Reading comprehension strategies help students succeed on tests.
With the push for public schools to improve reading proficiency among students, reading comprehension has become a primary focus of educators. By providing multiple opportunities to practice throughout the year, the following strategies can ensure that students are successful on reading comprehension tests.
Finding Main Idea
A test question about the main idea may ask you what a reading passage is mostly or mainly about. It may also ask a student to choose the best title for a reading passage. The title that tells the main idea of the whole passage is going to be the best choice. Students should ask themselves what the reading passage is about.
Recalling Facts and Details
Test questions about facts and details ask students something specific that has happened in a reading passage and will also ask who, what or why questions. Paying very close attention to the events of the story and the order in which they happened will help with this strategy.
Understanding Sequence
Test questions regarding sequence will ask when certain things happened and require students to put specific events from the reading passage in order. Scholastic Inc. explains that words such as first, second, last, before, or after will appear in the passage.
Recognizing Cause and Effect
Cause and effect questions ask what happened and why something happened. When the text uses words such as because, why, reason or what happened, this signals cause and effect.
Making Predictions
Prediction questions ask students to make a good guess about what will happen next in a reading passage. These questions usually contain words like predict, probably or most likely.
Find Word Meaning in Context
Because some words have more than one meaning, there will be questions that ask you the meaning a word used in a reading passage. A test question often has several answer choices. Try each answer choice in the sentence where the word appears, and choose the one that makes the most sense in the reading passage.
Distinguishing Between Fact and Opinion
Test questions regarding fact and opinion will ask students to determine which of four statements is a fact or opinion. Students simply need to ask themselves two questions: "Can this statement be proved?" or "Does this statement tell what someone thinks or feels?"
Identifying Author's Purpose
Author's purpose questions ask students the reason an author wrote a particular passage. Some questions will ask about the entire passage, and others will ask about a specific paragraph.
Making Inferences
When asked to make an inference, students need to figure something out that a reading passage does not explicitly state. These questions often contain the words you can tell, determine or conclude.
Interpreting Figurative Language
Figurative language test questions ask about similes, metaphors and idioms. Students will have to identify a particular type of figurative language.
Summarizing
A test question about summarizing may ask you to choose the best summary of a reading passage. You will not find the answers to these questions in the reading passage. Students will need to think about the most important ideas to find the best summary.
Tags: reading passage, test question, Test questions, best summary, choose best, contain words, fact opinion