Effective Practices for Developing Reading Comprehension

Reading comprehension research has a long and rich history. There is much that we can say about both the nature of reading comprehension as a process and about effective reading comprehension instruction. Most of what we know has been learned since 1975. Why have we been able to make so much progress so fast? We believe that part of the reason behind this steep learning curve has been the lack of controversy about teaching comprehension. Unlike decoding, oral reading, and reading readiness, those who study reading comprehension instruction have avoided much of the acrimony characteristic of work in other aspects of reading. As it should be, much work on the process of reading comprehension has been grounded in studies of good readers. We know a great deal about what good readers do when they read: