Do your students ever struggle to make appropriate inferences or predictions from a story or passage they've just heard or read?

If so, not to worry, this is a high-level concept! And, we’re here to share our explicit teaching strategy to help students begin to “take leaps” with information by making inferences and predictions. Keep reading to learn more!

Do your students ever struggle to figure out the main idea of a story or passage they've just heard or read?

This is really common because it’s a tricky concept! And, we’re here to share our explicit teaching strategy to help students identify and produce a main idea. Check out the blog to learn more!

Do your students ever struggle to recall important information directly from a story or passage they've just heard or read?

If so, don’t worry, it's very common! And, we’re here to share our explicit teaching strategy to help students recall important information. Check out this blog to learn more!

You can't teach comprehension explicitly.

...at least, that's what we were told when we started in this field. 

After working with hundreds of students, we realized that comprehension can and should be taught explicitly.

...and that teaching it doesn't need to be as hard as we once believed. It just relies on us recognizing one important detail before we jump in. Click here to read more!

Now if you’re like us and you’re obsessed with the science of reading, you may already know that there is a very systematic and structure in which you can teach phonics to help give struggling and beginning readers the tools they need to be successful (and hey - no shame if not, you can check out our phonics blog too). But, did you know there is also really clear set of reading comprehension skills that students need to be successful comprehenders?!

So often, my students struggle with the main idea and key details because they are either WAY too broad, WAY too specific, or start talking in the longest run-on sentence trying to tell me every last detail about the passage they can squeeze in.

Recently, I have found that it has actually been a vocabulary activity that has allowed me to explicitly teach them how the ideas in the stories and passages we read come together to form the main idea and key details.

Today, we’re diving right into a pretty loaded topic! We wanted to start the conversation around what students need in order to effectively comprehend lessons in the classroom and what they need to be able to write effectively to demonstrate their knowledge.

Now obviously, this isn’t something we can fully communicate/solve in a single blog post. But … we do have a really good starting point! And, don’t worry, we also have some really good follow-up coming your way!

Just because a student’s decoding becomes more accurate and their fluency (reading speed & accuracy combined) improves does not mean that the child will magically understand everything they are reading. Read on to see how you can support reading comprehension skills for your students.

We are wrapping up the 5 Core Components of Literacy this week with the final component, arguably the most important component, comprehension!

The end goal of reading is obviously…

Reading Comprehension

So how do we make sure that students are able to effectively comprehend what they read?

There are a variety of reasons why students struggle to develop reading and writing skills, and many of these students need explicit instruction in foundational skills such as phonics for decoding and spelling, automatic fluent reading skills, and basic text structures.

All things change right...from having your little one on your lap to having a moody teenager that believes nothing you do is good or right. Well just as they change - the strategies we use to help them must also change. Unfortunately for many readers, especially struggling readers - the struggle to fly under the radar and just keep up in the classroom, came at the cost of actually developing strategies and supports that would help them really understand their reading.

Bed time stories can be such a treasured part of the family routine for young children. The ability to listen to stories and imagine and learn new words is truly magical. However, sometimes as parents, we may find ourselves going through the motions and missing out on some of the deeper level connections and meaning we could begin modeling for our children.

Here are a few strategies and things you can be thinking about as you are reading with your child. Keep in mind, you don't have to be presenting ALL of the strategies EVERY time you read. Pick and choose so it doesn't feel like it has become a school lesson :)

We know that comprehending what we read is the sole purpose of learning HOW to read. But surprisingly schools have placed a heavy emphasis on how quickly children read instead of how effectively they are comprehending the material they are reading. While your child may awe you with their oral language abilities (their ability to tell you about complex things going on in the world) you might be surprised to find that your child's reading comprehension skills are breaking down. :

Discover the truth beyond tracking words per minute in reading progress. Explore why comprehension matters more than speed, especially for struggling readers. Learn strategies to empower comprehension over speed in literacy education.

Discover concrete strategies for improving nonfiction comprehension in older students, especially those with dyslexia. Learn how to navigate dense texts, decode information, and use text features effectively. Empower students to read to learn and gather information with confidence!

Discover six explicit strategies for teaching comprehension effectively to struggling readers. From creating mental movies to predicting outcomes, explore concrete methods to enhance understanding. Learn how to scaffold comprehension skills and foster metacognition for lasting comprehension success!