The Importance of Reading Comprehension

    I have been thinking a lot about the importance of reading comprehension lately.  I appreciate the way in which authors Reutzel and Cooter talk about comprehension.  The say that “Comprehension is a complex process . . . often viewed as "the essence of reading.” (2012, pg 259) I think this is a wonderful way to describe comprehension because it stresses its importance and what is really at the heart of reading, which is understanding.  In thinking about comprehension, my third grade buddy comes to mind.  Because she has difficulty decoding words , she often misreads words or skips over them entirely.  This brought to mind the Denney article that I was reading this past week .  In the article, One-minute fluency measures: Mixed messages in assessment and instruction, Deeney contends that, “Misreading critical words, or a large percentage of words, can derail comprehension.’’ (2010, pg 440)  For my third grade buddy, misreading important words proved to be a challenge for her by making the text difficult to understand.  For example, she read a short story about two boys who get lost in a jungle and can’t find their way home.  While lost, these two brothers encounter a bird whom they hope will help them find their way home.  When I asked my buddy a comprehension question about why the brothers needed help, she answered that they needed help because they had gotten lost while “hiking,” which she thought was strange because when people go hiking, they stay on a trail to avoid getting lost.  This answer puzzled me as it wasn’t hiking the brothers were doing in the jungle, but hunting.  When I listened back to the audio recording to complete my running record of her reading, I heard her read the words …”on a hiking trip” instead of reading the correct wording …”on a hunting trip.”  While the activity that the two brothers were engaged in when they became lost wasn’t a key detail in the story, it reminded me how easily mistakes like this can be made. 

       Unfortunately, my buddy encountered more difficulty with comprehension when she made a second comment in response to the  question about why the brothers needed help.  She added that the boys shouldn’t be lost because the jungle “wasn’t very big.”  This response surprised me and I asked her why she thought that the jungle wasn’t large.  She answered by saying that “it didn’t say so in the story.”  Again, when I went back and listened to the audio for my running record of her reading, I found the discrepancy.  Instead of reading the correct line “Jungles are enormous,” she read, “Jungles are important.”  By not decoding this one word correctly, and swapping the word “important” for “enormous,” it changed part of the meaning of the story for her.   This time the simple mistake she made had a large impact on her comprehension of the story.  She had difficulty fully understanding the story because she didn’t understand why the brothers would be lost in such a small area and therefore why they needed help in finding their way home.  This was a powerful connection for me, as it solidified the importance of reading comprehension and of going back and trying to find the cause of the break-down in understanding.  It also reminded me that as I continue to work in my main placement I will need to keep a close eye out for discrepancies so that I can support the student using fix-up strategies that can work to repair comprehension.

    ~ Christy