Cognitive levels in testing reading comprehension
· Lower level
There are hundreds of strategies that claim to help students improve their reading comprehension. Four of these general strategies are visualization, summarization, making inferences, and making connections to one’s own life and experiences (Moore & Lo, 2008).
Visualization involves students creating mental pictures in their mind while they are reading, or stopping at certain points in a reading selection to make these visualizations. Visualization is taught by teacher’s modeling this strategy explicitly and by having students practice with supports. Students can even draw or create pictures of their visualizations until they have learned to simply visualize in their own minds.
Summarization is teaching students how to summarize what they have read to themselves. Teachers model this by reading a passage, stopping at certain points then explaining aloud what they have read. This is done again through modeling and much guided practice. Students can practice by reading a passage and then telling a partner or a teacher what they have just read (Prado & Plourde, 2005).
Making inferences is taught by a teacher reading a passage aloud to a class that has some of the details missing. The story’s context can guide the students to the details that are missing. The teacher again models and guides the students to ask themselves appropriate questions to try to fill in the important details. There are graphic organizers that ask certain questions that students can use as a guide after reading a selection. They can use these questions until they are able to formulate their own questions (Prado & Plourde, 2005).
Teaching students to make connections to their reading is done in a similar way. The teacher reads a passage aloud, stops at a certain point, then says how they can relate what they have read to their own life. The teacher does this often, then gets the students involved by asking questions. All four of these strategies are sometimes combined to create one larger strategy once they have all been taught and mastered separately (Prado & Plourde, 2005).
· Middle level
Reading comprehension is important for middle level because they are focusing less on learning skills like reading and writing, but more on actual content. Secondary age students can learn strategies that can help them be successful. They are also still able to use the strategies they learned and used in the primary grades. Some of the strategies that secondary students learn are the same strategies they used previously, but they may be used in a different way (Jitendra & Gajria, 2011).
Graphic organizers are still used in the secondary grades; they just may be used in a different way. Some of the graphic organizers may be specific to content or a certain textbook. They also often have more writing and less graphics. Graphic organizers for secondary students may be broken down in a way that organizes a textbook chapter or section. It may have a place for headings and vocabulary words that students can identify at a later time if they are unfamiliar with the words.
Acronyms are often used in reading comprehension strategies. An acronym that has been found to be successful with secondary students is the TELLS strategy (Ridge & Skinner, 2010). TELLS stands for Title, Examine, Look, Look, and Setting. Each word is a sequential step that is used in the strategy process. The first step is title. Students are taught to look at the title of the selection and generate clues or guess what the material is going to be about. The second step is examine. During this step, students skim the passage and look for clues about the content. During the third step, students are supposed to look for important words that may be repeated often. This step is important because it may activate a student’s prior knowledge. When students look again, they are looking for words that they do not know the meaning of and are supposed to write these words down, and then find their meaning. This is because if a student does not know the meaning of the words, it will be extremely difficult for them to understand the content. Finally, during the final step, setting, students are to read the passage again and look for information related to setting. This can be places, dates, descriptions, or time periods. This step may also engage a student’s prior knowledge. When using TELLS, students essentially read the passage at least three times, thus giving them a greater chance at comprehending the material (Ridge, Skinner, 2010). This method is particularly useful when reading textbooks.
A second acronym that is used on the secondary level is the Art of Reading Program (McCallum, Krohn, Skinner, Hilton, Hopkins, Waller & Polite, 2010). ART stands for ask, read, tell. This is a simple strategy that is easy for students with disabilities to understand. It involves activities before, during, and after reading that help students enhance their comprehension. During the Ask step, students are taught to read the selection’s title and ask themselves questions about the title. Some teachers require students to write these questions down. This allows teachers to see that the student is actually using the strategy properly and students can them come back and try to answer the questions later. When focusing on the second step, read, students actually read the selection and stop at the end of each paragraph. At the end they are to ask themselves if what they are reading makes sense before continuing on. During this step they are to also underline any unknown words to look up or figure out their meanings from context clues. The third stage is tell. When students are finished reading, they are to tell themselves what they read. Some teachers have the students write down a summary, tell a partner, or tell the teacher themselves what they have read. At this time, students can also go back and answer the questions that they had asked themselves during the ask step. The Art of Reading Program has been found to be most effective at the secondary level when used in conjunction with a peer discussion strategy in which students examine the questions they posed to each other and discuss what they have read (McCallum et al., 2010).
PLAN is another strategy that is especially helpful for secondary students when trying to comprehend what they are reading in textbooks (Educational Research, 2008). When using PLAN, students use a concept map that the teacher has created specifically for the reading selection. It has some information about the selection already filled in and identifies other information that they student needs to get from the text. The first step is predict, students make predictions about the text based on the title, heading, subtitles, and graphics. The second step is locate. Students are required to locate the information requested on the concept map as well as identify the information already given to them on the map. The third step is add. During this step, students must add additional information to the map that is not already on it. The final step is note, in which students have to make additional notes on their map and identify whether or not their original predictions were correct (Educational Research,2008).