What are the most common reasons students have problems with reading comprehension?

Answer 1

I agree with the tutors above. But I think that it is important to clarify a few of those issues and what you can do about them. One of the issues mentioned was decoding. When a student is still working on decoding, that means that they are still working on learning how to sound out and read the words on the page. It is really hard to understand WHAT you are reading if you are focused on figuring out how to read the words. For this situation, I would recommend to give the student familiar books to read over and over again. That way, the student will have already gone through the work of decoding the words in the book, and they can better focus on what the words mean and what is happening in the book. This strategy also helps a student to recognize words more quickly and automatically. Although if your student is struggling with a learning disability, then they will need more specialized help.

As far as vocabulary goes, a student can get stuck if they are reading a book with too many unfamiliar words or if they don't have enough context clues to figure out what the words could mean. You can address vocabulary by increasing the student's exposure to new words in spoken and written language. Also, students should always be encouraged to look for meaning and to make sure that the passage makes sense. If they do not understand a word, or if the passage does not make sense, then they should stop and look for clues to the meaning in the pictures and words of the text. An older student can also be encouraged to use a dictionary.

As a student's decoding and vocabulary skills improve , they can focus more on specific comprehension skills like: Asking and Answering Questions, Retelling, Summarizing, identifying a problem, inferring, identifying cause and effect, etc. Students should generally start with simple and concrete skills (such as retelling a story in order) before moving onto more abstract skills (such as inferring a character's motivation).

Answer 2

It's true that vocabulary issues, lack of contextual knowlege and basic decoding difficulties can contribute to problems with reading comprehension. But even fluent readers can have comprehension trouble, especially with dense non-fiction writing. If readers are not employing "active" reading strategies such as asking questions, pre-reading, checking for understanding and connecting and catagorizing the information they are taking in, they will struggle with recall and comprehension.

Answer 3

I agree with the tutor above me. I find that I have to make sure that the student is actually reading at the level they are being asked to read on. I have, at times, found a 4th grader, trying to read 4th grade passage, when she's actually on the beginning of 3rd grade level of reading. The same student didn't have the phonics or the vocabulary that she needed to understand the material. Naturally, it was over her head, and she did not do well with the questions. When I put her on her own reading level and showed her a few things, she did much better.

Answer 4

There are a range of issues that can be applied to reading comprehension. Some of these issues are diagnosable disorders such as ADD, ADHD and dyslexia. Other issues are due to struggles with decoding information, word recognition, limited vocabulary and utilizing background knowledge.