Glossary · Comprehension and language
What is reading comprehension?
Definition
Reading comprehension is understanding what you read: building a mental model of the text's meaning from the words, sentences and your own knowledge.
Comprehension is the goal of reading, and it depends on two things. The student has to read the words accurately and quickly enough, and has to understand the language and ideas once the words are read. Weakness in either one limits comprehension.
That's why comprehension problems have different causes in different students. One student can't decode the words. Another decodes well but doesn't know what levee or tributary means. A third reads every word but can't hold a long sentence together.
So “work on comprehension” isn't a plan on its own. The useful question is which part is breaking down. A student who understands the same text when it's read aloud to them has a word-reading problem, not a comprehension one.
In a lesson
A student reads a passage about volcanoes accurately but can't say what happened. Read the next paragraph aloud to them. If they understand it now, decoding speed is the issue.
Why does this matter for the record?
Record whether comprehension holds up when the text is read aloud. That one note separates a decoding problem from a language problem.
Rate each skill as you teach it
Needs support, Developing, Secure. The rating schedules the review and builds the report.