This understanding is important for educators when teaching students to comprehend what they are reading.
Research shows that this issue is much more complicated than it seems. Facile definitions coupled with the complicated nature of reading comprehension is what keeps us from understanding it fully, and from teaching it as well as we can.
In a random sample of teachers that I work with, they were asked, "As a teacher, what is your understanding of what reading comprehension is?- The responses varied from:.
The ability to read a passage and grasp it's meaning and then reiterate it to others.
Using text as a medium of thought, where meaningful information is extracted on ever-increasing levels.
The understanding of the idea, moral, concept and theme of a book. Sequence parts of the story where significant details are recalled.
Ability to discuss what has been read.
It is the ability of students to understand the content read by recognizing the main ideas and concepts in the text. Reading comprehension can be demonstrated through oral retelling, relating to what is read by making connections to one's own experiences.
From these understandings of reading comprehension by teachers they all agree that reading comprehension is about getting meaning from text but vary in there definition of text. One teacher made the connection with comprehension defined earlier, as using text as a medium of thought and connecting it with active thinking. In discussing with teachers what they had written teachers had a good understanding of what reading comprehension is but these understandings varied form specific to general. .
Reading Comprehension Research and Its Connection to the Classroom.
In 1978, Delores Durkin published a landmark study, showing that there was little reading comprehension instruction happening in most classrooms. What little that was occurring was "mentioning- rather than teaching.