Princ. Reading Comp.	Introduction	-
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Teaching students word recognition skills is a very important part of the total effort to teach them to read, but attention to this area alone will not help you to become an effective teacher of reading. What must be included in your teaching repertoire is appropriate emphasis on the teaching of reading comprehension. This is especially true if you are concerned about students with or at risk for reading disabilities. Although much of the research in teaching struggling readers has focused on word recognition, we can look to a growing body of research in reading comprehension to provide guidance in developing effective instruction and intervention for those students having difficulty understanding what they read. This module, Basic Principles of Reading Comprehension, begins the Online Academy series that focuses on different aspects of reading comprehension that you will need to address in working with students with reading disabilities. In this module you will learn a framework for understanding the challenge of teaching students with reading disabilities the process of comprehending what they read. It offers essential ideas upon which to build reading comprehension instruction for struggling readers. In so doing, it sets the stage for other modules that will present more detailed information on specific aspects of reading comprehension. Three different lessons in this module will focus on these important areas: (1) the nature of good comprehension instruction, (2) the interrelationships among language processes, including reading, and (3) the use of a strategic instructional approach. Lesson 1, Good Comprehension Instruction, will help you develop a framework for thinking about good comprehension instruction for individuals with or at risk for reading disabilities. In this lesson we will discuss the complexity and importance of reading comprehension and the necessity of providing high quality reading comprehension instruction. We will also look at the types of difficulties that individuals with learning disabilities encounter in reading comprehension. Finally, we will give you a set of effective teaching principles upon which to base your reading comprehension instruction. Lesson 2, Language Connections, will explore the relationships among all the language processes - listening, speaking, reading and writing - so that you can use these links to help students with reading disabilities develop a solid language base for reading comprehension. We will explore the nature of reading as a language-based process and discuss common elements and differences across spoken and written language processes. We will also identify the kinds of problems students with learning disabilities may have with language that interfere with reading comprehension and give you suggestions for reading comprehension instruction that is language-based. In Lesson 3, Strategic Instruction, you will investigate the metacognitive nature of reading comprehension which leads to an approach to teaching in which you teach students procedures to become independent in constructing meaning from print. In this lesson we will identify these procedures, called strategies, and we will look at what students have to do to use strategies effectively, efficiently, and independently in reading comprehension. Most importantly, we will suggest specific actions for you to take in implementing strategic instruction. The principles you will learn in this module provide the building blocks for all the other about reading comprehension. They will guide you in implementing specific aspects of teaching struggling students to understand what they read. You can't use effectively the specific techniques you will learn about in subsequent modules without following the basic principles learned in this module, that is, follow the guidelines for good comprehension instruction, build on language connections, and teach strategically.