How to Teach Reading Comprehension in Middle School
Reading comprehension is a required component of all middle school language arts curriculum. Middle school students should have adequate decoding skills by the time they reach middle school. However, many will not fully and accurately understand what they read. Reading comprehension skills are necessary for success in all academic subjects in middle school and beyond. Thus, reading comprehension strategies should be taught and practiced diligently.
Things You'll Need
- High-interest reading materials
- Reading comprehension workbooks and handouts
- Lesson plans
Instructions
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Choose high-interest reading materials. Students should be able to relate to those texts being read in the language arts classroom. A good place to start is with books that have won the Newberry Award, given to the author of outstanding children's literature. Also, it is helpful to give the students in the classroom a survey to determine what they might enjoy reading about.
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Teach reading comprehension skills explicitly. Basic reading comprehension skills include: using prior knowledge, asking questions while reading, creating mental images, making predictions and inferences, summarizing what has been read, and using phonological and contextual clues when encountering unknown words. Teachers should explain why these strategies are helpful and exactly how to use each strategy. Then, the teacher should provide guided practice using each strategy. Finally, the student should be allowed to independently use the strategies.
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Model reading comprehension skills. Teachers should read aloud to students and stop to comment on their mental processes related to comprehension during the reading. Even middle school students enjoy being read to.
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Teach vocabulary routinely and thoroughly. One of the greatest barriers to reading comprehension is a limited vocabulary. Expanding the students' vocabulary will have a positive impact on reading comprehension.
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Allow students to discuss texts with you and with their classmates. One way to facilitate literature discussions is through the use of literature circles. Literature circles allow students to work collaboratively on a variety of tasks related to the texts being explored.
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Use graphic organizers to help students organize their thoughts. Some examples of effective graphic organizers are the story pyramid, story map, KWL chart and a Venn diagram.
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