Duke, N. K., Ward, A. E., & Pearson, P. D. (2021). The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction. The Reading Teacher, 74(6), 663–672.
Duke, N. K., Ward, A. E., & Pearson, P. D. (2021). The Science of Reading Comprehension Instruction. The Reading Teacher, 74(6), 663–672.
Literacy Across the Curriculum 
Synergy is a word I recall hearing before, but I do not exactly remember the meaning behind it. (pg.664). According to Oxford Learners Dictionaries.com, synergy is, “the extra energy, power, success, etc. that is achieved by two or more people, companies or elements working together, instead of on their own.” To help benefit a child’s reading, it is important to consider help from outside sources who can provide other information to help a child’s success. There are always resources available and other cooperations such as tutors are one of them.
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Scientific research has shown that motivation for reading is another important determinant of reading comprehension, one that we ignore at our peril” (699). When I was in kindergarten, I specifically remember that I had difficulty reading. I could not seem to understand how to read words very well and it was a struggle for me, but I remember I was so motivated to learn how to read because I wanted to learn how to. As I got older, I began to read more and become more motivated with reading. In 5th and 6th grade, I remember I loved to read and I was extremely motivated to read whenever I could. Because of this, I was able to comprehend everything I was reading and that caused me to want to read more. As I got older throughout high school and college, I developed a deeper love for reading. I do not read books much in my free time, but when I do, I am motivated to do so, and I notice that I comprehend much of what I am reading. When I am given reading assignments in school, sometimes they may be boring and that causes me to dread reading what I am assigned to read, but I have found that when I am motivated to read even those boring readings, I want to keep going and I am able to understand everything I read better this way. Reading is such a crucial skill to have in life. Without it, it is difficult to do pretty much anything. Learning how to be motivated with reading has caused me to build on my comprehension skills. It is important not to ignore building a tolerance to be motivated to read because that motivated tolerance that can be built can help you become a confident reader and it can expand comprehension skills to a large extent.
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A good quote to take away from the article that supports the reason why comprehension instruction should begin early in school is, “along with the development of phonological awareness, print concepts, and alphabet knowledge, young learners in preschool
and early elementary school benefit from efforts to
develop oral language comprehension, including
efforts to develop oral comprehension of written language (i.e., through read-alouds; e.g., Cervetti, 2020;
Swanson et al., 2011). This idea is important for educators to consider when teaching their young students because oral language comprehension is critical to helping students build on their reading skills. When I read, I sometimes read out loud which I have found to help me better understand what I am reading. When I do not understand what I am reading, I say out loud the words I am reading and visualize the picture of it in my head. This way helps me to feel less confused with what I am reading, and I am able to comprehend the main ideas better. As a future childhood educator, I want to engage my students in oral language with the readings I assign to them. I plan to give them small stories and have them read out loud together in groups and individually. I think it would be a great idea to have them visualize the story and explain it to each other. After they visualize and create explanations among each other, I think it would be beneficial to have them draw what they visualize from the story. I believe having young students draw on paper what they see in their heads from readings helps them to comprehend better because they are taking action in forming realistic thoughts and expressing them with artistic abilities which I find to be engaging for young students.
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“little research has focused on the impact of content instruction on reading comprehension”(667). This surprises me immensely. Especially with my new found learning of how prior knowledge has a huge effect on reading comprehension it’s hard to believe that content instruction hasn’t been studied more. Professors and teachers are supposed to be the experts on their given subject matter. On top of that I believe teachers and professors much show passion for what they are teaching.
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“Word reading is a necessary, although not sufficient, condition for reading comprehension”(664). This is a very interesting way to look at learning. You could technically read an entire book and not know what a single word or sentence means. It puts a whole new spin on what reading to learn actually means. With that being said, I don’t know if I can fully agree with this statement. If you don’t know how a word is defined what do you do? You look it up and you read the definition. So yes, I do agree that a single single statement can’t always be comprehended but it is more reading that leads to the comprehension.
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“Purpose is shaped by many facets of the context in which one is reading”(666). This quote really stuck out to me. It brings me back to my early days of college where I didn’t have much of a passion for school and the readings that came along with it. Needless to say, my grades payed the price. With that being said, I’ve always enjoyed reading, that is the readings I would choose. When you are reading something you truly enjoy learning about of course it’s going to stick to your brain more. I’ve always believed in that. However, over the past year I’ve found a different method of getting me through school reading assignments. One I never realized existed. Motivation. As I see my end goal now in sight it gives me that drive to stay strong through my readings even if it’s something I don’t necessarily find interesting. It’s motivation that allows me to bear down and find that passion within school. I’m thankful for this article in allowing me to realize that.
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Emma Janas writes:
Page 666 says, “Reading comprehension is very much affected by what one is reading and the purpose for which one is reading it”.
This quote got me thinking a lot about my future as an educator and how I will teach my students the importance of figuring out the purpose of a reading, and also how I will teach them the difference between reading an educational book or reading for their own pleasure. After I read this quote and paragraph, I got to thinking how will I make my students interested in the purpose of a reading? So then I came up with the idea of every time I give them a story or article to read, I will have them read the first sentence or paragraph and then write down what they predict the purpose of the story will be right then. Then, after they read it they can figure out for themselves if their idea was right or now. I came up with this idea as a way to make reading more fun and interesting for them. I think that if you read something without looking for what the purpose of the reading is, that is just a waste of time and you are not truly comprehending the knowledge that you are supposed to be taking in.
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Just posted my comment about the same section David. Although interestingly enough viewed it from the other end of the scope as a student vs a teacher. It’s a great point you bring up in creating purpose for your students. It’s honestly something I’ve never had a teacher/professor create in me. I believe when a teacher is passionate and a student is eager to succeed in the classroom and life that connection will be easy. If one of those two things are missing then I believe it will be much more difficult.
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I like the ideas you came up with for your future students based on the quote you took from the article. In my opinion, I agree that reading comprehension is certainly affected by what an individual is reading and what the purpose may be for why the individual is reading it. I think it is beneficial that you are considering having your future students read the first paragraph or sentence of an assigned story or article, and then have them write down what they believe the purpose of the story is. This is a great fun and interesting way to really understand your student’s comprehension skills. I think this idea of yours will help to engage your students in the purpose of their readings. I agree with you that if someone reads something and does not look for the purpose within it, then it is simply just time being wasted and nothing will be gained from it.
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“Scientific research has shown that motivation for reading is another important determinate of reading comprehension, one that we ignore at our peril” (pg. 669 para. 2)
This really stood out to me because while I can understand why motivation to read is so important to successful reading comprehension, how can we teach or motivate young readers or really any readers to want to read the text? From personal experiences I do understand texts way better when I am engaged and motivated to read but, it’s hard to get myself there. I know that from a young age I have always disliked reading, even if it was a book we got to pick if it was for school I was not motivated. I wonder if has a future teacher there is a positive way to encourage reading to kinda of get rid of the bad rep it has in schools.
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Metacognition (pg.667 para. 3)- Awareness or understanding of one’s own thought processes.
I have heard this word used many times and even in a few of my psychology classes. I kinda understood what it meant in some context but I was curious to know more about it. This is relevant to our readings because it is important to be able to identify strengths in our writing, reading comprehension, and even connecting the texts we read to our own ideas. I know I have been asked many times to self reflect on assignments or even taken surveys before classes on my personal strengths and weaknesses, this was beneficial because it put personal goals into perspective. So metacognition is very important to becoming a better reader.
Leah Percassi Young
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I agree with this. Learning to think about one’s own thinking is the only effective way to improve literacy and reading comprehension. I have also learned about metacognition in psychology classes, but never in the context of education. I would argue that metacognition is just as important, if not more important, in education as it is in psychology. Reading comprehension and literacy are not something that you learn and then move on from, but something that should constantly be studied and metacognition plays into the process of identifying what we do and don’t know and what to focus on next.
Ella Fisher
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“Developing foundational word-reading skills, phonological awareness, print awareness, phonics, and word recognition instruction- is critical to developing reading comprehension.” (pg. 664 para. 4)
This really stuck out to me because I feel like this will be really useful information has a future elementary school teacher. Working with younger kids I will never really be working with super complex texts. I should focus more on the basics of reading skills. Teaching kids how to sound out words and correlate the sounds together, or even start to introduce kids too patterns within the books that they read. So in the future I can be sure to really take the time with students and help them learn the phonics and word recognition early on to hopefully improve reading levels later on in schooling.
Leah Percassi Young
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I think it is really important that you noticed this as a primary focus for teaching elementary school. Since I want to be a high school teacher, this statement has different implications for me. If I get a student who has trouble reading, has no appreciation for reading, or struggles to write a paper, I have somewhere to look back to. In order to understand a student’s skill level and how they got to the level they are at, I constantly have to be looking back at where they came from. For early childhood, this might look like considering where they are going. It seems like you have a good grasp of that concept.
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This is a great idea of yours that you have for your future students. Based on the quote you took from the article, I agree with you that helping young students in primary grades with the basics of reading skills by teaching them how to sound out words, putting the sounds of words together, and helping them with patterns in books will certainly help them become better and improved readers. As a future childhood educator,, I believe it is so important to help young students learn phonics and word recognition. Young students need to learn how to be phonologically and phonemically aware to acquire the basic reading skills that they will need.
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Word Definition P. 664: phonological- “relating to the system of contrastive relationships among the speech sounds that constitute the fundamental components of a language”
I believe I have heard the word phonological before, but never chose to look it up or find out what the actual meaning of it was. After seeing it listed in the article, I looked it up so that I could understand it in a literary context. I understand it in a better sense now, it allows for readers to be more aware when reading , and causes them to build upon their reading and comprehension skills in order to fully understand the basis and importance of an article or whatever what they are reading might be.
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“(1) Don’t teach strategies; build knowledge. (2) Don’t focus on comprehension; focus on word reading” (page 664).
This quote has an impact on me and my outlook on my future in teaching because it causes me to look at teaching in a new perspective, and it also allows me to open up my eyes in realizing that all students learn at a different pace and in different ways. Therefore, when I begin to teach children I need to be able to allow their knowledge to grow as human beings at their own pace and level and know that each individual student has different strategies that helps them to learn.
Emma Janas
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Definition of Knowledge: facts, information, and skills acquired by a person through experience or education; the theoretical or practical understanding of a subject.
Definition of Comprehension: the action or capability of understanding something.
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In fact, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis found
that motivational reading interventions, such as fostering reading interest through hands-on activities, offering choices, and providing process-oriented feedback, produced significant, positive effects on students’ reading motivations and reading comprehension (McBreen & Savage, 2020). Pg. 7 –
This passage also has large implications for my future as an educator. This has shown me that giving students a choice in what they read will help motivate them to retain the information. I can use this in the context of picking a specific genre for the class to read, and then letting each student individually choose a book from that genre to write about or report on. Motivational reading has a much better outcome than forced reading.
Ella Fisher
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“one’s purpose for reading also affects comprehension” Pg. 4-
This has a very large implication for me, as a future teacher, because I will be forced to think about how my students will learn best. From this paragraph, I have concluded that I have to let my students know the reason that they are assigned a certain text (whether it be online or printed). This will ensure that the student is focused on the text and builds comprehension. If a student doesn’t know why they have to do something, they are less likely to put effort and care into what they are reading.
Ella Fisher
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I agree with the point that you made at the end “if a student doesn’t know why they have to do something, they are less likely to put effort into it.” I experience this oftentimes in my classes still to this day. Many professors don’t give any sort of explanation or outline that allows the students to gain a general grasp on the reading. To me, professors who outline readings well are always noticeably great teachers. This makes sure the time spent reading is more fruitful.
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Word Definition Pg. 2: synergies – “the interaction or cooperation of two or more organizations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects.” (Oxford Languages)
I did not know the word synergies before reading this article. I think I had heard it in a science context, but never applied to literacy. It does make sense to me, though, that skills such as reading comprehension would work alongside other methods to produce a greater level of learning.
Ella Fisher
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