3 Strategies to Enhance Your Reading and Learning Comprehension

Teachers often use different reading comprehension strategies to help their students understand the lesson for the day. These techniques can either be direct or indirect depending on the kind of pupils in the class. Some of them are even disguised as games to keep everybody interested.

Reading comprehension strategies help a lot in developing your vocabulary and powers of analysis. Here are some ways you might want to try out for yourself.

1) Role-playing

One of the most entertaining reading comprehension strategies is role-playing. It allows you to gain a better perspective over the text you have just read.

Role-playing also gives you the freedom and flexibility to showcase your own interpretation of the reading material.

However, this kind of strategy does not apply to all texts. It would be challenging for someone to role-play a text discussing the dissection of frogs, wouldn’t it? I suggest this reading comprehension strategy be limited to texts with actual characters and story plots.

2) Question and Answer

After you read a text, it is important to check whether you have understood the material. A lot of teachers like to hold question and answer portions at the end of the lesson to see how much a student actually remembers and understands.

These questions should be both closed and open-ended. Closed questions are those immediately answerable by “yes” or “no.” This will give the teacher a quick assessment of how much the student has gathered from the lesson. Open-ended questions, on the other hand, are an excellent gauge of the student’s reading comprehension. Questions that begin with “how” and “why” often push the student to elaborate.

3) Making Connections

One of the most effective reading comprehension strategies involves making use of prior knowledge or experience. By tapping into what you already know, you can make it easier to relate to what you’re reading now.

In a way, you’re using prior information or past experience as a stepping stone or a foundation for future lessons. This strategy requires you to be up-to-date as well. Or at least, be a quick thinker. After all, you’re expected to take advantage of any opportunity you have to tie one idea to another.

These reading comprehension strategies have served a lot of readers well. Find the one that matches your own personality to make it even more effective. With these strategies, you’ll be able to learn better and help others as well.