Comprehension Monitoring
What is comprehension monitoring?
• The ability of a reader to be aware,
while reading, whether a text is
making sense or not.
What to Watch For: Questions to Help
Assess Reading
• Does the reader understand the purposes for
reading a particular text?
• Does the reader understand (or attempt to
understand) the purposes and goals of the
author?
• Does the reader bring personal background
knowledge to bear in understanding the text?
What to Watch For: Questions to Help
Assess Reading
• How well does the reading bring knowledge
forward from one part of the text to another,
from another text or activity to another text or
activity?
• How well does the reader employ other
general processes of reading?
What to Watch For: Questions to Help
Assess Reading
• How independent is the reader with a
particular text or kind of text?
• How well does the student understand global
structures of organizing text?
• Does the student recognize text as a
construction of an author?
What to Watch For: Questions to Help
Assess Reading
• How well does the reader use local-level
coherence to make links within sentences or
to connect sentences? To link different parts
of a text together?
• How well does the student understand global
structures of organizing text?
• How well are inference gaps recognized and
inferences made?
What to Watch For: Questions to Help
Assess Reading
• How often does the reader encounter
unfamiliar words?
• How well does the student recognize codes
and conventions?
• How well does the student learn information
from text? Learn ways of reading?
Inconsistent Element
• A check to see if students are monitoring
their comprehension.
• Find a passage on the student’s instructional
level.
• Retype it adding an inconsistent element.
Comprehension Monitoring Strategies
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Identify where the difficulty is
Identify what is difficult.
Restate the passage in their own words.
Look back through the text.
Look forward in the text.
Assessing Comprehension Monitoring
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Retell or Summary
Strategy Assessment
Teacher Observation
Cloze Passages
Think-Alouds
“Think-alouds” help students understand how
they currently read and ways for students to take
on specific new reading strategies. With thinkalouds, students will learn how to recognize
problems when they occur, how to isolate
problems and name the source of confusion, and
how to use the strategies to overcome their
confusion.
Jeffrey D. Wilhelm
Think-Alouds
Three common responses of struggling readers:
• They play through readings, decoding
words but not comprehending.
• They don’t bring meaning forward with them
to build upon it as they work through text.
• They give up easily.