The purpose of this section of theResource Notebook is to help youdevelop a framework for thinkingabout good comprehensioninstruction for individuals withreading disabilities.

After reviewing these materialsyou should be able to answer thefollowing questions: 1. Why is it important to teachcomprehension in addition todecoding?2. What types of reading com-

prehension difficulties might individualswith reading disabilities exhibit?3. What major research-based prac-tices should be considered when teachingreading comprehension to students hav-ing difficulty with constructing meaningfrom print?

Reading Comprehension

Introduction

Advance Organizer

Before learning specific reading com-prehension strategies to teach students, itis important to understand importantinformation about reading comprehen-sion.

Pretend for a moment that you are on thefirst day of a new part-time job. You havebeen hired by an agency interested inextraterrestrial life to decipher signalscoming to our planet from other parts ofthe galaxy and galaxies beyond. You havedetected signals that seem much likeMorse code. Based on your understand-ing of the sound-symbol correspondenceof English you decode the message toread: Dey srammish lutrig blimed zolt-ingly bots dey viltra ti grend dey cortousnids. At first you rejoice because youhave decoded the signals.

Then you say, "Huh?" What is this?What does it mean?" You are baffled.Pretend for a moment that you are on the

first day of a new part-time job. You havebeen hired by an agency interested inextraterrestrial life to decipher signalscoming to our planet

from other parts of the galaxy and galax-ies beyond. You have detected signalscoming to our planet from other parts ofthe galaxy and galaxies beyond. You havedetected signals that seem much likeMorse code. Based on your understand-ing of the sound-symbol correspondenceof English you decode

Complexity of Reading Comprehension

the message to read: (Put these words ina text box.) Dey srammish lutrig blimedzoltingly bots dey viltra ti grend dey cor-tous nids. At first you rejoice because youhave decoded the signals. Then you say,"Huh?" What is this? What does itmean?" You are baffled.

pattern of the message, nor rememberwhat you just read. If you can decodewith fluency you are off to a good start.But that doesn’t mean that you can under-stand the message. You would also needto know the meaning of the words. Forexample, what does "lutrig" mean? Howabout "viltra" and "nids"? Not knowingthe vocabulary makes it impossible tounderstand the written message. But evenif you know the meaning of each word,you still cannot understand this message.

You also need to know the languagestructure and the function of variouswords to be able to interpret the message.How can you tell what the sentence isabout if you don't know which words arenouns or verbs? Do the suffixes "ed" and"ly" mean the same in this language asthey do in English? For example, is"blimed" a past tense verb? Does the "ly"at the end of "zoltingly" mean that thisword is an adverb and that it tells howsomething was "blimed"? Even if youknew the answers to these questions,without knowing how the syntax or wordorder affects the meaning of the sentence,you still can't be sure of who did what towhom.

Reading comprehension is not a simpleendeavor. There are many elements thatreaders must integrate to construct mean-ing from print. If they do not acquire theknowledge, skills and strategies involvedin reading comprehension, they will be ata major disadvantage in adulthood. Tounderstand the complexity of readingcomprehension, take another look at themessage deciphered from outer space.Consider this question: What basicknowledge and skills are needed to makesense of this message? First of all, youwould have to be able to decode the mes-sage, which means translate the symbolsinto words. If this language has the samephonemic rules as English, then youshould be able pronounce all of the wordsusing your knowledge of sound-symbolcorrespondence. You also need to per-form the decoding steps easily and fluid-ly. If you labored over each sound in eachword, you would not get a sense of the

In addition to having to under-stand the vocabulary and lan-guage structures, you would alsoneed to have some backgroundknowledge about these extrater-restrial beings and their planet tobe able to interpret the messagein a broader sense. Without it,you are at a loss to understandanything other than the literalmeaning.

Here’s the translation of themessage: "The scaredy-catbeings called the Lutrigs fled fortheir lives across the topographi-cal feature of their landscape, called theViltra, to escape from the frightfullyaggressive beings, known as the Nids."However, you still don't know the deeperlevel of meaning beyond the literal mean-ing. Do the Lutrigs often do this? Is therea long-standing feud between the Lutrigsand Nids? Is the message merely a newsreport of what has happened, or is it, per-haps, a call for help? You simply do not have enough back-ground knowledge to decipher the infer-ential meaning. Trying to under-stand this message should giveyou a beginning understanding ofthe complexities of reading com-prehension and a feel for the dif-ferent types of knowledge andskills that are necessary to com-prehend what you read.

So far, we have addressed theimportance of: decoding skills,vocabulary, language structuresand background knowledge. Butthis is not the whole story!

Successful reading comprehension alsoinvolves using a variety of reading strate-gies before, during and after the readingof a passage (Pearson & Fielding, 1991;Pressley, Symons, Snyder & Cariglia-Bull, 1989). Some of these strategies are:activating prior knowledge, predicting,paraphrasing, summarizing, self-ques-tioning, visualizing, and using graphicorganizers to organize and rememberwhat is read.

The Importance of Reading ComprehensionWe most often associate reading

difficulties with children inschool; however, some individualscontinue to have trouble learningto read once they leave school.According to the LaubachLiteracy Action Group (LaubachLiteracy, n.d.), one out of fiveadults lacks the literacy skillsneeded to fulfill his or her poten-tial. This lack limits these individ-uals' roles as employees, as par-ents, and as members of their com-munities. Adult illiteracy does notdiscriminate. It cuts across all economic,social and racial boundaries; has devas-tating personal costs, including fear,social isolation and loss of self-esteem;affects family life; and reduces economicproductivity.

Although there are more literate peoplethan ever before, it is now even moreessential that each individual attains atleast a basic, if not higher, level of litera-cy. With our current information age,people must be able to seek

out the information they need for theirjobs as well as for making the decisionsthat are necessary to achieve their ownshort-term and long-range goals. An indi-vidual's level of literacy can make the dif-ference between being able to earn a liv-ing above or below the poverty line. Thisis where teachers who are well preparedto teach reading can positively affect theultimate quality of their students' lives.

Other types of strategies enable readers tomonitor their understanding of what theyare reading, and use multiple comprehen-sion strategies as they are needed (Paris,Lipson & Wixson, 1994).

It is easy to see how complex readingcomprehension is, but why is readingcomprehension so important and whatimpact does weak comprehension haveon people's lives?

Patterns of ReadingDisabilities

What kinds of reading problems exist?Although having a low cognitive abilitymay be a reason for poor reading com-

prehension with some individuals, this isnot the case for all individuals with dis-abilities. For example, low cognitiveability is not the reason students withlearning disabilities have difficulty under-standing what they read, since by

Importance of ReadingComprehension

Adult illiteracy:

cuts across all economic, social, and racial boundries

has devastating personal costs

affects family life

reduces economic productivity

(Laubach Literary Action Group)

definition they have at least averageintellectual ability. While each individualwith reading disabilities faces differentkinds of problems at various phases inlearning to read, there are basically threemajor patterns of reading disabilities, ascontrasted with the pattern of proficientreaders. Proficient readers are able todecode fluently and have strong languagecomprehension skills that enable strongreading comprehension. Poor readersmay have different profiles of perform-ance, but various combinations of diffi-culties in decoding and language compre-hension will adversely affect readingcomprehension.

Individuals with the first type of readingdisability, which is probably the mostcommon type, struggle with decoding buthave good language comprehensionskills, at least in the early years. The sec-ond and least common type of readingdisability involves fluent decoding, butweak language comprehension. Thesestudents seem to "read” very well; but,they just don't understand what they read!

The third type of reading disability issomewhat common and is the most com-plex. This involves weak decoding skills,weak language comprehension, and,therefore, weak reading comprehension(Catts & Kamhi, 1999). The last twotypes of reading disabilities involve weaklanguage comprehension and thus areindicative of difficulties with underlyinglanguage abilities. These types of readingdisabilities are represented in a handoutcalled “Profiles of Reading Disabilities.”Please read these profiles now. Think about Anna whose profile you just

read. Hers was the first profile in thehandout. She is the girl in second gradewho has not yet learned to crack the code.In her case, comprehension difficultiesare attributable in whole or in part tothese severe decoding problems. Havingso much difficulty decoding really limitsone's ability to understand the text. Butas with the other students described inthat handout, there may be other prob-lems associated with lack of comprehen-sion that go beyond decoding; for exam-

ple, deficits in backgroundknowledge, vocabulary, lan-guage structures, andmetacognitive strategies. Andsurely the older the studentsbecome, the more significant arole reading comprehensionplays in their academicachievement.

Patterns of Reading ComprehensionLanguage Reading

Type of Reader Decoding Comprehension Comprehension

ProficientReader

Fluent + Strong = Strong

1. Weak + Stong = Weak

2. Fluent + Weak = Weak

3. Weak + Weak = Weak

Individual withReadingDisabilities

Confounding Problemsin Reading

Comprehension

These confounding problems include: • Matthew effects• Lack of motivation,• Inappropriate and inconsiderate text

and• Incompatible instruction. The basic difficulties students encounter

with reading comprehension can be wors-ened by other problems.

Matthew EfrfectsOne problem confounding reading com-

prehension is the Matthew effects dis-cussed by Keith Stanovich in 1986.These effects are captured in the expres-sion, “The rich get richer and the poor getpoorer.” In a nutshell, students who readwell benefit from their success by learn-ing the higher level language theyencounter in text, thereby further promot-ing their reading comprehension. On theother hand, struggling readers fail todevelop the vocabulary they need for fur-ther advances in reading, producing acycle of continued failure. The gapwidens even more as some children wholearn to read independently choose read-ing as a leisure activity, thus readingmore than their less able peers. Readerswith inadequate vocabularies, who readslowly and without enjoyment, read less,and so grow less in vocabulary knowl-edge and reading comprehension.

Can you think of how the Mattheweffects may apply to Anna, the studentdiscussed earlier, if her decoding prob-lems persist? If Anna's decoding prob-lems continue, she might not be exposedto more complex written materials. As aresult, she most likely will not learn thehigher level knowledge and skills that arerequired for reading more complex mate-rial. With weak decoding skills, studentslike Anna often never get past the lowerlevel reading materials that are used fordecoding practice. These students do,however, need to have access to the samehigher level materials that are used bytheir peers with stronger reading skills.Higher level materials provide opportuni-ties for building vocabulary knowledge,knowledge of more complex languagestructures, and background knowledge--all of which are foundational for laterschool success.

Lack of Motivation

Another problem that impacts the readingcomprehension of individuals with read-ing disabilities is lack of motivation

(Dickson, Collins, Simmons &Kameenui, 1998). Most kindergartnersand beginning first graders can hardlywait to learn to read, but it doesn't takelong for those who are having difficulty

to lose their enthusiasm as they get fur-ther and further behind their peers. Noone would like to work six hours a day forthirteen years at something that is reallyhard to do. It consumes a lot of energyand is very frustrating! That is what stu-dents with reading disabilities face inschool. The emotional toll can be high asstudents feel as though they are failuresand disappointments to their families andteachers. These students soon developlow expectations for their success inlearning to read. The usual result is reluc-tant readers. While many students try

to hide their inability to read by remain-ing quiet and copying the actions of theirbetter reading peers, other students actout their frustrations and become disrup-tive. Both kinds of responses can be diffi-cult for students, their teachers, and peers.Teachers can help motivate students byproviding effective instruction, choosingappropriate and interesting reading mate-rials, having students monitor their ownreading progress, and helping students setmeaningful goals for reading.

Inappropriate and Inconsiderate TextsA third factor affecting good reading

comprehension for individuals with read-ing disabilities involves the types of textsthat are used for instruction. Some textsare inappropriate; others are inconsider-ate. The appropriateness of the type oftext depends upon the characteristics ofthe learner and the purpose for theinstruction. The texts used for decodinginstruction and reading fluency develop-ment should be written at students'instructional levels, which means that stu-dents are able to read the texts with limit-ed support. They should also be appropri-ate for the interests of the students.Struggling adolescents should not begiven the beginning texts that were writ-ten for young students. They should haveaccess to what are called high interest,low vocabulary texts. These texts arebecoming more available as educatorsrecognize that older struggling readersstill need texts with controlled vocabular-ies but also need interesting topics.

When teaching comprehension skills,however, these high-interest low-vocabu-lary texts are not sufficient. Teachers needto use texts for reading comprehensioninstruction that are written at higher gradelevels than the texts used for decodinginstruction; however, students with lowdecoding skills should never be expected toindependently read the higher level textsthat are used for reading comprehensioninstruction. Teachers either need to read these higherlevel texts to students or have other meth-ods for students to access the material.Only through interacting with more com-plex types of materials can students devel-op the language skills and strategies thatare necessary for becoming proficient read-ers and successful students. For studentswho cannot read age-appropriate texts,comprehension instruction should focus onteacher-guided manipulation of literatestyle text.

Incompatible Instruction

The last confounding problem to goodreading comprehension that we willexamine is incompatible instruction,which can come from two sources. Thefirst source of difficulty is common mis-understandings or myths about readingcomprehension instruction, including thefollowing:

1. It is not appropriate to address com-prehension when students are strugglingwith decoding This is not true! In fact,there are many language comprehensionskills that can be addressed through oralexperiences with text. Then, too, someteachers spend all their time and energyon teaching decoding to struggling read-ers with no time left to work on compre-hension. This is not a good idea! Teachersneed to focus on both decoding instruc-tion and comprehension instruction in theearly stages of literacy, regardless of theage of the students.

2. Students will naturally come tounderstand what they read, as long asthey can decode the text fluently. This isnot the case. Although being able to readfluently is essential for good readingcomprehension, being able to read fluent-ly does not guarantee that students under-stand or are able to critique what they arereading (Mastropieri & Scruggs, 1997).

The academic language that is used inclassrooms and in school reading materi-al is much more abstract, has more com-plex structures, and contains vocabularywords that are generally not used in socialcontexts.

Therefore, students need to be taughtexplicitly how to comprehend the morecomplex academic language. They needto learn strategies for approaching thecomplex task of reading comprehension.

3. Just having students read a lot willimprove reading comprehension. Not so.Good readers will improve their readingcomprehension by reading a wide varietyof materials. Poor readers, on the otherhand, do not have the same understandingof the reading process to be able to bene-fit equally from extended reading withmaterials beyond their independent read-ing level. Sustained silent reading, whichis a common practice in many schoolsnationwide, will not be beneficial for stu-dents if they are merely pretending toread materials too difficult for them. Thistime may be used more wisely for readinginstruction. Because instructional time isdirectly related to reading progress,teachers should spend as much time aspossible directly and explicitly teachingreading skills and strategies.4. Simply having students answer ques-

tions at the end of stories or chapters isteaching reading comprehension. Thispractice is an assessment, not an instruc-tional type of activity. Unless students aretaught the underlying processes of read-ing comprehension, they will not learnhow to apply these same strategies toother materials they read (Gersten, Fuchs,Williams, & Baker, 1999). Again, teach-ers need to actually teach students theskills, as well as the strategies that arerequired to understand the process under-lying reading comprehension.

5. The reading skills of individuals withreading disabilities do not progressbeyond the fourth grade level. This is anold idea which has been disproven. Wenow know that people can and do learn toread at all ages (Laubach LiteracyInternational, 2000). What is important toremember when teaching older studentsis that their personal interests, languageabilities, and life goals are very differentfrom those of young children. Adolescentand adult learners need to take a moreactive role in deciding the goals for theirinstruction, the materials they will use,and the ways they engage in the learningexperience. The first step is to help themsee themselves as successful learners whoare willing to spend the time and energyto learn the types of knowledge and skillsthat are necessary to become proficientreaders.

6. Reading comprehension is thedomain of language arts or English teach-ers. Many teachers of older students,especially at the high school level, don'tsee the link between content mastery andcontent literacy and therefore don't thinkabout their role in teaching reading com-prehension. This is a big mistake!Students cannot master subject areaknowledge without having the listening,speaking, reading and writing skills andstrategies to acquire the information.Some secondary level teachers who dosee the connection between content mas-tery and content literacy declare that it isnot their job to teach reading. This is nota good position to take!

Reading comprehension is too pervasivean instructional need for many studentsfor any teacher to disregard it in teaching.Be assured that for all teachers, attendingto reading comprehension is a crucial partof the overall effort to teach students to beproficient learners. This is true regardlessof the literacy level at which they arefunctioning or the amount and kind of dif-ficulties they have. The second source of incompatibleinstruction is teachers' lack of familiaritywith effective instructional practices forpromoting good reading comprehensionfor individuals with reading disabilities.In some cases, sincere and well-inten-tioned teachers may commit greatamounts of time to reading instructionthat is incompatible with their students'needs and interests. As a result, studentscan get further and further behind theirpeers and may end up with fewer optionsas adults. Other teachers may recognizethe need to teach reading comprehension,but may not be sure of effective ways ofdoing so for students with disabilities.That's what this ProfessionalDevelopment Academy is all about! Byattending the workshops on reading com-prehension strategies you will learnresearch-based practices that work withstudents with reading disabilities.

Principles of Effective Teachingfor Reading Comprehension

With struggling readers, don't get stuckat the literal levels of comprehension,which the lower level materials can sup-port. Be sure to do comprehension workwith texts that are more complex thanthose texts that students can read inde-pendently. You can do this in a number ofways. You can read aloud to students. Youcan provide books on tape and computersoftware programs with text-to-speechfeatures so students can hear text at levelsthey cannot read. You can also engagestudents in shared reading activities rec-ommended by Jackson & Paratore(1999). For example, you can engage astudents in echo reading in which youread, then have the student read the samesentence. You can also have the studentsread together with you. This technique issometimes called choral reading.

The second principle of effective read-ing comprehension instruction is to pro-vide responsive, systematic, and inten-sive reading instruction. Teachers whoutilize responsive instruction recognizethat each student is unique; therefore, toteach responsively, you must continuous-ly assess student learning, make specificinstructional modifications to meet indi-vidual student's needs, and provide indi-vidualized and elaborated feedback.

For reading comprehension, continuousassessment should provide you with anunderstanding of how much backgroundinformation students have on a topic theyare reading about, how many of thevocabulary words they understand and

The challenge of addressing the needs ofstruggling readers requires careful designand implementation of successful teach-ing practices. Five basic principles ofeffective teaching for reading comprehen-sion should guide your approach with stu-dents.

The first principle is to teach compre-hension skills and strategies explicitly atall levels of reading development.Because individuals with disabilitiesoften have difficulty with language andinformation processing, it is essential thatteachers are very explicit and clear duringreading instruction. If students are left toinfer what the teacher means, many willmiss the intent of the instruction. In addi-tion, in order for students to understandhow the skills and strategies they arelearning should be applied, readinginstruction needs to be integrated acrossthe curriculum. You will want to buildbackground knowledge of concepts, top-ics or themes by using hands on experi-ences and engaging students in relevantconversations. Try using technology, likevideotapes, laser disks or CD-ROM soft-ware to support these efforts.

Continuous assesment

Instructional modifications

Elaborated feedback

Responsive instruction includes:

how effectively and efficiently they areusing reading strategies before, duringand after reading a passage.

Based on this information you canchange your techniques, activities ormaterials for students who have specificstrengths and weaknesses in any of theseareas. It is also crucial in responsiveinstruction to provide students with thekind of feedback they can use to makechanges. They have to know not only howwell they are doing with a particular con-cept, skill or strategy, but also what to doto improve their performance.Systematic instruction is structured, con-

nected, scaffolded, and informative. Structured lessons require careful plan-

ning and organization. New knowledgeand skills are chunked, that is, groupedtogether in meaningful segments, andpresented in a way to make connectionsclear. Students are shown how what theyare learning relates to what they havealready learned, and what they will belearning in the future.

Connected learning also helps studentsrealize how they can use what they arelearning in settings beyond the classroom. Another part of systematic instruction is

scaffolded instruction, which is a way ofteaching in which the teacher provides asignificant amount of support to students,in the form of modeling, prompts, directexplanations, and targeted questions earlyin the learning process. Then, as studentsbegin to acquire mastery of the targetedobjectives, direct teacher supports arereduced and the major responsibility forlearning is transferred to thestudent.Scaffolded instruction in reading

comprehension may be needed to acquirebackground information and vocabularyfor topics students will be reading aboutand to master the reading comprehensionstrategies they will need to use routinely.For instance, teachers should start model-ing the use of reading strategies and pro-vide guided practice opportunities, thenstep back to allow students to practiceindependently.Informative instruction, as an element of

systematic instruction, empowers stu-dents by making them partners in thelearning process. Teachers who useinformative instruction explain the pur-poses and expected outcomes for differ-ent learning activities. They also help stu-dents identify when and why they shoulduse different reading and learning strate-gies. Through informative instruction,students begin to think about and takeownership of their roles as self-directedlearners.

Intensive instruction means providingsufficient time for direct instruction andfor students to master the reading skillsand strategies they need. Intensiveinstruction also requires making sure thateach instructional moment is used wiselyand that students are actively engaged inlearning rather than passively watching orlistening to others.

Structured

Connected

Scaffolded

Informative

Systematic instruction is:

You may recognize that some studentsmay need more time to work on vocabu-lary development than others. Some mayneed more emphasis on inferential com-prehension, while others may still needwork on literal comprehension. Each ofthese goals can be accomplished througha combination of flexible groupings ofstudents and individual work.

The third effective teaching principle isto engage students in authentic reading atall stages of literacy acquisition.Authentic reading involves a variety of"real" reading materials, such as books,magazines and newspapers, as opposed toworksheets about reading. Although stu-dents with reading disabilities benefitfrom systematic instruction and oftenneed practice on certain skills and strate-gies, such work should not be at the costof opportunities for authentic reading. Itis difficult to tackle many importantaspects of reading comprehension with-out reading meaningful text. Also, if read-ing is only "drill and kill" you may inad-vertently destroy students' desire to learnto read, especially if they fail to see howlearning these elements of reading canhelp them have more access to materialsthey may be motivated to read.

The fourth principle of effective teach-ing is to encourage students to read forpleasure and provide ample materials attheir independent reading levels to do so.For many students with reading disabili-ties, reading is such a tedious process thatthey learn to dread it. We know that stu-dents who struggle with reading don'tread as often or as much as their peers.Reading for enjoyment should be mod-eled and encouraged at all grade levels.Encourage students to read lots of booksand materials at their independent readinglevel. Have ample selections from whichthey can choose.

The fifth principle is to collaborate withother professionals and share the respon-sibility for student success. Depending onyour role in the school, and the grades orsubjects you teach, you will have either aprimary role or a supportive role in teach-ing students to read. All classroom teach-ers who expect students to learn the con-tent of their classes need to be teachingreading. For intensive, specialized read-ing instruction, the type and extent ofresources that are allocated will deter-mine the availability of support.

Sufficient instructional time

High engagement

Intensive instruction is:

Let’s review what you’ve learned fromthis resource material. Reading is a verycomplex task that takes years to master.Likewise, learning to teach students tobecome independent, self-initiating read-ers is crucial to their success as adults.There are three basic patterns of readingdisabilities adversely affecting readingcomprehension, with other problemsmaking matters worse for students withreading disabilities. These problemsinclude Matthew effects, lack of motiva-tion, inappropriate or inconsiderate texts,and incompatible instruction. In addition,you learned five basic principles for pro-viding effective comprehension instruc-tion: teaching comprehension skills andstrategies explicitly; providing respon-sive, systematic, and intensive readinginstruction; engaging students in authen-tic reading; encouraging students to readfor pleasure by providing ample materialsat their independent reading levels; andfinally, collaborating with other profes-sionals to share the responsibility for stu-dent success.

By now you should be able to answerthese questions with specific examples:

1. Why is it important to teach com-prehension in addition to decoding?2. What types of reading comprehen-sion difficulties might individuals withlearning disabilities exhibit?3. What effective principles should beconsidered when teaching reading com-prehension to individuals with learningdisabilities?

Now that you know key informationabout reading comprehension for studentswith disabilities you are ready to learnmore about how strategic instruction canbe used effectively to enhance readingcomprehension. You’ll want to check outthe section of the Resource Notebookentitled, “Introduction to StrategicInstruction.”

Review