Are you a teacher, struggling teach your students to comprehend what they read? No worries, we have you covered. In this article, we will discuss 24 reading comprehension concepts and strategies that you can use in your classroom today.

1. Think-Alouds- A strategic model for active thinking during the reading process which is used to demonstrate other reading comprehension strategies including monitoring, visualizing, and summarizing.

2. Directed Reading-Thinking Activity (DRTA)- A teaching strategy, developed by Russell G. Stauffer, which aims to improve reading comprehension through a repeated prediction-making process.

3. Experience-Text-Relationship- A reading strategy which aims to help students relate their personal experiences to the main events in a story through various stages: discuss experiences (experience step), read the text (text step), and connect the experiences to the story (relationship step).

4. Bibliotherapy- A reading activity that fosters self-awareness in which students are matched with books having a character or situation they can relate to.

5. Graphophonic Cue System- A structure for literacy development in which the reader uses clues from sounds and symbols to recognize words and predict meaning.

6. Independent Reading Level- The standard at which a learner is able to read and comprehend without assistance from someone else comfortably.

7. Informal Reading Inventory (IRI)- An assessment method, in which students read a series of passages and answer questions, through which the teacher can observe students’ reading strategies, select relevant reading material, ascertain three student reading levels, and become informed about students’ strengths and weaknesses.

8. Language Cue Systems- A structural guide in the reading process in which readers use graphophonic, syntactic, and semantic signs to recognize words and predict meaning.

9. Listening Capacity- The threshold at which a student can comprehend 75% of the content read aloud, which often serves as an indicator of a reader’s ability to comprehend oral language or for reading expectancy. It is also known as listening comprehension level.

10. Miscue Analysis- An examination of a reader’s deviations from the text, which informs the teacher of whether a reader is reading for meaning and of how the reader uses graphophonic, semantic, and syntactic signs.

11. Question-Answer Relationships (QARs)- A reading technique which aims to help students determine the difference between questions with answers that can be found directly in the text (“right there”), questions with answers that can be found in the text but require synthesizing information (“putting it together”), and questions that require the reader to use prior knowledge to find the answers (“on my own”).

12. Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR)- A reading method that uses four comprehension techniques (previewing, “click” and “clunk,” get the gist, and wrap-up) to help students employ effective tactics as they read.

13. Comprehension Monitoring- Ongoing observation and assessment of one’s understanding of the content while engaged in the act of reading.

14. Critical Reading- The ability to examine, analyze, and raise meaningful questions about the validity of an author’s message and the strength of the perspectives or arguments put forth.

15. Text Organization- Vital for reading comprehension, the arrangement of the relationships between words, sentences, paragraphs, and larger segments of writing.

16. Reciprocal Question-Answer Relationships (ReQARs)- A reading technique that combines elements from the ReQuest and QAR strategies to help middle- and upper-grade students recognize words, anticipate the nature of teachers’ questions, focus on informative parts of a text, and answer questions effectively.

17. Structured Comprehension- A reading comprehension strategy that moves from focusing on sentences to paragraphs. This framework provides students with proper contextual information, corrects any incorrect cues in the sentences, answers any questions students might have about the sentence and asks students questions to clarify the material further.

18. ReQuest Procedure (or Reciprocal Questioning)- A process used by individuals or within small groups that helps students set their reading objectives. The teacher guides the students as they continuously read a selection quietly until they can read independently. The teacher and students exchange questions after every sentence read until the point at which a general question is posed, and the students begin to read independently.

19. Scanning- Reading that happens at a fast pace and often used when searching for answers to specific questions.

20. Skimming- Reading that happens at a fast pace and often used when trying to derive general ideas as to what a passage is about.

21. Text-Based Collaborative Learning- Learning characterized by students working together with a partner or in small groups to better understand their reading of a text.

22. Think-Links- A teaching strategy in which students write down keywords associated with a selection they have read, connect those words to specific examples, and then connect them to descriptive words thereby recreating important aspects of the selection. This process assists teachers in guiding their students to reflect on their reading.

23. Understanding Questions- A type of question that guides students in tracking their reading comprehension at the word, sentence, and paragraph levels by focusing on the various barriers to comprehension such as unfamiliar words and information, as well as the relationship between the text and preexisting knowledge.

24. Assignment Mastery- A reading strategy meant to give readers self-assessment techniques by asking specific questions during each of the various phases of reading (such as scanning, preparation for reading, recitation and review, and reading review).

Do you have any concepts or strategies that you would like to share with our readers?