Effective Strategies to Boost Reading Comprehension Skills

5 Universal reading strategies that can be used across grade levels with a variety of reading genres!  

In all of my years of teaching and coaching, if I heard it once, I heard it from teachers a thousand times - "How am I supposed to get everyone on grade level by the end of the year?" We've all complained at one time or another about varying reading levels in our room and the challenge it poses for using reading passages or teaching with novels.

The 5 Parts of Reading Are Key

Students that are reading below grade level could be struggling for a variety of reasons. English Language Learners are not the only ones that may be having a hard time mastering the five parts of reading that are key to reading proficiency. According to the National Reading Panel (2000), the Essential Components of Reading include:

Phonemic Awareness - recognizing and manipulating individual letter sounds in syllables and words

Phonics - making the connection between letters in written language and sound in spoken language to read and spell words

Reading Fluency - smooth reading flow with appropriate pace, intonation, and reading rate (speed)

Vocabulary - defining words in context while reading

Comprehension - the process of critically thinking about and understanding what is read through the use of various strategies

Struggling readers aren't doing EVERTHING wrong; they are likely having difficulty with one or two of the parts which impedes comprehension. Teachers have to be reading detectives to figure out which part is causing the problem and how it should be addressed, but we have to know what we're investigating! There are specific reading diagnostic tools (running records, letterbox lessons, DRA, questioning techniques, context clues, sound cards, and more) that can be used to determine which part needs the focus. Once the determination has been made, appropriate strategies can be implemented to correct the issue. You may think that some of these parts couldn't possibly be the issue for older students, but believe it or not, students at any age can struggle with ANY of the five if they have not been previously given enough explicit instruction and practice time for mastery!

"Teachers have to be reading detectives to figure out which part is causing the problem..."

 Comprehension is the Overall Goal of Reading

Now that you know a little more about the parts of reading, let's focus on the sum of all the parts - COMPREHENSION. When students are able to work confidently within each of the parts, comprehension of text follows. The better they are at the components, the better their comprehension as they continue to encounter increasingly complex text. That being said, students still need strategies to cognitively process what they are reading. Once they are working well with phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary and fluency, they need strategies to pull it all together to unlock the messages that authors are sending. Each of the components should be scaffolded/modeled through explicit instruction and then practiced with independent reading material.

Over the years, I have had the challenge of helping students do this while working with SEVERAL different skill levels in the same classroom. I have had numerous conversations with teachers about how to attack the problem of trying to use different materials and strategies simultaneously to address all the variations. Many times, we gave up and just taught to "the middle," in hopes that everyone would get something out of the lesson; it's like painting them all with the same broad stroke and hoping for a masterpiece! Students at the bottom and the top displayed unwanted behaviors of frustration or boredom making classroom management difficult to say the least!

"Thankfully, I figured out a few things that kept me from being driven completely crazy!"

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Through years of research, professional development, and trial and error, I have found a handful of reading strategies that can be used universally across grade levels and text complexities to boost reading comprehension. The key is the basic principles that are used to pull information from the text, so students of all ages can use them successfully. I used these in my classroom to provide students with several options they could use independently. With the four novel studies I did every year with my 6th graders, I taught a different reading comprehension strategy with each so that students would have a toolbox of go-to strategies to choose from going forward. These reading strategies are 5 of my favorites, and they work well for fiction or nonfiction!

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Basic Reading Principles

The basic principles I mentioned before are the elements that good readers use to make sense of the text - The good habits of great readers. When students are taught these "good habits," they can navigate their way through any text as the complexity increases. The effective strategies for reading comprehension that I use with my students rely on these habits which make them universal across grade levels.

Habit #1: Summarize - Determine the most important ideas in the passage or text with supporting details (textual evidence)

Habit #2: Infer - Use clues in the text combined with background knowledge to "read between the lines," to understand what is not explicitly written in the text

Habit #3: Question - Ask logical questions about the text; identify and clear up confusion while reading based on the content

Habit #4: Visualize - Create mental images of what is read based on sensory details and vivid descriptions used by the author

Habit #5: Connect - Use background knowledge to connect what is read to other texts, personal experiences, media, music, memes, internet, world events, etc. to better understand the text

Habit #6: Predict - Use clues from the text to make logical predictions about the text in general or what my happen next

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Armed with these good habits, students can use my favorite reading strategies to systematically improve comprehension of any text at any level. Whether you are in the classroom, teaching remotely, or homeschooling, these reading strategies are easy and effective. Click to download a free copy of my 5 Favorite Effective Strategies for Improved Reading Comprehension!

Use the Response to Literature

resource below to practice good reading habits

and boost reading comprehension

while independently reading!