Curriculum

The Five ‘Keys’ to Reading - Key 2.

Submitted by Anna Flanagan - Curriculum.

Comprehension

Reading comprehension involves understanding the meaning and intent of a written text. It requires the coordination of many cognitive skills and abilities. Successful text comprehension involves the construction of an integrated and coherent representation of the overall meaning of the text, rather than memory for just the literal wording. Reading comprehension has a unique place in the Five Big Ideas as it is both an essentialelement of reading instruction in its own right, and the desired outcome of instruction in all of the elements.

The Simple View of Reading proposes that reading comprehension can be predicted by two key factors – the ability to decode or identify words and the ability to understand what the words are saying. Both need to be encouraged and supported from the onset of reading instruction.

The Simple View of Reading (Gough & Tunmer, 1986)

The factors that comprise the Simple View of Reading are themselves comprised of sets of skills. The Reading Rope (Scarborough, 2001) identifies these skills in more detail and depicts them as becoming intertwined as reading becomes proficient.