Article Summary

   Title

How Can Reading Comprehension Be Improved Through   Research Validated Instruction?

                                      Journal

Comprehension Instruction: What Makes Sense Now, What Might Make Sense Soon.

                                      Author

                                  Michael Pressley

                              

Date of Publication

     September 2001

 

 

 

 

                                                                                                                     William Venables

 

 

 

 

 

            Michael Pressley provides explanations in great detail with how reading comprehension

can be improved through reading validated instruction. Pressley explains that educators need to

understand and evaluate all student strengths and weaknesses when it comes to reading

comprehension. All students are different and have different ways that they can improve their

reading techniques. However, Pressley’s main belief is that all teachers can maximize his/her

students reading comprehension by mastering the understanding of decoding, vocabulary, world

knowledge, active comprehension strategies and monitoring. His thought is that if a teacher

understands these five levels and can master them than they can use these levels to increase

his/her students reading comprehension. Pressley covers all five of these levels in great detail

and explains the importance of each one of them. He believes that you cannot have one without

the other. First, a student must love what he/she is reading. This can be where world knowledge

comes into play because if a reader has prior knowledge on a topic than that can impact the

passion a reader has for reading in general. Decoding and vocabulary are two levels that are

important because we all know that the deeper the vocabulary a reader has the further a reader

can advance in reading levels. Decoding allows a smoother approach to reading because the

reader is learning how to pronounce words.

However, Pressley explains that active comprehension strategies and monitoring is the

key in a reader’s ultimate success and even considers these levels to be the most important. The

reason that Pressley feels so strongly about this is because although a reader may have great

world knowledge, decoding skills and vocabulary skills it still does not mean that their reading

comprehension will improve. There has to be good active comprehension strategies in place so

that a reader can evaluate and/or determine where they are going wrong. All readers are not

perfect and they will make mistakes, but good active comprehension strategies will allow them

to take the information and be able to determine where his/her mistakes are being made.

Monitoring is just as important not just on an independent level, but on an educator/parent level

as well because all readers will struggle and may not see his/her mistakes and parents/educators

can monitor these issues and can help them recognize the mistakes that are being made so that

the reader can fix them.

Ultimately, Pressley points out the five steps that have to be mastered so that a reader can

develop and maintain good reading comprehension. This article shows people why an educator

or a parent has to take notice of these steps so that a student/child can have good reading

comprehension skills. Pressley acknowledges that readers can develop throughout grade levels

with decoding and vocabulary skills and become decent readers. However, he also points out that

just because a student/child can read well does not necessarily mean that he/she thoroughly

understands what he/she is reading. These five steps are all important, but constructing good

active comprehension strategies and monitoring those strategies is key in maintaining good 

reading comprehension, “Such teaching should occur across every school day, for as long as

required to get all readers using the strategies independently which means including it in reading

instruction for years” (Pressley, 2001).   

I believe that that every teacher should read this article and thoroughly understand what

Pressley is talking about so that they can use this in his/her classroom. I also believe that parents

who homeschool their children or just parents that care for his/her child’s reading comprehension

in general should use this process in their household as well. The reason that I feel so strongly

about this is because I want to see every child and/or student succeed when it comes to reading

comprehension and I believe that Pressley’s article can guarantee success as long as it is

thoroughly understood by the parent and/or teacher. For instance, all five levels are important. A

reader can be as successful as he/she wants to be as long as they have the right instruction.

Pressley talks about the importance of instruction and I wholeheartedly agree with him. Some

readers may succeed by instructing themselves, but most all students can succeed if they have

good instruction and they want to learn. All five levels have their own significant importance in a

reader’s comprehension. Students start off with decoding (pronouncing words) which leads to

understanding better vocabulary. Ultimately, a student cannot do one without the other and grasp

a thorough understanding of pronunciation and meaning of words. World knowledge is very

important as well because it can give the readers motivation to want to read because they have

prior knowledge on what they are reading. It is also important because it takes a reader’s

knowledge on the topic and improves it in a way that not only makes him or her have better

knowledge on the topic, but it also improves their reading techniques and betters their

understanding of vocabulary.

            I also thoroughly believe that by creating active comprehension strategies in a classroom

and/or home is the key in maintaining improvement within a reader’s comprehension. There has

to be strategies in place that can allow a reader to improve on comprehension. This starts with

the educator and/or parent(s) and is then used independently by the reader. Monitoring follows

this process because everything needs to be monitored by a teacher/parent to make sure that their

student/child is following the right path in their reading comprehension. Monitoring can be

considered the most important step because it gives the reader the advantage of moving along

more smoothly in his/her reading process because they are learning how to fix and/or improve

their techniques. Ultimately, I believe that this article and the strategies that Pressley presents is

extremely valuable and should be used in classrooms as well as homes.

                                                          Reference

Pressley, M. (2001, September). Comprehension instruction: What makes sense now, what might

make sense soon. Reading Online, 5 (2). http://www.readingonline.org/articles/art_index

.asp? HREF=/articles/handbook/pressley/index.html.