985). In this strategy, students classify question-answer
relations through determining which are text-explicit (come from
the same sentence in the text), which are text implicit (come
from different parts of the text), and which are script-implicit
(motivated by the text but come from reader’s prior knowledge)
(Pearson, 1985).
Students can also be taught question-answer relationships through
the differences among “right there,” “on my
own,” “think and search,” and “author
and you” questions (Walker, 2000, p. 277). For “right
there” questions, words from the text can be used to answer
the questions while “on my own” questions require
the student to fill in missing information from their own experience
and knowledge. “Think and search” questions require
the student to read the text carefully to find the answers that
fit together, while “author and you” questions require
students “to think about what they know, what the author
tells them, and how this information fits together” (p.
278). Research has demonstrated that students of varying abilities
and ages have improved their ability to comprehend new texts
and monitor their own comprehension after receiving instruction
in question-answer relationships (Pearson, 1985).
Question-Generation Strategy
Instruction that teaches how to formulate questions about a text
can help students determine which information is important, leading
to improvements in text comprehension (Dole et al, 1991; Walker,
2000). In this strategy, students generate their own questions
in order to become more active in their reading. Students can
be introduced to self-questioning by developing pre-reading questions
with the instructor and then by formulating questions about main
ideas while reading (Long & Long, 1987). Studies in reading
comprehension have shown that students who were taught to generate
questions from the main ideas of paragraphs outperformed students
who were not taught to use self-questioning strategies (Long & Long,
1987). When students ask themselves questions before and/or during
reading, they read the text in search of answers and are engaged
in active comprehension (Underwood, 1997). When they revisit
questions that were generated at the start of a reading task,
they can reflect on the sense they made of the text and can self-assess
their own comprehension (Underwood, 1997).
K-W-L (What I Know, What I Want
to Know, What I Learned)
This strategy is widely used to help students tap into prior
knowledge, set purposes for reading by determining what they
want to know about the topic, and identify what they learned
while reading (Dowhower, 1999; Walker, 2000). For the first two
steps, the instructor leads a discussion in which students brainstorm
what they already know about a topic and then the instructor
assists them in thinking of more general categories of information
that they might encounter or want to learn while reading a given
text. In the third step, students check their questions to determine
if the text addressed them and how further reading might help
them answer any unanswered questions (Ogle, 1986). Similarly,
the K-W-L Plus strategy adds a writing component that consists
of mapping and summarizing after answering questions in these
three areas (Dowhower, 1999).
Self-Assessment
Recent research also emphasizes the importance of using self-report
rubrics, checklists, and portfolio entries to help students monitor
their comprehension and their strategy use. These techniques
can assist students in recognizing when they begin to lose focus
and in understanding the ways in which the use of strategies
can assist them in comprehending text (Dowhower, 1999; Walker,
2000). For example, one specific self-assessment strategy is
the acronym FLIP which helps readers assess the difficulty of
a given text in relation to their personal experiences and reading
abilities (Underwood, 1997). Students are taught to preview the
text and to decide on the friendliness (F) of it by
looking at headings, pictures, graphs, and so on. They sample
the language (L) of the text and estimate the level
of difficulty of the vocabulary. Then, they decide how interested (I) they
may be in the text, and finally assess their level of prior (P)
knowledge in relation to the topic. Techniques such as FLIP can
assist students in learning to expect and find solutions for
predictable difficulties that they may encounter while reading
(Underwood, 1997). Similarly, the Self-Monitoring Approach to
Reading (SMART) has been found to help older readers in self-assessing
their reading comprehension. In this technique, instructors ask
students to stop at the end of each paragraph to ask themselves
whether they understood the main points of what they read, whether
it “clicks” or “clunks” (Underwood, 1997,
p. 79). If it “clicks,” students put the meaning
of that section into their own words and if it “clunks,” students
pinpoint what went wrong and formulate questions that might lead
to resolving their confusion.
Experience-Text Relationship (ETR)
This strategy helps students link background experiences (E)
to narrative story text (T) during pre-reading, guided
reading, and post-reading. Students develop insight regarding
the relationship between the text and their own experiences to
increase their engagement in and understanding of the reading
task (Dowhower, 1999). The instructor can begin ETR by facilitating
a general discussion about what the students know about a given
topic from their experiences and then by tying those experiences
directly to the text to be read. Students then make predictions
about the text based on the discussion and then read the text
to check the validity of their predictions. Reading is followed
by another class discussion in which students compare and contrast
key ideas from the text with their personal experiences and predictions
( Walker, 2000).
Why do students need multiple strategies?
College level reading involves many types of texts and reading
experiences that college transition students can find overwhelming
to organize and comprehend. In addition, students are often required
to use their comprehension of various texts actively through
comparative analyses or other applications of their understanding.
As a result, researchers emphasize the importance of ensuring
that strategy instruction is situated in the demands of the specific
reading task and topic and providing students with concrete practice
in how to apply strategies (Dowhower, 1999). The list of strategies
provided here should be viewed as a repertoire of diverse comprehension
strategies that can be used in varying ways depending on student
needs, teacher goals, and the demands of the reading task. Through
embedding strategy instruction in classroom content and through
providing students with a range of strategies, students with
histories of reading comprehension difficulties can become more
skilled and more successful readers in approaching the many types
of texts and reading tasks required for college level work (Dowhower,
1999).
References
Bacon, M. (1983). What adult literacy teachers need to know about
strategies for focusing on comprehension. Lifelong Learning:
The Adult Years,6(6), 4-5.
Davis, Z.T. & McPherson, M.D. (1989). Story map instruction:
A road map for reading comprehension. The Reading Teacher,43(3),
232-240.
Dole. J.A., Duffy, G.G., Roehler, L.R., & Pearson, P.D. (1991).
Moving from the old to the new: Research on reading comprehension
instruction. Review of Educational Research,61(2), 239-264.
Dowhower, S.L. (1999). Supporting
a strategic stance in the classroom: A comprehension framework
for helping teachers help students to be strategic. The Reading
Teacher,52, 672-688.
Duffy, G.G., Roehler, L.R., Sivan, E., Rackliffe, G., Book, C.,
Meloth, M.S., et al. (1987). Effects of explaining the reasoning
associated with using reading strategies. Reading Research
Quarterly,22(3), 347-368.
Irwin, J.W. & Baker, I. (1989). Promoting active reading
strategies. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc.
Jones, B.F., Pierce, J. & Hunter, B. (1989). Teaching students
to construct graphic representations. Educational Leadership,46(4),
20-25.
Keene, E. & Zimmerman, S. (1997). Mosaic of thought: Teaching
comprehension in a reader’s workshop. Portsmouth:
Heinemann.
Long, J.D. & Long, E.W. (1987). Enhancing student achievement
through metacomprehension training. Journal of Developmental
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Malena, R.F. & Atwood Coker, K.J. (1987). Reading *O*prehension:
The missing elements. Journal of Developmental Education,10(3),
24-25, 35.
Ogle, D.M. (1986). K-W-L: A teaching model that develops active
reading of expository text. The Reading Teacher,39(6),
564-570.
Pearson, P.D. (1985). Changing the face of reading comprehension
instruction. The Reading Teacher,38(8), 726-737.
Pressley, M., Ghatala, E.S., Woloshyn, V, & Pirie, J. (1990).
Sometimes adults miss the main ideas and do not realize it: Confidence
in responses to short-answer and multiple-choice comprehension
questions. Reading Research Quarterly,25(3), 232-249.
Strunc, I. (2004, March). GED 2002 teachers’ handbook of
lesson plans. Florida TeachNet. Retrieved March
28, 2005, from http://www.floridatechnet.org/GED/LessonPlans/
LanguageArtsReading/readinglesson34.pdf
Tovani, C. (2000). I read it, but I don’t get it: Comprehension
strategies for adolescent readers. Portland, ME: Stenhouse
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About the author
Kathrynn Di Tommaso, AM, EdM, is a doctoral candidate at the
Harvard University Graduate School of Education and a Fellow
at the National Center for the Study of Adult Learning and Literacy
(NCSALL). She has taught English and developmental reading and
writing at community colleges in the Bay Area and in the Boston
area. You can reach her at ditommka@gse.harvard.edu
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