Factors that Influence Reading Comprehension

As a teacher at the SEA level I realise how crucial the ‘Comprehension’ section is to the student’s final mark. For those unaware, Comprehension accounts for forty out of the total, one hundred. Unfortunately, we sometimes do not concentrate on this area until the children reach to this level. Reading has been traditionally done as ‘Round Robin’ where children stand and recite passages for the class. Sometimes we are guilty of not making comprehension an important aspect of everyday lessons.
Children should not reach the Standard four level lacking the “four important factors influence reading comprehension:
• Command of the linguistic structure of the text,
(readers need to know how to decode text easily so that their cognitive energy is not drained)
• Adequate vocabulary in the content area,
(when a reader stops frequently to determine the meaning of a word , comprehension suffers)
• Degree of metacognitive control of the text, and
(readers must know how to self-monitor and reflect on their level of understanding during the act of reading)
• Adequate domain knowledge
(background knowledge helps us to connect to the text we are reading)”
We have to first overcome these challenges to positively influence children’s reading comprehension skills.

References:
Tankersley, K.,(2005).Literacy Strategies for Grades 4-12:Reinforcing the Threads of Reading. Alexandria, VA, Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.