Reading Difficulties
and Reading Comprehension
Daniel J. Barnes
Wilmington University
Abstract
The article
I chose to review is titled A Cognitive
View of Reading Comprehension: Implications for Reading Difficulties,
written by a professor at the University of Minnesota and three professors at
Leiden University. The article focuses on reading comprehension in children and
adolescents, specifically offering practical implications for children with
reading difficulties. The aim is to use research findings to improve our
understanding of difficulties that children have in reading, and to help
improve the skills of struggling readers. This understanding can not only help
teachers and reading specialists understand the problems that their students
are facing, but it is also important information that parents can use to help
their child at home to become a better, more proficient reader.
Reading
comprehension is defined as “understanding, using, reflecting on and engaging
with written texts, in order to achieve one’s goals, to develop one’s knowledge
and potential, and to participate in society” (OECD, 1999, p. 22). It is
essential for children and adolescents to learn reading comprehension skills at
an early age, and to continue to develop those skills into adulthood. When we
read, many cognitive processes are at work to enable us to decode the text,
make sense of what we are reading, and to ultimately store the information into
our working memory. Deficits or breakdowns in one or more of these cognitive
processes dramatically impacts one’s reading comprehension ability. By
understanding the cognitive processes associated that occur when we read, we
can begin to address the specific difficulties that children encounter when
reading. Educators can then effectively provide instruction, support, and
instructional materials that can help to improve a child’s overall reading
ability.
To read a
sentence, one must visually process the individual words, identify and access their
phonological, orthographic, and semantic representations, and connect these
representations to form an understanding of the underlying meaning of the
sentence (Kendeou, van den Broek, Helder, & Karlsson, 2014, p. 10).
Proficient readers decode and process the words automatically while working to
comprehend the text as a whole, while also making a mental representation of
the text. For example, while reading a Harry Potter novel, a proficient reader
will visualize everything they read to make a mental image of the important
elements of the story such as characters, settings, themes, and main ideas. A
child with one or more difficulties in reading will struggle to comprehend the
text, instead spending intense amounts of cognitive energy on decoding the words
and following the sentences. The differences in reading comprehension for each
of these children will differ vastly.
The
cognitive processes of reading comprehension routinely fall into two
categories: lower level processes and higher level processes (Kendeou et al.,
2014, p. 11). Lower level processes can be summed up as translating words into
a larger meaningful unit such as a sentence or paragraph. Comprehension at this
level depends heavily on decoding, reading fluency, and vocabulary knowledge. In
early childhood, these skills are continuing to be developed until they become
automated, however deficiencies in these skills can make any text seem
impossible to a student, resulting in frustration and disengagement. Higher
level processes involve combining the larger units into a meaningful and
coherent mental representation of the text, and become automated more slowly
from early childhood into adulthood (Kendeou et al., 2014, p. 11). Deficiencies
in the higher level processes fall into three main categories: inference
making, executive function, and attention-allocation abilities.
Inference
making is a critical skill, and is one of the essential skills a reader must
have to become proficient and increase reading comprehension ability. I have
been in two classrooms over the course of my clinical experiences at Wilmington
University. The first classroom I observed was a third grade elementary
classroom, and the other I am currently placed in is a sixth grade middle
school classroom. In both classrooms, posters and materials that reference
inference making are visible and readily available. I have had the opportunity
to work with children during a reading rotation at the elementary level, and
have witnessed the differences in inference making skills between the students.
Some students were quick to offer their thoughts on what they think will happen
next in the story, while others struggled to use context clues and past events
in the story to form an opinion as to what may happen next. A critical skill in
inference making is being able to make connections such as text to text and
text to self connections. As a student teacher, I try to help the students make
these connections through the use of stories and examples that they are
familiar with. This helps to connect the concept or idea into something that
they already know or have experienced. The learning is therefore more likely to
be meaningful and retained.
The second
higher level process that needs to be discussed in relation to reading
comprehension are executive functions. The important executive functions are
working memory and inhibition. Working memory enables the reader to maintain
information while processing incoming information (Kendeou et al, 2014, p. 12).
During my Practicum II experience at Woodbridge Elementary, I worked one on one
with a student numerous times to conduct DIBELS reading inventories, as well as
to observe independent reading and conduct guided reading with this student.
One thing I found was that this student had difficulty processing and decoding
text that he was not familiar with or did not have interest in. When he read
text in which the relevant vocabulary was unfamiliar to him, all of his focus
and attention was spent trying to perfect the reading of each word, and he was
unable to recall anything but superficial details at the end of the story. However,
when this child read grade level text about his favorite sport of baseball, he
could recall detailed information such as plot, setting, and characters.
Instead of becoming frustrated that the child only liked to read books about
baseball, the teacher encouraged him to continue reading the books he wanted to
so that he could continue to develop his reading comprehension skills for when
he does shift to other forms of text including complex academic text.
Inhibition
is also an important executive function in that it allows a reader to maintain
in active memory the most important information while being able to inhibit
less important information (Kendeou et al, 2014, p. 13). I would venture to say
that this is evident in just about every classroom in the country, and at all
levels. When reading text, students of all ages will often try to remember
every detail of what they have read, even the irrelevant details. When asked to
summarize a chapter, article, or story, minor details will often be recalled
while important details are forgotten or left out. During my Practicum II
experience myself and the teacher would often read a passage to the students
and ask them questions about what they could remember. Many students would
remember the main character’s name, but would also give irrelevant details such
as the color of his shirt, instead of providing us with the information of what
happened to him at certain points in the story. Children with poor reading
comprehension skills struggle with eliminating information that is not
relevant.
The final
higher level process that is important in understanding reading comprehension
relates to attention allocation. Simply stated, this refers to the ability to
focus on central aspects of the text while not becoming distracted by the minor
details. This goes hand in hand with executive functions, and is something that
I have witnessed a lot over my short amount of time in classrooms. Although I consider
myself a proficient and effective reader, I know that at times I often finish a
passage and ask myself what I just read and can only recall facts instead of
the main idea. I then have to re-read the text while focusing on only the
details that are central to understanding the main elements of the story. This
is something that my cooperating teacher and I have already discussed doing in
our classroom over the course of my clinical experience. Reading strategies
continue to be important during the middle school years, and we feel that our
two TAM classes could greatly benefit from additional instruction on reading
strategies including a focus on reading comprehension. I look forward to
learning more about how to accomplish this while working with the students to
increase their reading skills and encouraging them to become lifelong readers.
The article
also offers suggestions on how to address specific difficulties in reading
comprehension. Using non-written media such as oral or televised stories is one
way to teach children to make inferences about protagonists’ goals, actions,
emotions and story themes (Kendeou et al, 2014, p. 13). One thing that I am
excited to work with this year is the Inference Making Game that my cooperating
teacher has in her classroom for the students to play at times throughout the
year. Although I am unfamiliar with the game, it is hopefully something that
can increase the students’ abilities in this area. To address attention
allocation, a teacher can prompt the students at times throughout a story to
discuss things such as main idea and plot. This will keep them focused on the
central aspects of the story and not the irrelevant details. Finally, providing
students with background knowledge prior to reading a passage, story, or novel,
can enhance the experience the students have with the text. Connections will be
able to made, and mental representations will be more readily available to the
students.
Reading
comprehension is a crucial ability and skill that students and adults alike
should strive to continue to increase. Whether reading a story for pleasure or
for school, or reading academic information for school or work, a reader with
effective reading comprehension skills will be able to access more of the text
than a student who has difficulties in one or more of the cognitive processes
involved when reading. I was a struggling reader in my elementary education
years, but a teacher helped me to find books that I became interested in.
Although I only read choose your own adventure books for a while, I eventually
began to broaden my horizons and choose text that was more complex and focused
on different genres. I feel the same way about reading as that teacher showed
for me. For many students it isn’t so much what they are reading just as long
as they are reading. Developing a passion for reading even one style of writing
will lead to increases in reading ability for all forms of text. In the
classroom I hope to instill in my students the same love of reading that I
have.
References
Kendeou, P., van den Broek, P., Helder, A. and Karlsson, J. (2014), A
Cognitive View of Reading Comprehension: Implications for Reading Difficulties.
Learning Disabilities Research & Practice, 29: 10–16.
doi: 10.1111/ldrp.12025
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD). (1999). Measuring
student knowledge and skills: A new framework for assessment. Paris.
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