7 Keys to Comprehension How to Help Your Kids Read It and Get It!

Sounding out or decoding words is one part of the reading puzzle, however students need to be able to understand what that read to become a successful reader. Research shows that good readers use the following seven strategies to unlock meaning: 1. Create mental images 2. Use background knowledge (making connections) 3. Ask questions 4. Make inferences 5. Determine the most important ideas or themes 6. Synthesize information 7. Use fix-up strategies Create Mental Images DEFINITION: Good readers create a wide range of visual, auditory, and other sensory images as they read, and they become emotionally involved with what they read. SUGGESTIONS: Understand what you are reading through your senses. Make a movie in your mind as you read. Ask your child, What do you see when you read? As you read, talk about what you see in your mind. Ask your child what he/she sees. Talk about what the pictures make you see, smell, taste, and feel. As you share your thinking process, your child will see that there is no single interpretation of what he/she reads. Use Background Knowledge (Making Connections) DEFINITION: Good readers use their relevant prior knowledge before, during, and after reading to enhance their understanding of what they are reading.

Background Knowledge Connections: o Text to Self: You make connections between something youve read and something from your personal life. o Text to Text: You make connections between what youre reading and something youve read or seen or heard, such as a painting, a movie, or a song. o Text to World: You make connections between what youve read and the broader world. These are often bigger idea connections.

SUGGESTIONS: Talk about connections that you have with the story and how that helps you have a better understanding of what you are reading. Ask your child to think about the story and make his/her own connections. Read and reflect when a phrase brings to mind a personal experience and connection. Talk about your thinking when you lack enough background information to understand the story. Im confused about ________ because Questioning DEFINITION: Good readers generate questions before, during, and after reading to clarify meaning, make predictions, and focus their attention on whats important. SUGGESTIONS: Start with a book. Look at the cover. What questions come to mind? Ask questions that encourage your child to think. The best questions are not the ones that are clearly answered in the text. Encourage your child to ask the real questions, those questions that really puzzle them, even if you cant answer them. Share questions with your child, showing him/her that even you have questions when you read. As you read come up with I wonder statements. I wonder why she didnt invite her best friend to the party.

LANGUAGE TO USE WITH QUESTIONING: I wonder Why? What does this mean? That was a great question. Do you have any more? Your question makes me think of another question. How come? Make Inferences DEFINITION: Good readers use their prior knowledge and information from what they read to make predictions, seek answers to questions, draw conclusions, and create interpretations that deepen their understanding of the text. Helping the child to go beyond the words on the page. Inferencing requires the reader to expand on what was read and to draw conclusions. The voice inside your head makes guesses, finds connecting points, and asks questions. An inference is a personal discovery about what the author didnt specifically write. SUGGESTIONS: Talk with your child about everyday life. Share the thinking behind your decisions. Be willing to admit you are not sure about something, but explain what your thinking is so far. Help your child figure out the big message in the reading. Model conversations like Look at those dark clouds. Im guessing were going to get some rain this afternoon or Im going to stop reading for a minute so we can think together about what this all means. Playing word games, reading riddle books, and listening to rhyming songs are fun ways to set the stage for inferring for young readers

LANGUAGE FOR DRAWING INFERENCES: I predict I think that My guess is Thats just what I thought Now, this is a surprise Determine the Most Important Ideas and Themes DEFINITION: Good readers identify key ideas or themes as they read, and they can distinguish between important and unimportant information. SUGGESTIONS: Talk about whats important in life (look both ways before crossing the street, share, eat healthy, etc.) After reading a story, share the important things to remember. Encourage your child to do the same. Distinguish between facts that are interesting and those that are important. Decide purpose for reading o Learn something new o Laugh o Answer questions Search for new facts Read with specific questions in mind Understand that the layout of the text (especially nonfiction) gives valuable clues to whats important o Titles o Bold headings o Pictures with captions o Quotations o Timelines o Graphs o Maps

Synthesize Information DEFINITION: Good readers track their thinking as it evolves, or changes, during reading to get the overall meaning. Good readers identify the essential story line and then ask, What does it all mean to me? SUGGESTIONS: Retell most important events of a story Turn the retelling into a summary Tell what the story means to you Determine the overall meaning and its significance Fix-Up Strategies DEFINITION: Good readers are aware of when they understand and when they dont. If they have trouble understanding specific words, phrases, or longer passages, they use a wide range of problem-solving strategies including skipping ahead, rereading, asking questions, using a dictionary, and reading the passage aloud. SUGGESTIONS: Make sure your child knows when they are not understanding. There are 6 signals to look for: o The voice in your head stops having a conversation while you read. o The camera inside your head shuts off. You no longer have a picture in your head of what is happening in the story. o Your mind begins to wander and you no longer are thinking about what you are reading. o You cant remember what you just read. o You arent asking and answering questions as you go. o You are reading about characters that you dont remember being introduced. Use one or more of the following fix-up tools to help understand what you are reading: o Go back and reread

o Read ahead to clarify meaning o Identify what it is that you dont understand: word, sentence, or concept o If you dont understand a word, read on to see if the definition is clarified later in the text. Or, make a prediction about the word based upon what you have already read. If these two fail, ask someone what the word means or look it up in a dictionary. o If you dont understand a sentence, look at the pictures to see if you can find a clue there. Reread or read ahead to see if understanding comes. If youre still confused, talk with a parent, teacher, or friend about it. o If you dont understand a concept, see if you can summarize the story up to this point. You may need to build more background knowledge on the subject by going to an encyclopedia, the Internet, other library resources, or having a conversation with someone who knows about the topic.

Ideas compiled from 7 Keys to Comprehension by Susan Zimmermann and Chryse Hutchins