Comprehension Monitoring Cheryl McLean, PhD Clinical Practicum in Reading Spring 2011

What is Comprehension Monitoring? Comprehension monitoring describes a reader's metacognitive strategies for constructing a text’s meaning during the process of reading (Ruddell, 2006). Metacognition is a reader’s awareness of cognitive processes of comprehension during reading. Ruddell, R. B. (2006). Teaching children to read and write. Boston: Pearson Education.

Evaluation and regulation: Comprehension monitoring works in two parts: the evaluation of ongoing comprehension, and the regulation of comprehension issues. Evaluation and regulation are simultaneous actions that first evaluate a reader’s understanding of the text, and then attempt to regulate the comprehension failure by engaging cognitive strategies.

How comprehension monitoring works Comprehension occurs when readers derive understanding from a text through constructing an internal representation of the text. Comprehension is made up of many levels, including a verbal level with syntactical units, one with text propositions (semantic units), one containing world knowledge, one related to the overall gist of the text, and others. Readers set goals before or during reading. Most often the goal is to identify the text’s main idea. Readers metacognitively evaluate their progress toward this goal during reading.

Evaluation Readers monitor similarities and differences between their cognitive representation of a text and their metacognitive model of the text. Similarities indicate that comprehension is occurring, and differences are a sign that comprehension has failed. Readers can then exert control over texts to identify the difference and reestablish a representation of the text. The strategy that will be invoked depends upon the reader's metacognitive understanding of the source of the problem and the actions that can resolve it. Finally, the reader must evaluate whether the problem has been resolved, or whether more strategies need to be utilized.

Clicks and clunks One strategy for aiding a reader's comprehension of a text is the metacognitive strategy of “clicks and clunks.” Teachers ask students to stop at the end of every passage and question whether the meaning of the passage clicks or clunks. A click happens when readers can clearly translate the meaning of the passage into their own words. A clunk happens when they cannot. When a passage clunks, readers are encouraged to question why comprehension has not occurred. Often, further exploration of these questions can aid understanding.

Strategies for comprehension monitoring Cognitive strategies (drawn upon by metacognitive cues) that can help rebuild comprehension fall into two categories: monitoring strategies and control strategies. Monitoring strategies relate to a person’s prior knowledge, and involve re-reading the text, looking back to prior texts, predicting, and comparing texts. Control strategies are text-oriented, such as summarizing texts, clarifying texts, or correcting texts.

SQ3R One way to help readers improve their metacognitive interaction with a text is to scaffold their reading experience with SQ3R. SQ3R is a strategy in which readers Survey, Question, Read, Recite, and Review a text. The steps are:  Survey: Preview a selection by reading titles, headings, and other highlighted information.  Question: Turn each title heading caption into a question.  Read: Read to answer these questions.  Recite: Close the text & orally summarize the reading. Then take notes.  Review: Read through notes.

Summary Comprehension monitoring describes a reader's cognitive and metacognitive strategies for understanding texts. Metacognitive evaluation calls upon cognitive strategies such as monitoring strategies and control strategies to aid in rebuilding comprehension.