The Six Areas of Reading

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Reading is not just reading words on a paper. It is a process that uses many resources in the brain and the use of strategies. Teachers have to use all six areas of reading to help students learn how to read, what strategies to use when reading, how to interpret a text and many more. Reading is a complex process and this paper will describe the six areas of reading.
Comprehension
Define
Comprehension is the purpose of reading. Comprehension is the process of constructing meaning from a given text and applying that to the students background knowledge.
Explain
Comprehension is not about understanding the main idea of a text. Many factors come into play when trying to comprehend a text. There are five components to comprehension that includes:
• Reader and the text- this is where a student is actively engaged in the reading and can be making connections to their experience and activating prior knowledge.
• Text complexity- this involves students being able to read fiction and nonfiction texts at grade level independently. As well as being able to read these texts and understand them without any assistance.
• Background knowledge- a student having knowledge about the world and literature this helps the student make connections with old knowledge to new knowledge.
• Vocabulary- it is very difficult to understand a given text if a student is stopping at every other word because a student does not know those words. This is a very critical component and will be discussed later in this paper.
• Fluency- the ability to read a given text fluently with one or none mistakes as quickly and efficiently as possible. Fluent readers are able to use more cognitive resources to comprehension.
Identify
Teachers can use the following strategies/ ...

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... student from comprehending a text. How can a student understand a given text if the student does not understand a big portion of words in the text? Students enter school with vocabularies whether big or small and teachers need to nourish and build them up and comprehend harder and more complex texts.
Overall, teachers need to take into account all six critical areas of reading when teaching. No matter the subject or time constraints, teachers need to incorporate all areas into the curriculum. Reading is a complex process. If a student does not know to read, a student will never to be able to achieve their best. When using all six areas teachers are using a balanced literacy approach and create greater success for students to succeed in reading and writing.

References
Tompkins, G. E. (2014). Literacy for the 21st Century A Balanced Approach. Fresno: Pearson.

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