Improving Reading Comprehension of Middle and High School Students

Abstract

While language defines humanity, literacy defines civilization. Understandably, illiteracy or difficulties in acquiring literacy skills have become a major concern of our technological society. A conservative estimate of the prevalence of literacy problems would put the figure at more than a billion people in the world. Because of the seriousness of the problem, research in literacy acquisition and its breakdown is pursued with enormous vigor and persistence by experts from diverse backgrounds such as cognitive psychology, neuroscience, linguistics and education. This, of course, has resulted in a plethora of data, and consequently it has become difficult to integrate this abundance of information into a coherent body because of the artificial barriers that exist among different professional specialties. The purpose of this series is to bring together the available research studies into a coherent body of knowledge. Publications in this series are of interest to educators, clinicians and research scientists in the above-mentioned specialties. Some of the titles suitable for the Series are: fMRI, brain imaging techniques and reading skills, orthography and literacy; and research based techniques for improving decoding, vocabulary, spelling, and comprehension skills. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made.Printed on acid-free paper Springer International Publishing AG Switzerland is part of Springer Science+Business Media (www. springer.com) AbstractThe focus of this Springer Literacy Edition is to provide the most current research regarding instruction in the area of comprehension for middle and high school students. Each author of the first four chapters will focus on a core subject area in middle and high school and discuss the current research along with instructional implications for this particular population. Core subject areas are defined as social studies/history, science, English language arts, and mathematics. Three additional chapters on special educatio...

Formative Feedback in Reading Comprehension

“…Reading a text involves basic skills in order to recognize letters; however, understanding concepts and ideas requires the development of complex cognitive and linguistic skills established during the process of understanding the text [16]. From these compromised cognitive processes, three skills related to reading comprehension are proposed: 1) comprehension of the structure of the text, 2) construction of inferences, and 3) the monitoring or self-regulation of comprehension [17]. In this regard, Peña et al [18] argue that reading is a thought process, therefore the questions and feedback made by the teacher will be the generators of reflections and knowledge [18].…”