Notes from…
The Boys Town
Learning Academy
Number 5 in a Series
Understanding Reading Comprehension
Reading comprehension is an essential component to academic success in every subject. When children struggle to
understand written material, it is often difficult to determine why they are struggling and how to help them. Reading
comprehension is a complex skill influenced by mastery of multiple foundational skills, including knowledge of letter
names/sounds, phonics rules, sight words, and reading fluency. Students who have difficulty understanding written
material often demonstrate deficits in accuracy and/or fluency of these basic skills. Accuracy refers to the ability to
correctly identify letters, sounds, and words. Fluency refers to the ability to quickly identify letters, sounds, and
words. Therefore, it is important to assess a student’s abilities in each of these areas and provide intervention if
needed in order to ensure that reading comprehension is not impaired due to underdeveloped basic skills.
Studies have shown that knowledge of letter names and sounds is
the best predictor of future reading and spelling skills. The ability
to correctly and quickly identify letter sounds is a foundational skill
for sound blending. Deficits in letter sound accuracy or fluency often result in errors in sound blending and/or a slow rate of reading, both of which impair comprehension.
The ability to read words in connected text involves knowledge of
phonics rules that are needed for sounding out phonetically regular
words and for memorizing phonetically irregular words. Phonetically regular words contain letters that represent their typical sounds
(e.g., “bed”). Regular words can be sounded out using phonics
rules, which the majority of words in the English language follow.
Irregular words contain letters that do not represent typical sounds
(e.g., “the”). Irregular words are often called “sight words” because the whole word is identified by sight instead of by blending
individual sounds. The ability to fluently read regular and irregular
words allows students to focus attention on the meaning of the
text rather than the pronunciation of individual words.
If a student still struggles with comprehension after demonstrating mastery of letter names/sounds, phonics rules,
sight words, and reading fluency, then the next step is to assess reading comprehension skills (e.g., identifying information, making predictions/conclusions, and summarizing).
To learn more about the
Boys Town Learning Academy,
call 402-498-3358 or visit us online:
www.boystownpediatrics.org/counselingservices/Pages/Learning-Academy.aspx