The National Reading Panel has stated that students’ reading comprehension of an entire passage is impacted by their understanding of individual words. Vocabulary can be taught directly or indirectly with constant repetition, such as a regular vocabulary review session.
The teacher or tutor reads a passage for about two minutes as the student silently follows. Then the student reads the passage aloud with corrections from the teacher when needed. The teacher then asks the student questions to determine how much he comprehends about the passage. The teacher can allow the student to pick out articles or books that highly interest him for repeated reading.
As a student reads, the teacher can listen and follow the reading material. The teacher corrects the student’s errors when reading mistakes occur. If the student hesitates for more than five seconds or mispronounces a word, the teacher says the word and asks the student to repeat it. The student continues to read. The teacher motivates the student by encouraging her to try her best and praising good reading occasionally.
The exceptional student can be paired with a skilled reader so they read together. When signaled, the skilled reader stops while the exceptional student continues to read. The helping reader starts reading with the exceptional student when the exceptional student makes a mistake.
Teachers can help exceptional students to recognize the major components of a story, such as identifying the main characters, their personality types and motivations and recognizing themes and major plot developments. The students can read the story on their own with the teacher asking questions about the plot or characters. If students make errors, the teacher can direct students back to the story to find the correct information. Class discussions follow.
Exceptional students can use a simple checklist to determine their comprehension of the text they read. The teacher can use sample passages to show how the checklist works. For example, students can check whether they understand a sentence or paragraph and use strategies listed on the page, such as reading the passage again, looking up a word or asking someone for help.
Students can increase reading comprehension by learning to construct pictures in their minds of what they read and studying illustrations or pictures with the story. The teacher asks the class what images come to mind while reading the text.