Reading Comprehension Failure in Children

Publisher Summary Comprehension is the successful outcome of reading. It results from a learner-regulated interaction of information stored in memory and information presented in text. Children often fail to comprehend text for reasons that have little to do with comprehension proficiency. Some of those reasons are—(1) decoding deficiencies, (2) confusion about task demands, (3) meager domain knowledge, (4) weak comprehension monitoring, (5) low self-esteem, and (6) low interest in topic or task. When children are not fluent at decoding, many cognitive resources are devoted to identifying language components. Perhaps of most importance, when decoding processes make demands on working memory, memory resources are unavailable for integrating meaning at the sentence and text level. Very unskilled readers may labor so strenuously over identifying a word at the end of a sentence that the meaning of words at the beginning of the sentence is forgotten. This chapter discusses the causes of reading comprehension failures and instruction to rectify students' problems in reading comprehension. It also presents the models of effective comprehension instruction and discusses the role of teachers in sustaining effective reading comprehension performance.

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