3. Comprehension
skills
• Comprehension skills combine
understanding a text, reading
fluency, and a strong
vocabulary. These skills are
required to make the most out
of a book, an online article, a
newspaper, or any other form of
written media.
• You cannot learn if you cannot
comprehend. Hence, knowing
and mastering comprehension
skills is as essential as
breathing.
4. Comprehension
Skills
• Comprehension skills are several
qualities you need to understand a
text fully. These may include
decoding the alphabet and words,
language fluency, strong vocabulary,
understanding the sentence
structure, background knowledge of
the topic, and working memory.
5. Most Essential Comprehension skills
Decoding the
alphabet and words
Being fluent in the
language
Having a strong
vocabulary
Identifying sentence
structure
Reading carefully
6. Decoding the alphabet and words
• Recognizing the letters that make a word and understanding its
meaning is the first step toward comprehension. It is called
decoding and is vital for understanding a text.
• To learn the skill of decoding, you must work on your phonics. It is a
skill that helps first-time readers recognize different letters with the
sounds they make.
• For instance, in the word “fly,” the letter “f” make a /f/ sound, and “l”
makes a /l/ sound. Next, work on combining these different sounds
to form a whole word.
• The best method to teach this skill is by instruction and repetition.
Word games and reading books to practice
7. Being fluent in the language
• Fluent reading involves instant recognition of a
word and its meaning without stopping to sound
out a word. Several words like “the” and “of” are
impossible to describe. Hence we need to
practice with them to speed up their
comprehension speed.
• To achieve fluency, you can read books
concurrent to your level of command over the
language. You will need loads of practice to be
able to speed read in a new language.
8. Having a strong vocabulary
• Having a solid vocabulary is key to reading
comprehension. You cannot understand what
you are reading if you are unaware of the
meanings of most of the words.
• Reading, interactions, and life experiences are
the best ways to strengthen your vocabulary.
You can also form a list of new words daily and
look up their meaning to build your vocabulary
9. Identifying
sentence
structure
• There are several ways a sentence can be
structured and multiple cohesive techniques to
group words together in a sentence.
Understanding these ways is the next step to
reading effectively
• You will need elaborate grammar lessons to
master different sentence structures. Start with
the basics and work your way to more complex
ones
