READING COMPREHENSION TUTORING
Why Reading Comprehension is Crucial for Students
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Process and understand events, dialogue, ideas, and information
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Relate new information to previous knowledge or what they already know
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Adjust current knowledge in relation to new ideas or information and look at ideas in different ways or standpoints
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Identify and recall key points in a story or other reading material
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Understand hidden or underlying meanings (read between the lines)

How to Improve Reading Comprehension Skills
Comprehension begins as the student identifies the initial meaning from previewing a text or source material and builds as he or she continues to read. Once reading is done, a deeper understanding of the text is achieved by reviewing, rereading portions of the material, discussion, and reflection. Throughout this process, the reader also relates new information to his or her own experiences or current knowledge. Improving one’s comprehension skills can be done through the following strategies:
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Making connections or using background knowledge – Students relate new information with existing knowledge they acquired from their own experiences, other texts, and real-world events.
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Asking questions – Students ask themselves questions as they go through the text. This helps the reader process and summarize information and identify main ideas and underlying meanings.
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Visualizing – Creating mental images or “movies” of what they are reading to better understand events and situations in the text.
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Determining the importance of a text – This means that a student can differentiate between crucial and interesting information and fact and opinion; identify cause and effect, themes; compare and contrast ideas; determine problems and solutions; summarize; list steps in a process; and recall information that answer specific questions.
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Making inferences – Taking clues from the text and combining it with their background knowledge and identify underlying themes.
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Synthesizing – Integrating new information with existing knowledge to create original ideas or new perspectives.
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Predicting
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Think-alouds (monitoring comprehension)
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Constructing, revising and questioning meanings made while reading
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Determining the meanings of unfamiliar words and concepts
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Monitoring understanding and making adjustments as needed
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Using different approaches to specific genres of text
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Paying attention to characters and settings while reading narratives (e.g. understanding story and text structure)
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Constructing and revising summaries while reading expository text
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Using graphic and semantic organizers.
Visualizing and Verbalizing
Children who have difficulties with reading comprehension will have trouble understanding information they have just read. Visualizing and verbalizing help this process by teaching students to create pictures in their minds. Much like making a mini movie of the text they are reading to visualize the main idea. This is also known as concept imagery.
Read more about Brooklyn Letters’ reading comprehension and listening comprehension tutoring.
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