The Six Thinking Moves That Matter Most For Comprehending Text

When I began my doctoral studies, I was determined to find “The Answer” for how young readers could become strategic self-regulated readers who could comprehend any text put in front of them. At the time, there was a lot of buzz about comprehension strategy instruction. I jumped in reading every research article I could find about comprehension strategy instruction. I initiated my own research studies in schools where the principals were classmates in my doctoral cohort.

Three years later, I began a lengthy research study exploring comprehension strategy instruction as the final requirement to receive my doctorate. Although my work did lead to some statistically significant findings (a rare occurrence in human research), I was left not with the conclusive answers but rather I was left with more questions.

As a result I continue to search for answers with the children I tutor. I’ve learn a lot about how the brain processes information leading to meaning making, and in this article I present the six strategic actions that really stand out to me. Parents can leverage these strategic moves that proficient readers constantly make to support their children’s reading comprehension.

1. Activate Prior Knowledge. I expect kids that I tutor to search for clues and think about the clues before they begin reading and during reading. Actions such as reading the title, heading, blurs, taking a walk through the texts noticing key or repeat vocabulary, illustrations, charts, etc. all help activate prior knowledge. This work also helps the reader know that they may need more background to fully comprehend the text that leads to building new background knowledge.
2. Monitor Understanding. Too many kids read on when the text isn’t making sense. Teach your child to chunk the text into paragraphs or phrases asking themselves if the text is making sense.
3. Text Structures. Teach readers to notice and utilize the patterns and features of a text that show relationships throughout the text. Explain that narrative text has a rather consistent structure – a character has a problem or wants something, events describe the character’s actions for finding a solution. Notice the characters feeling and relationships and any changes that may occur. Much is not directly stated by the author about the character’s behaviors, feeling, interactions but are instead implied or shown through the words on the page. For expository text, I teach kids to convert heading to the questions listed in 4 below. Doing such helps identify the key ideas and facts.
4. Interrogate the Text. I tutor kids to ask and find answers to Who, What, Where, When, Why, and How questions as they read to build knowledge as they read.
5. Fill-in What the Author Doesn’t State Directly. Pay attention to what the author is not saying and make an inference.
6. Stop to Summarize. Show your child how you stop periodically to summarize and think about what you read.

Although this is not a comprehensive list of thinking moves, these six have shown to provide the most mileage for making sense of text.