How to Teach Comprehension to the Third Grade

Teaching children to actively read helps with basic comprehension.

For a child to learn how to read he needs to know more than the words on the page. A child must comprehend the meaning of each word and how it relates to the other words in the sentence. Teachers charged with instructing young children on the fundamentals of reading must ensure each child learns at the correct pace. Recognizing when a child struggles with comprehension enables a teacher to modify her lesson plan accordingly. Teaching students comprehension requires understanding what techniques help a child grasp the proper fundamentals.

Instructions

1. Monitor the level of comprehension exhibited by the students and be aware of what your class does and does not understand. Determining the comprehension level of the students will indicate what techniques need strengthening. Resolve comprehension problems by teaching your students strategies to overcome their difficulties.

2. Use graphic organizers to illustrate the relationship between different concepts in the text. Maps, graphs, webs, charts or clusters help students visualize how different concepts relate. Graphic organizers teach students how to examine the relationships in the text, while focusing on text structure.

3. Ask your students questions about the material after they have finished reading. Asking students questions give them a reason to read, focuses their attention on the material and encourages them to actively think while reading. Asking questions also teaches students how to better answer questions by drawing from the material they have read.

4. Encourage students to derive their own questions about the reading material and have them quiz one another. By formatting their own questions, children will demonstrate an ability to comprehend and draw their own conclusions from the material.

5. Require the students to summarize the material's basic concepts. This will help the students identify main ideas and concepts, eliminate unnecessary information and remember specific details in the reading.

Tips & Warnings

• Engage your students with material they will find interesting. A disengaged child will find it difficult to learn the basics of comprehension, while a child interested in the material will actively participate in the reading process.

References

• Reading Rockets: Seven Strategies To Teach Students Text Comprehension
• University of Connecticut Literacy Lab: How To Improve Reading Comprehension
• The Apple: Teaching Reaching Comprehension Skills In Grades K-3

Resources

• Reading Rockets: Classroom Strategies