TY - JOUR AU - McNamara, Danielle S. AU - Kendeou, Panayiota PY - 2017/08/24 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - Translating advances in reading comprehension research to educational practice JF - International Electronic Journal of Elementary Education JA - IEJEE VL - 4 IS - 1 SE - Articles DO - UR - https://iejee.com/index.php/IEJEE/article/view/212 SP - 33-46 AB - <p>The authors review five major findings in reading comprehension and their implications for<br>educational practice. First, research suggests that comprehension skills are separable from decoding<br>processes and important at early ages, suggesting that comprehension skills should be targeted early,<br>even before the child learns to read. Second, there is an important distinction between reading<br>processes and products, as well as their causal relationship: processes lead to certain products. Hence,<br>instructional approaches and strategies focusing on processes are needed to improve students’<br>reading performance (i.e., product). Third, inferences are a crucial component of skilled<br>comprehension. Hence, children need scaffolding and remediation to learn to generate inferences,<br>even when they know little about the text topic. Fourth, comprehension depends on a complex<br>interaction between the reader, the characteristics of the text, and the instructional task, highlighting<br>the need for careful selection of instructional materials for individual students and specific groups of<br>students. Finally, educators may benefit from heightened awareness of the limitations and<br>inadequacies of standardized reading comprehension assessments, as well as the multidimensionality<br>of comprehension to better understand their students’ particular strengths and weaknesses.</p> ER -