Reading comprehension Comprehension levels

1. Reading Comprehension
AND LEVELS

2. Reading Comprehension
 Reading is not only a necessity of life but an activity from which to
derive enjoyment. However, in an educational setting, simply
decoding words is not enough. Instead, one must understand what
they are reading. This is the gist of reading comprehension of
which there are several types.
 Levels of comprehension/reading that will be discussed in this
lesson include:
• Literal
• Inferential
• Evaluative

3. Comprehension Definition
 A good reading comprehension definition is the ability of a reader
to integrate a variety of skills in which to process and understand
a given text. Reading comprehension can be viewed as an umbrella
term that is general in its description. To get to the root of what
reading comprehension is, and how to identify it and teach it, one
must analyze the specifics of what it entails.
 Five essential aspects of reading comprehension include:
• Identifying the main idea of a text and its details
• Chronological sequencing of events from beginning, middle, and
end
• Answering the recall questions of who, what, when, and where
• Making predictions
• Learning unfamiliar vocabulary

4.  Beyond the essential aspects of comprehension, educators must also become aware of a student's
stamina, or ability to read for sustained periods, as well as self-monitoring skills. Students must
have the ability to identify when they are not understanding a text. In this case, they should go back
and reread the text, or adjust their pace. Readers struggling to decode the text will more than likely
struggle with reading comprehension. In this case, remedial strategies to strengthen the other
components of reading, including phonological awareness, phonics, vocabulary, and fluency, should
be implemented.

5.  Levels of Comprehension/Reading
 The levels of reading comprehension can be arranged as a hierarchy. At the lowest level is
is inferential comprehension, followed by evaluative comprehension at the top. Each level
support the five essential aspects of reading comprehension.
 The three levels of reading
 Reading is a complicated process that's difficult to learn, not least because there are so many things
involved. One of the ways we can split up the challenge of reading is to think of there being three
levels of reading. These levels are sometimes known as the three levels of meaning, and they are:
1. Literal (reading on the lines) - what are the words and what are their meanings?
2. Inferential (reading between the lines) - what are the words suggesting and implying in this situation?
3. Evaluative (reading beyond the lines) - how do these words contribute to the text as a whole and/or
the world outside the text?

6.  When we read a text, we need to understand it on all three of these levels.
Understanding writing is also known as comprehension. A lot of this work goes on
subconsciously, without us realising it. Our brains use the things we already know
about words, and the associations we've made with them throughout our lives, to
help us interpret what we're reading.
 However, it can be useful to actively break reading down into these levels. In the
classroom, it can help children to train their brains for reading on all three levels
automatically in the future. It's also a good way to unlock a text that you're
struggling to analyse, and reading tests will need your students to explain
meanings in terms of these different levels. Let's look at them all in detail.

7. Literal Comprehension
 Literal comprehension is the basic understanding of a text, including facts and information that are directly
stated. Literal comprehension is the most basic form of comprehension; therefore, it must be developed first
and is usually focused upon during the earliest stages of literacy. When responding to literal comprehension
questions, a student should be able to locate the answer directly from the text. Literal comprehension applies
the first three essential aspects of comprehension, including locating the main idea and supporting details,
sequencing events, and answering recall questions. This type of comprehension generally has one, exact
answer.
 The following are examples of literal comprehension question starters that a parent or teacher might ask a child
when assessing their basic understanding of a story.
• What happened...
• Who was responsible...
• Which character...
• When did this occur...
• Where did it happen...
• What is the main idea...
• How many...

8. Literal level
 The literal level is the most fundamental part of reading. It covers both recognising words
on a page and connecting these words to their meaning.
 It's sometimes known as reading on the lines, because we only pay attention to exactly
what is written down in front of us. The literal level is just as important for understanding
spoken language, recognising sounds as words and connecting them to meanings.
 Take a look at this sentence,
 A cat sat by the warm fire.
 Our knowledge of letters, spellings and words means we can recognise these words. For
example, we know that c, a and t put together in that order spells cat. By knowing the
relationships letters and words have with sounds, we also understand how to read this
sentence aloud. That's the bare mechanics of reading, but reading involves meaning too.
 We can match the words we've found to their definitions, and understand what they are
literally saying. From this sentence, we know that one feline creature has positioned itself
with its bottom on the floor in the vicinity of flames that have heat to them. Of course, we
don't translate every sentence into a bland description like this, but that's the kind of
information we draw on when we read.

9.  At the literal level, we can't assume anything. Take the word 'fire', how many
different kinds of fire can you think of? There's fireplaces, campfires, bonfires,
building fires, forest fires, controlled fires, wildfires, dangerous fires, useful fires
and more, all covered by this one word. At the literal level, we don't know what
kind of fire is being described. For that, we have to go down to the inferential
level.

10.  Furthermore, students should be familiar with strategies of literal comprehension. This
may include identifying keywords and utilizing skimming and scanning techniques to
locate the main idea and details of a text. For example, young students may read along
with a teacher using a Big Book, which is an enlarged text with illustrations used to guide
the reading process for small group instruction. The teacher may ask the students to tell
her words they don't understand. She may ask questions about what the main character
liked or disliked, or what color the cottage was in the story. Students with more developed
literacy skills may answer questions referring to the names of the characters, or the
setting. They may be asked to skim the text to find out why the main character did what he
did, or retell the story in the correct chronological sequence.

11.  Inferential Comprehension
 Inferential comprehension refers to the implied meaning of a text that is derived using
clues. In other words, inferential comprehension requires critical thinking skills to garner
understanding. This information isn't directly found in the text as is the case with literal
comprehension.
 The inferential level is also known as reading between the lines, and it's all about
understanding the meaning that isn't obvious in the definitions of each individual word.
 The word inferential may look long and complicated, but it's just talking about what we
infer from a text. These are the things a text implies or suggests to us. For this level, we
think about the words in their context, and we consider what associations we have with
them.

12.  Let's go back to that fire from the example sentence. You probably understood it as
meaning a fireplace, but why was that? You'll have thought about the other words
around it, such as cat, sat and warm. Cats are connected to things like pets, homes,
domesticity. Even though there are wild cats, this is probably where our mind would
go, and those things fit best with a fireplace. But we should keep going to check that
the cat isn't near another type of fire.
 Sitting is not a position for movement and action, so if the cat was scared of the fire
and wanted to run away, they wouldn't be sat. It's probably not a fire they're too
worried about then, like an uncontrolled house or forest fire.
 When you think of the word warm, what other words come to mind? Cosy?
Comfortable? It's different to hot because it's usually more mild, and is used to talk
about the ways we reach an enjoyable temperature.
 All of these things help us to narrow down the meaning of the word fire and interpret it
as meaning a fireplace.

13.  When we infer things, we also think about our personal connections to the words. If
you had an amazing cat or a fireplace growing up, you might have really lovely
associations with them, and be ready to infer these cosy, comforting meanings. If you
had a run-in with a nasty cat, the word might make you think of their crafty, destructive
side, and you might not imagine the scene to be quite so innocent.
 There are lots of cultural associations that writers will draw on to imply meanings at
this level. For example, they might mention the colours red and orange to emphasise
this warm atmosphere, rather than a cold blue.
 Stereotypes are important to consider when we're thinking about inferences. Writers
can rely on stereotypes to make you imagine characters and things in a certain way,
without stating that directly in their words. It can be very harmful to generalise with
stereotypes, and we should be aware of times when stereotyping plays a part in what
we write or how we understand a text.

14.  Often, the inferential level is where the most important meanings lie. For example,
if someone says that the draft from the window is making them cold, we can infer
that they would like us to close it for them. Rather than asking us to close it at the
literal level, they expect us to work out what they really mean.
 Idioms and metaphors are also good examples for this. When someone says
they're over the moon or that someone is a snake, they don't mean that these
things are literally true. They're asking us to infer that they're really happy, or that
the person they're talking about is cunning and untrustworthy. In these cases, the
inferential level is very far removed from the literal level.

15.  The evaluative level
 At the evaluative level, we're asking ourselves the meaning of the entire text,
beyond what's there and what we can infer. We want to know its message, and
we want to connect it to our own experiences and opinions, and those of others.
We mentioned that our experiences might affect how we infer, but here they are
central to our complete understanding of a text and its characters.

16.  Imagine the example sentence starts off a story about a kind grandad. Why might the author begin
by telling us about the cat? Well, all these associations we made at the inferential level - about a
cosy, comfortable home with calm animals and a pleasant heat coming from the fire - make the
owner of the house seem gentle and attentive. We can say that the writer chose to use this
sentence to build up a positive picture of our protagonist before we even see them. It makes us
more likely to sympathise with them and invest emotionally in their story.
 However, imagine that the main character is actually a nasty, deceptive person who pretends to be
kind to trick everyone. Then, this cosy sentence is being used to trick us, mirroring the events in
the story. You might also think about the crafty side of a cat, and claim they were chosen by the
author instead of a dog, for example, to foreshadow this character's personality.
 The evaluative level always depends on at least one of the other two levels. Only by
understanding what's literally there and what's hidden a little deeper can we look at the overall
impact. That's why it's important to use quotations to back up your answers on reading tests.
When you give an opinion about the book and its characters or events, you need to explain what
parts of the text make you think that and why.

17.  At the evaluative level, we put more of ourselves into the story. We think about
how we would react in that situation, how the events are similar to our own lives
and how we might think differently now we've read it. The evaluative level is all
about the big questions.
 This is the level where you're most likely to disagree with other people about what
a text means. Everyone's opinions are just as valuable and justified. There's no
right and wrong at the evaluative level. It's all about sharing ideas and enjoying
how we are so diverse that we can read the same thing and come to such
different conclusions.