What Are Priority Comprehension Skills & Strategies for Intermediate Readers?

For intermediate adult readers, strengthening alphabetics, vocabulary, and fluency is important if learner needs are demonstrated through DRA, but there should be a major focus on comprehension in reading class or integrated with content-area instruction.

Skills

identifying author’s audience, purpose, and POV
determining explicit meanings of text, making logical inferences, and citing evidence for conclusions drawn
analyzing how ideas are organized and developed (identifying text structures)
determining main ideas, themes, and supporting details or evidence
evaluating the trustworthiness of sources, validity of reasoning, and sufficiency of evidence

High-utility cognitive and metacognitive strategies:

determining a purpose for reading
selecting a reading approach appropriate for the purpose
making and checking predictions
annotating the text with thoughts and questions
using text features, text structure, and signal words to help understand connections and ideas
using basic graphic organizers to connect ideas in the text
monitoring comprehension
applying fix-up/repair strategies when comprehension breaks down
integrating multiple strategies to complete a reading task

Click "Next" to read about planning comprehension instruction.