Principles in Teaching Reading Comprehension and Assessment of Reading

Abstract

The reading activity contains one or more goals or tasks, some text-processing actions, and the activities’ results, all of which take place in a particular setting. As the reader reads, the activity’s original goal may evolve. In other words, the reader could come across knowledge that prompts additional inquiries and renders the initial goal inadequate or unnecessary. Decoding the text, more complex linguistic and semantic processing, and self-monitoring for understanding are all steps in the text processing process, and they all depend on the reader’s talents as well as on the different text aspects. For educators, the long-term benefits of reading—improving reading comprehension skills, expanding knowledge, and engaging with the text—are most directly relevant. Determining the teaching strategies that result in sustained gains in students’ understanding abilities and, as a result, fostering learning across subject areas should be one of the nation’s top goals.