Practical Ways to See if Your Students Comprehend Their Own Reading

Data.  We’re inundated with it these days.  Which has its pros…and also its cons. 

The data tools we often use for reading might include things like oral reading fluency measures, phonics and phonemic awareness assessments, spelling screeners, and computerized assessments such as iReady, Star, and MAP.  These assessments are used as screeners and/or diagnostic tools.  Some tell us there are red flags and that we need to further probe.  Some tell us…not much, because they’re so broad.  

And when you really think about it, these measures only address parts of reading.  How do we truly measure the consolidation of skills–the entire reading process as kids do all of the reading work themselves? How do we know how well students comprehend their own reading of whole texts?

Big, broad assessments like MAP or Star only tell us that there’s a hiccup in a large area of reading, but again, not why.  There could be myriad reasons.  

Other assessments tell us that a child missed a word, but not why. This is especially true in the case of online assessments. Because the teacher isn’t usually a part of these testing sessions, we have no idea whether or not kids tried something before the error.  They’ll never tell us what strategies a child already uses. Or these tests tell us that a child’s reading rate is slow, but not why.  They are just dipstick measures. 

When these red flags show up, we then check for phonics gaps that could be leading to the issues…but what if that’s not the problem?  

What if it truly is a comprehension issue? 

Which again begs the question:  how do we know how well students can comprehend their own reading?

We know that background knowledge and its accompanying vocabulary  are key players in comprehension.  But we also must realize that  there’s no way we can possibly provide all the background knowledge needed for every child and every text they might encounter.  That’s just not realistic.  

We also know that we need more than the types of data currently most prevalent in schools.  These assessments tell us some things (some more than others), but not everything.  They tell us pieces.  There’s a lot more to reading than the simple view or Scarborough’s rope include.  The reality is that we don’t have time to constantly collect this sort of data, either. 

Especially when it doesn’t even tell us what we’re looking for.

What we need are more quick, informal ways to gather this information.

Things  that can be done within the context of our existing day to day lessons.  

This is where informal assessments come in.  Informal assessments can give a ton of valuable information.  Using the more formal screeners and diagnostics are just the start–and they play an important part. But they sure don’t tell us everything.  We need to look beyond time-consuming, less frequent, and technology-based tools to get a true pulse on students’ consolidation of reading skills. Skills that the numbers just don’t tell us, so they’re often ignored in the reading conversation.

So how can we determine how well students comprehend their own reading?  And the bigger question:  how can we do it quickly and easily?

Here are 12 ideas.

Let’s start with the very foundation-motivation and engagement. Without that, comprehension will always be an issue.

• Engagement inventories.  With kids’ shortened and wandering attention spans these days, this can be the issue. It’s all a part of executive function skills.  If kids can’t focus, there’s little chance much reading comprehension will occur.  These informal inventories are powerful tools that lend to fantastic conversations with kids about what’s going on.  They are perfect for goal-setting with students.  Jennifer Serravallo has an excellent, simple to use tool for here. Learning what gets in the way of focus and reading motivation is crucial.

There are also easy, informal ways to learn about students’ decoding strategies and fluency.

• Running records.  I know this practice is being bashed all over social media, as people claim it “teaches” kids to guess.  This is beyond wrong and very misconstrued.  I have a lot more about running records in another post, but suffice it to say, they are a very effective tool that tells you a ton about kids’ use of strategies, reading behaviors, and fluency. And they work no matter what text kids are reading.

• Listening.  Listening to kids read for even a few minutes will give you a ton of information.  Whether they read aloud for a bit during a 1:1 conference, in a small group, or even in a whole class setting  like when doing readers’ theater, paying attention to their rate, phrasing, and intonation will tell you what you need to know.  Just be sure you’re making note of your observations!

Also foundational, but rarely part of the reading comprehension conversation:  are kids visualizing as they read?  

• Have students stop to sketch what they’re visualizing.  This could be done through read aloud as a first step (obviously you wouldn’t show the illustrations here), but can also be done in small group and of course in their own independent reading.  It’s quite common that kids don’t visualize as they read.  This can be especially true for kids who learned to focus only on print and not attend to meaning as they learned to read.  Making mental images as a reader is a crucial skill–and this is one way to see if they’re actually doing it.  

And to really get a grasp on students’ consolidation of reading skills including comprehension:

• Conversations.  One-on-one conversations about kids’ reading will tell you loads of information.  While we can gauge listening comprehension fairly well in whole-group settings, kids’ actual reading comprehension is not at all the same.  Sitting down with a child for a brief conference about their reading is one of the simplest ways to really get inside kids’ heads.  There’s an art to this kind of conversation, which I talk about in this post.

• Provide sentence stems for reflection.  Sentence starters like: I was confused when…I think the theme of this story is….a sentence (or word/phrase) that was hard to understand was….Their responses will give you a quick look at their thinking process. 

Bring in writing!  Writing about their own reading will tell you so much about their level of understanding.

• Stop and jots (or stop and draw). There are endless ways to use this strategy, but a favorite is to ask kids to show/explain what a word or phrase might mean.  I like to do this first with read alouds because it tells me just as much.  Start with things that are readily gleaned from the context before moving to more abstract.  As well, when given a passage to read independently, you could have the word or phrase already underlined, and ask kids to jot their understanding of the word/phrase.  

• Paragraph shrinking.  Here’s a wonderful explanation of this powerful comprehension strategy twist on summarizing.

• One-Sentence Summary.  Ask students to summarize a passage, parts of a passage, or chapter in just one sentence. This will show you at a glance whether or not they can determine the most important ideas.

• Exit Tickets remain a tried and true tool.   Ask a quick, open-ended question at the end of independent reading (whether that reading is provided to them or they chose it themselves), such as,  “What’s one word that describes the main character?” “What’s the author’s purpose for writing this text?”

There are even ways to bring in more talk to give you insight into kids’ reading comprehension.

• In small group, have each student add a part to a collaborative retell or summary..  Student 1 would begin, student 2 adds the next piece, etc.  Along the way, the group would agree or refute, helping to “fix” a particular part if needed. This is a very quick glimpse of comprehension–and the breakdown.

• Try using the “inside/outside circle” strategy.  This gives kids lots of practice verbalizing their thinking, which improves with each iteration.

Gauging how well your students consolidate skills to comprehend their own reading doesn’t have to be hard or time-consuming.  These kinds of informal measures are just as valuable as the data you gather around discrete skills.  Used together, teachers are much better equipped to know their readers!

There are lots of ways to get a peek inside a child’s mind as a reader.  

That said, it’s always easier to do this work with a thinking partner.  I’m here to be that thinking partner. If you could use some help figuring out ways to check on how well your students can comprehend their own reading, I’m here to help!  Just reach out for a coaching call!

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Who is Coach from the Couch??  I’m Michelle, a 25-year veteran educator, currently a K-5 literacy coach.  I continue to learn alongside teachers in classrooms each and every day, and it’s my mission to support as many teachers as I can.  Because no one can do this work alone. I’m available to you, too, through virtual coaching calls! 

Or, consider joining my Facebook community–a safe, supportive environment (really!)  where you can ask questions, learn ideas, and share your thoughts among other literacy-loving educators!