5 Strategies Involved In Reading Comprehension
Many children have difficulty understanding what they read. This happens because, although they have the ability to recognize and decode the different letters of words and understand that they have their own meaning, they have not yet acquired the competence to semantically analyze the information read, trying to understand what the text conveys.
Thus, the mistake that these little ones make is not applying the five strategies involved in reading comprehension. Do you want to know what they are? In this article we explain in detail what each of them consists of.
5 strategies involved in reading comprehension
According to Ramón Almela Pérez, Ginés Lozano Jaén and María Teresa Caro Valverde, professors at the University of Murcia, there are five didactic strategies involved in the process of reading comprehension.
These strategies, when they are already assimilated, are carried out automatically and unconsciously. But these do not develop innately, so they have to be taught to children little by little.
1. Use cues from the text to guide reading comprehension
All texts have a specific form, that is, they are structured and organized in a certain way. This is the first thing we visualize before we start reading.
For this reason, it is important to pay attention to and observe the visual cues that the text provides (number of paragraphs, typeface, titles, hyphens, sections, etc.), using them as an aid to guide reading comprehension.
2. Become aware of understanding
This strategy consists of self-evaluating one’s ability to read and understand a text, becoming aware of the difficulties one has and acting, if necessary, to solve them.
In this sense, one of the biggest mistakes children make is doing an automatic reading, without understanding what they are reading. To help them in this aspect, it is convenient to ask them questions that are related to the understanding of the text, providing feedback so that they can learn from their mistakes.
3. Set a reading goal, one of the strategies involved in reading comprehension
It is about specifying what is the reason why the reading is done. Some of the most common reasons are:
- For pleasure.
- Search for a specific piece of information.
- Get an opinion.
- Know new information on a topic.
- Memorize the information.
This objective must be taken into account when reading and trying to understand a text correctly. Well, based on this, it will be decided whether to make a deep, selective, fast reading …
Four. Focus attention and synthesize information
To be able to focus on the text and focus attention on reading and understanding it, it is advisable to use strategies that facilitate this action, such as asking questions about reading, relating the content to previous knowledge on the subject, using the underlining technique, etc.
In addition, to increase concentration, summaries, diagrams or mental maps can also be prepared, which allow the information to be organized and synthesized for better understanding. This is often especially useful when trying to memorize and assimilate such information.
5. Check the hypotheses with respect to the text
The last strategy involved in reading comprehension is to verify hypotheses regarding a text. So, as you read, you check whether the ideas presented are consistent with your knowledge and with the logic of the situation and the topic.
