Teaching Beginning Reading Skill vs. Teaching Reading Comprehension

There are significant differences between teaching beginning reading skills and teaching reading for comprehension. Beginning reading skills include the basic skills needed in order to learn how to read. Students need to learn that letters represent sounds, sounds are blended to make words, and words come together to make sentences. Reading comprehension skills include the more complex strategies that lead to understanding what is read. Students need to learn that the ultimate reason for reading is comprehension and it takes development of specific strategies to successfully interact with text.

In teaching beginning reading skills to students with disabilities our ultimate goal is to equip them with the prerequisites that are necessary to engage and succeed in reading comprehension. It is important to be guided by the essential big ideas and match the students’ learning needs with the instruction. Coyne, Kame’enui, and Carnine (2011) reported that learning to read in the primary grades carry significant benefits for cognitive development and school success. The groundwork is laid for successfully engaging in a variety of texts. The big ideas that need to be taught are phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, and fluency. Deliberate and conspicuous strategies must be taught to help students become independent readers. This begins with choosing or developing adjusting the resources needed for teaching the specific skills. Scaffolding, connecting known skills with more complex skills, and providing ample review are also essential parts of the teaching process.

Teaching reading for content requires that the beginning reading skills be used to facilitate comprehension. Once students master the basic reading skills, they can be taught specialized strategies that will strengthen their reading comprehension abilities. Strategies should be taught to support readers before, during, and after reading. Some of the strategies that should be taught for use before reading are to review vocabulary words using mind mapping, identifying text structure, and making predictions about the theme after previewing the text. Some strategies for use during reading are questioning, identifying main ideas of paragraphs, and gauging comprehension to fix as needed (Berkeley, Scruggs, and Mastropieri, 2009). Finally, students should be taught strategies to use after reading as a part of good reading habits. These strategies include summarizing, retelling, and evaluating.

Each strategy should be taught explicitly by introducing the steps and scaffolding for retention. Offering opportunities for judicious review will solidify the strategies and help develop them as part of a repertoire of good reading habits. These reading instructional strategies were outlined in the study conducted by Graves, Brandon, Duesbery, McIntosh, and Pyle (2011), Using the criteria for research-based practices, it was determined that the strategies detailed in this study work to support students in becoming strategic, successful readers.

Coyne, M., Kame’enui, E., and Carnine, D. (2011). Effective teaching strategies that accommodate diverse learners. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.

Berkeley, S., Scruggs, T., and Mastropieri, M. (2010). Reading comprehension instruction for students with learning disabilities, 1995 – 2006: A meta-analysis. Hammill Institute on Disabilities. Retrieved from http://rse.sagepub.com/content/31/6/423

Graves, A., Brandon, R., Duesbery, L., McIntosh, A., and Pyle, N. (2011). The effects of tier 2 literacy instruction in sixth grade: Toward the development of a response-to-intervention model in middle school. Learning Disability Quarterly. 34(1), 73-86. Retrieved from http://web.ebscohost.com.ezp.waldenulibrary.org