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Understanding language is critical to reading, beginning with oral language and growing to include drawing inferences to determine meaning. So how do educators build a comprehensive framework for language comprehension?

During the edLeader Panel “The Overlooked Pieces of the Science of Reading,” Dr. Donna Wright, retired school superintendent and current education consultant, spoke with Dr. Kate Cain, Professor of Psychology at Lancaster University and Past President of the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading (SSSR), Dr. Kristin Bourdage, former educator and current Assistant Director of Professional Learning and Instructional Design at Partnerships for Authentic Learning and Leadership, and Beth Lawrence, M.A., CCC-SLP, experienced educator and Co-founder of Infercabulary, about bringing together the skills students need to comprehend language and become stronger readers.

Building Language Comprehension Skills

Language comprehension skills are crucial. They include basic skills such as vocabulary and grammar, but also more advanced skills like using context and background knowledge to make inferences across texts. Good reading comprehension necessitates finding meaning at all levels of text and creating a mental model. To do this, there are several factors to consider, including:

• The meaning of sentences in a text comes from the context of the sentence.
• Strong readers use context to find texts’ meanings, with readers’ mental models guiding interpretations.
• Good reading comprehension brings in readers’ background knowledge for inferencing and evaluating understanding of texts as they read and recognize context-specific meanings.
• Skilled readers have strengths across those areas, as well as cognitive systems such as working memory and executive function.

Inferencing vocabulary meanings is critical for creating textual mental models. To draw meaning, students must understand what they’re reading, which means understanding words. By examining a word’s context, readers can infer and draw meaning from the larger text. This becomes easier over time as one reads more, encountering vocabulary in different contexts with different meanings.

This also helps with Tier 2 words, which are rarely encountered and often lack context clues. To teach those words, educators can give students clues demonstrating the word in different contexts so that they can use their critical-thinking skills to draw meaning. By having students use semantic reasoning to gather images demonstrating words, and sharing their visual arrays with peers, teachers help them master rare words and learn to recognize words in different contexts.

Creating an Actionable Framework

When creating vocabulary blueprints, leaders must be district specific. Vocabulary is tied to oral language—which varies across locations and background knowledge—so vocabulary models must be specific to the community. A big-picture plan with a set goal is crucial to creating vocabulary models. There must be an instructional framework, and educators should be empowered to make decisions based on their own knowledge, but that only works with a clear goal that everything builds toward. Additionally, to best serve students, the conceptual framework needs intentional word learning and word consciousness.

Quality teacher-student dialogue is one of the best forms of reading instruction. Students are quickly exposed to new words and meanings as they exchange ideas, which also allows them to strengthen their inferencing skills by using different comprehension skills as a group.

When district leaders build reading systems, the systems need to support language comprehension as coherently as foundational skills do. This means opportunities for dialogue and empowering teachers to determine what needs the most focus for their unique community. Collecting student growth data also helps educators determine how best to use resources for the big picture. Student data supports implementation and provides teachers with a knowledge base to act on.

It’s important to only implement one initiative at a time to avoid teacher overwhelm, and to give them the freedom to make decisions for their classes and work with leadership. Encouraging teachers to incorporate semantic reasoning helps give students background knowledge and visual data they can use to strengthen their inferencing skills.

Building an actionable framework for teaching language comprehension gives students the important skills they need to understand texts. While it can be a challenge, it’s one that pays off by helping students become successful readers.

Learn more about this edWeb broadcast, The Overlooked Pieces of the Science of Reading, sponsored by Really Great Reading.

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Article by Jon Scanlon, based on this edLeader Panel