A Very Simple Way to Improve Reading Comprehension Instruction

Teachers have countless strategies, ideas, and resources at their fingertips when it comes to reading comprehension instruction.  From what we find online, to the programs a school provides, to quick tips from the teacher next door, there’s no shortage of things to try.  These ideas all add to our teacher toolbelt, which is a wonderful thing.  But there’s one wildly simple thing we often overlook when deciding which comprehension strategies to teach into.  Something that goes a long way to delivering more effective reading lessons.  What is it?

Spying on your own self as a reader.

I first heard this phrase in a Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project  training many, many years ago.  I’m so glad I learned it, because it’s been a game-changer for my teaching.  

What, exactly, does “spy on yourself as a reader” mean?  

It means to pay attention to your own questions, wonderings, confusion, and aha moments as you read a text.  These pause points are perfect for reading comprehension instruction.  It’s most authentic when you do this on a very first reading, but with deliberate intention, also works well on the 100th read of a text.  

To get into this mindset, let’s start very small, with one of the simplest yet impactful things we can notice.  Even this one thing, if done on a regular basis, would support your students’ reading comprehension in big ways.

All you’ll need are some sticky notes, a pen, and whatever text you’re planning to teach with.  This could be a read aloud or something your students will be reading, like a grade-level text or passage.  I recommend doing this exercise for both kinds of materials.

Then, pay attention,  through the lens of what might confuse kids, as you read. 

Really focus on just two things, to start: 

1. What words or phrases might be confusing to kids?
2. What sentences might be hard to understand?

Then, spy on yourself as you read.  Notice when you come across these potential challenges, put a sticky note on those parts or pages, and write a quick jot to remind yourself what you saw.  Do this throughout the text.  From there, you can decide which words, phrases, and/or sentences to teach into during upcoming lessons. Just one or two per text is plenty. 

Why is this helpful for reading comprehension instruction?

Because these are things that greatly impact students’ understanding of a text.  

They’re also things we often miss. 

Maybe they’re out there, but I have yet to see a reading program that calls out potentially confusing syntax within texts  that could pose a real challenge to students.  These programs usually relegate teaching sentence structure to isolated grammar lessons or worksheets within writing lessons.  Helpful for writing, but students also need to learn how to untangle these sentences as they read connected text. 

Let’s look at some examples from a very popular reading program used in many schools right now.  

Take the sentence below, from Potatoes on Rooftops:  Farming in the City by Hadley Dyer:

It uses a combination of halide, LED, and fluorescent lights, as well as hydroponics—raising crops without soil.

In this sentence, kids will have to understand that “it” refers to the farm referenced at the beginning of the preceding sentence.  They would also have to infer that “halide” is a kind of light, but “as well as” indicates that “hydroponics” is not a form of light.  Kids would need to know that the em dash in this sentence signals that the writer defines the word “hydroponics” in the last phrase.  The program doesn’t point out any of these things in any lessons for this text.

Potentially confusing phrases are another oft neglected point of instruction in programs.  Yes, there are lessons sprinkled in about figurative language, but it’s often not enough.  Figurative language might not even be the issue.  It could be any phrase, really.

In the sentence below, from the book Into the Unknown, Above and Below by Stewart Ross, the word “vast” is pointed out as a teaching point, which means “stratosphere” is (loosely) defined with context clues, but “canopy above the clouds” is a metaphor.  A metaphor the program doesn’t address at all.  

Who knew, for example, what lay in the stratosphere, that vast blue canopy above the clouds?

It might not even be full phrases that are challenging.  Single words can really be a barrier to comprehension, too. Many times, these words are not a part of the provided vocabulary lessons.  For example, here’s a sentence from the book Willie B.:  A Story of Hope, by Nancy Roe Pimm:

Shutters clicked and cameras flashed, startling the already apprehensive gorilla.

If a child doesn’t know about camera shutters (and not many would), this sentence could be very confusing.  A child might picture window shutters clicking together.  And let’s face it, kids today rarely see the flash of a camera, so they may not understand the image this writer is trying to evoke.  Not to mention the word “apprehensive,” which the program writers don’t call any attention to at all; not even in the specific vocabulary lessons.

This is why it behooves us–and our students–to read like a “spy,” paying close attention to where the potential comprehension hiccups occur. 

We cannot rely on the program to do it for us, or much will be missed.  

Most reading programs do a good job of highlighting key vocabulary words, but there are often other words in texts that will cause greater difficulty–and are are not called out in any way.  It’s up to us to read through the eyes of a child, so to speak, to notice those potential issues.  This is one of the many reasons we cannot rely on programs.  Program authors have never met our students, so there will always be places our students will need more support in order to be successful.  We must always bring our knowledge of students to the forefront when teaching with these resources.  

Another reason these things are often missed?

Because we adults, we’re strong readers.  So we are likely to completely miss things that might really challenge our students.  So often, our focus is on other things–things like theme, prediction, author’s purpose, text structure, and the like.  We pay such close attention to these sorts of things that the parts that don’t pose any sort of challenge to us as readers–yet may very much cause reading comprehension breakdown for kids–words, phrases and syntax–often fly under the radar.   

Which means kids will likely not understand things like theme, author’s purpose, or text structure, because they were already lost at the “smaller” parts like confusing words and difficult sentence structure.  So we might end up barking up the wrong tree, pushing kids for these bigger things, when it’s the smaller pieces that sneak in and become the root of the breakdown.  

So before teaching with a text, pause and spy on yourself as a reader. Notice the words, phrases, and sentences that might quietly trip students up.

It’s very much worth the small effort it takes to “spy on yourself” as a reader, with this specific lens in mind.  A small effort that will boost your reading comprehension instruction in big ways.  These small pieces are very easy to miss, but they’re often where comprehension becomes unglued.

Could you use a thinking partner to notice these kinds of potential reading comprehension breakdowns in the texts you’re about to use for teaching?  Reach out for a coaching call!  I’m here to support you in this work.  Simply email me at michelle@coachfromthecouch.com to get started!

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Who is Coach from the Couch??  I’m Michelle Ruhe, 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. 

Or, consider joining my Facebook community–a safe, supportive environment (really–no blaming or shaming is allowed!)  where you can ask questions, learn ideas, and share your thoughts among other literacy-loving educators!