A comprehension intervention for children with reading comprehension difficulties

Gary Woolley
Recipient of the 2006 LDA Tertiary Student Award

Abstract

Many students in Australian schools today experience difficulty understanding read text beyond Year 3 despite early intervention and rich learning experiences. Often the first indications that such students may have reading comprehension diffi culties is from poor performance in comprehension tests in fourth grade. After Year 3 the written text becomes more complex and there is an increasing emphasis on reading comprehension. Less skilled comprehenders experience difficulties because they often use inefficient memory strategies and do not normally visualise story content. Readers with comprehension difficulties can be taught to construct mental imagery that will enable them to link verbal and imaginal information more efficiently into their working memory by reducing the cognitive load. The indications are that engaging readers in elaborative questioning and discussion of the text improves reader’s own language and mental imagery as well as enhancing comprehension of read text. For readers who have struggled for years and have developed a resistance to reading, a literacy tutoring intervention framework that focuses on a personalised responsive relationship-based approach to reading, combined with interesting text and student choice of appropriate material, can facilitate improved reading. The Comprehension of the Narrative intervention program is an example of a multiple strategy training intervention program that utilises explicit strategy instruction in a framework of measured stages while also increasing the level and complexity of the reading texts used. It has been shown that participating students are enabled to build on previously mastered skills and develop more effective higher order comprehension outcomes through focused dialogue with trained tutors.