Reading Comprehension Problems
Reading Comprehension Problems: There is reliable evidence that reading comprehension difficulty occurs frequently in children who
are actually good decoders and spellers. The breakdown in reading comprehension can occur for any number of reasons,
several of which are detailed below.
It's important to understand that for a child to adequately comprehend an author's written message it requires them to be able to
analyze and sort through multiple layers of text meaning.
For simplicity's sake I've broken those layers down to four separate processes.
First, to properly comprehend a written passage a child must be able to decode
the words on the page.
Second, the child needs to hold the information in working memory long enough for the information
to be more extensively processed.
Third, the child must have adequate vocabulary, grammar and syntactical skills to organize
and interpret the written message efficiently.
Fourth, the child needs to access higher order thinking skills to process
the written message and go beyond the surface layer of the text and infer possible meaning.
If a breakdown occurs in one or more of these steps then the child may fail to grasp the meaning of the text, which often results
in reading comprehension problems and failure.
Let's look at these processes in more detail...
Working memory can be thought of as a mental workspace where new information is held briefly before being transferred to
higher level language and executive functions. Reading comprehension tasks can place enormous strain on a child's working
memory capacity, particularly if the child has poor language skills. For more information about working memory please follow this
Deficits in language ability, particularly receptive language, can significantly compound students' reading comprehension problems. These are the students who on testing don't present with language disorder but have low abilities in key language areas, such as
and, perhaps most importantly,
To explore one example, problems with understanding syntactical rules can result in students not understanding the difference between
sentences, which can result in confusion in understanding the author's intended meaning. This is certainly the case in non fiction text where authors, who write history and science texts, use
complex and compound-complex sentences routinely to communicate more detailed and elaborate ideas.
But complex sentence use is not restricted to non-fiction text. Let's look at the following passage from Herbert & Harry by popular children's
author, Pamela Allen. The story, Herbert & Harry is a grade 2-3 level text.
'Át last Herbert lay down to sleep. But even though it was very dark, and he was very tired, he could not sleep.'
The second sentence
contains a compound-complex structure, which in my experience, some students find difficult to comprehend when they read it.
When asked questions about this passage, some students fail to recognize that it's 'very dark' or that 'Herbert is tired.'
Certainly, the context of the story helps with comprehension in that we know Herbert is tired, and on the run from his brother. But, when read in isolation, and without context the students' understanding of this particular sentence tends to unravel.
Why does this occur?
I believe, in this instance, that reading comprehension failure is caused by the complexity of the passage and its
intricate construction. The clause 'he could not sleep,'is preceded by the subordinate clause, 'But even though it was very dark,'
the coordinating conjunction 'and,' and the main clause, 'he was very tired.'
As we can see, the construction of this particular sentence could quickly overload a student's working memory capacity and
syntactical understanding. Even if the student had only a mild deficit in working memory and reasonable understanding of syntax.
Pamela Allen, and other authors who write for this age group, construct their passages with, at times,
quite complex passages. To my mind, reading comprehension problems often occur because of students' lack of experience and knowledge with
This is an area that perhaps requires extra research and more targeted intervention.
Research indicates that children with reading comprehension problems have poor inference skills. To infer what's happening in a story is a vital
cognitive skill. It enables the reader to go beyond surface meaning of a text and to go deep and discover the author's concealed meaning.
Of course, in children's fiction not everything on the page is concrete and literal. An important part of reading and comprehending fiction is to infer
from what the author doesn't
say, but hints
Children with poor comprehension skills don't 'read between the lines'
well. Poor inferencing skills could result from poor
background knowledge, weak vocabulary and semantic word knowledge, and incomplete knowledge of
For more information about inferencing
please follow this
To read more about vocabulary knowledge and comprehension
follow this link
Allan, P. (1986) Herbert and Harry, Puffin Books
Gathercole, S.E. & Alloway, T.P. (2008) Working Memory and Learning: A Practical Guide for Teachers
Sage Publications, Ltd
Paul, R. (2006) Language Disoders form Infancy through Adolescence. Assessment and Intervention. Mosby
Wallach, G.P. (2008) Language Intervention for School-Age Students: Setting Goals for Academic Success. Mosby Elsevier
Wagner, R.K. Muse, A.E. & Tannenbaum, K.R. (2007) Vocabulary Acquisition: Implications for Reading Comprehension. The Guilford Press
Wolf, M. (2008) Proust and the Squid. The Story and Science of the Reading Brain Icon Books Ltd.
Content Last Modified 8/11
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