Literacy

4 H Reading Comprehension Strategy

As students’ become more competent readers, the focus of reading moves from ‘learning to read’ to ‘reading to learn’.  Students’ progress from decoding texts, to comprehending what they are reading through the scaffolding of increasing challenging reading comprehension tasks. 

The Victorian Department of Education state that:

Comprehension means understanding text: spoken, written and/or visual.   

Comprehension is an active and complex process which:

• includes the act of simultaneously extracting and constructing meaning from text
• enables readers to derive meaning from text when they engage in intentional, problem solving and thinking processes
• is a lived and institutionally situated social, cultural and intellectual practice that is much more than a semantic element of making meaning.

Comprehension questions typically fall into one of four categories;

• Literal: Ask the reader to recall of explicitly stated information
• Inferential: Ask the reader to interpret inferred information from multiple sources
• Applied: Ask the reader to apply general/or prior knowledge  to a read or viewed text to be able to justify a text response
• Evaluative Questions:  Asks the reader to decide whether he or she agrees with the author's ideas or point of view in light of his or her own knowledge, values, and experience.

The 4H strategy helps students to identify what category of question is being asked, and where they are likely to find the answer ( on the page, in their head or a combination of both!).

HERE: Literal questions can be referred to as ‘Here’ questions. This means the answer is explicitly stated and therefore on the page to be found. Students can point to the answer on the page as being ‘here’. Usually these questions refer to what, when, where and who questions.

HIDDEN: Inferential question responses are most likely to be found ‘hidden’ on the page requiring students to combine information from multiple places within the text or combine prior knowledge with what has been read. These questions typically begin with why, how, what if or would.

HEAD: Applied questions are largely answered in the students’ ‘head’ based on prior knowledge however they  also need to use the read or viewed information examples to justify or support the answer.

HEART: Evaluative questions typically ask students how they feel about what they have read or viewed, how they have formed their opinion and what information in the text supports or refutes this opinion.

Often students believe ALL the answers are  ‘here’ on the page. By teaching students to the types of questions, the expected location and the need to use multiple sources to formulate a text response, including drawing on their own knowledge and opinions, we deepen their critical thinking of read and viewed texts.

Sarah Watkins

Acting Assistant Principal/Literacy Specialist