This document outlines techniques for improving reading comprehension, including strategies for different types of reading comprehension questions. It recommends initially skimming a non-fiction text to understand the overall idea and main points. It then describes six types of reading comprehension questions - general questions about the main idea, explicit questions testing facts directly stated in the text, implicit questions requiring inferences, questions about the author's logic and purpose, vocabulary questions, and comparison questions involving two texts. For each type, it provides examples and strategies for identifying and answering the questions correctly.

1. Reading Comprehension
Techniques
By
Dr. Anjibabu
Dr.Anjibabu

2. Reading Comprehension Tips
• Suggestions for reading non-fiction and for
completing reading comprehension tests
Dr.Anjibabu

3. Reading Strategies Vary
There are many strategies to help with reading
comprehension.
Dr.Anjibabu

4. How To Pick a Strategy?
• • Which strategies you use will depend on
WHAT you are reading and WHY you are
reading.
Dr.Anjibabu

5. Non Fiction Reading
• • This presentation focuses on non-fiction
and assumes a testing situation.
Dr.Anjibabu

6. Overall strategy
When reading non-fiction, you generally want
to read it quickly through one time to get the
overall idea of the text – a technique called
skimming.
Dr.Anjibabu

7. Purpose of Skimming
Do not try to understand all the words or the
information. Pay attention to any subheadings
or pictures/diagrams.
Dr.Anjibabu

8. Reading Comprehension Test
If it is a reading comprehension test, read the
questions and find the answers.
• Sometimes, reading the questions first will
help.
Dr.Anjibabu

9. 6 Types of READING (NON-FICTION)
questions
 General
 Explicit
 Implicit
Author’s Logic
 Vocabulary
 Comparison
Dr.Anjibabu

10. 1. General Questions
• General questions usually involved: • Finding
the “main idea” of the passage • Related to
the title
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11. General Questions cont.
 Answer is found quickly within the passage
 Usually in the first OR last paragraph
 Refer to the title to determine main idea
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12. • General questions cont. • Questions may ask
things such as: • The main idea of this
selection is… • What is another possible title
for this article? • The third paragraph is mainly
about…
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13. 2. Explicit Questions
• • “Explicit” means that it is “obvious”. These
questions are also known as “fact-based”
questions. • Answer is found quickly within
the passage.
Dr.Anjibabu

14. Explicit continued…
• Choose the KEY word/s in the question and
then scan the passage for those key words.
• Usually the answer is in that sentence or the
line above or below the key words.
Dr.Anjibabu

15. Explicit continued…
Examples of “explicit” types of questions:
 Who does the author describe as shy?
What was the reason Sam did not like to eat
green eggs and ham?
 When did Wendy stop caring about her
education?
Dr.Anjibabu

16. 3. Implicit Questions
“Implicit” means that it is an inference
question.
• You have to make an educated guess based on
the “clues” to the question
. • You have to “read between the lines”
Dr.Anjibabu

17. Implicit continued •
• Inference or Implicit Questions ask the reader
to understand ideas that are not directly
stated in the text.
• Don’t assume facts not in the reading – rather
infer what the author is saying about what is
there.
Dr.Anjibabu

18. Implicit continued
• Readers must infer underlying meaning by
using their own knowledge, ideas, and
judgment. • You can’t infer unless you
understand the main idea & facts, so answer
those questions first.
Dr.Anjibabu

19. 4. Author’s Logic
• These are questions that ask you to put
yourself in the author’s “shoes”
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20. Author’s Logic cont.
• • These questions ask about: • Tone •
Purpose • What would go in another
paragraph or chapter? • What sources were
used or could have been used? • What was
the inspiration for this piece?
Dr.Anjibabu

21. Author’s Logic cont.
• • Answering these questions usually requires
you to • Understand the main idea to
determine purpose, audience, or inspiration
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22. Author’s Logic Strategies
Read the first and last paragraphs to decide
“what would come next”
Look at word choice (big words, casual words,
1st or 3rd person) to determine TONE
Dr.Anjibabu

23. • 5. Questions about Vocabulary • Some
questions might ask you to choose the
synonym of a word from the passage.
Dr.Anjibabu

24. Connotation
 If you don’t know the meaning of the word,
decide if it sounds negative or positive
 If the word sounds positive, go to the answer
choices and eliminate the negative choices. A
positive sounding word will never have a
negative synonym. (and vice versa)
 It helps to recognize negative prefixes such as
dis-, mis-, un-, etc.
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25. Vocabulary Continued
Questions might ask you understand the word
in context of a sentence.
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26. Strategy
• Read the sentence and use clues within the
sentence to come up with own definition.
Read the answer choices and find the word
that is closest to own definition. Example: I
took copious notes, so I don’t think I missed
one word the teacher said. Copious means—
a. few b. many c. sloppy d. selective
Dr.Anjibabu

27. Vocabulary continued
 Questions might ask you to demonstrate that
you understand multiple meanings of a word.
 You can often figure out vocabulary questions
by finding and then reading the sentence in
which the word is located.
Dr.Anjibabu

28. 6. Comparison Questions
These are usually only used when you are
reading two texts.
These questions ask you to look for similarities
between the texts or explain differences.
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29. Comparison Continued
 It might be one of the other types of
questions but about both texts, such as
comparing the sources used in the two texts
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30. A review:
• • Read the passage quickly to determine the
main idea. • Read the questions and decide
what type of question is being asked and the
best way to answer. • Apply the strategies
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31. • Questions
Dr.Anjibabu