19 topics
Reading comprehension, one paragraph at a time
There is a specific and very common experience of finishing a page, realising you took in none of it, and going back to the top to do the same thing again. That is not a reading speed problem. It is that nothing was being asked of the text while your eyes moved over it, and comprehension is built by asking, not by looking harder.
Where students get stuck
I read the page and remember nothing
Reading passively means your eyes finish before your attention starts. Give yourself a job before each paragraph: predict what it will say from the topic sentence, then check. After each paragraph, say what it did in six words or fewer, out loud or in the margin. If you cannot, reread that one paragraph, not the page. Six-word summaries are slower for the first few pages and much faster overall, because you stop rereading whole sections to find one idea.
Main idea questions — two answers both look right
Usually one is true but too narrow, and the other is broad but says something the passage never said. The main idea has to cover the whole passage without going past it. Test each option against the first and last paragraphs, since that is where writers state and restate their point. Watch for options that are true of one example inside the passage, and for options with extreme words like always, never or proves, which passages rarely support.
Inference questions feel like guessing
Inference does not mean opinion. It means the passage did not say it directly but the text forces it. The correct answer is always the option you could defend by pointing at two or three specific lines. If you have to add a fact from your own knowledge, that option is wrong however sensible it sounds. Work backwards: take each option and hunt for the lines that would support it. The one you can evidence is the answer, and that also gives you the quote for a written response.
The vocabulary stops me and I lose the thread
Reaching for a definition mid-paragraph is what breaks the thread, so first decide whether the word matters. If the sentence still has a direction without it, mark it and carry on. If it matters, use the sentence around it. Contrast words like but and unlike tell you the meaning is the opposite of something nearby. A colon or a comma often introduces a definition. Prefixes help too. Look it up after the paragraph, not during it.
Non-fiction and textbook chapters take me forever
Textbooks are not meant to be read like a novel. Preview first: headings, bolded terms, the first line of each section, any summary. That takes two minutes and gives you the structure to attach details to. Then read for the argument, and treat examples as support you can skim once you see the point they make. Turning every heading into a question before you read it is the single change that most reduces rereading.
What's covered
Reading Comprehension topics you can work through with a tutor, generate practice on, or turn into flashcards and a study plan.
Core comprehension skills
- Main idea and supporting details
- Summarising and paraphrasing
- Making and checking inferences
- Predicting and asking questions while reading
- Monitoring understanding and rereading strategically
Text analysis
- Author’s purpose and point of view
- Tone, mood and word choice
- Fact, opinion and bias
- Text structure: cause and effect, compare, sequence, problem and solution
- Figurative language in prose
Working with evidence
- Locating textual evidence for a claim
- Answering evidence-based selected response pairs
- Short written responses with quotations
- Comparing two texts on one question
Reading strategies
- Previewing and skimming for structure
- Annotating and margin notes
- Context clues and word attack
- Reading dense non-fiction and textbooks
- Timed passage strategy and question order
Reading Comprehension questions
Can I use my own reading passage, or only its examples?
Use your own. Share your screen or hold the page up to the camera and the tutor reads the passage with you, stopping where you stop. Working on the actual text assigned to you is more useful than a sample, because your questions come from that page and so do your teacher’s.
Will it just tell me the answer to the comprehension questions?
It will ask you which lines made you choose that option before it says anything about whether you are right. For comprehension, the pointing-at-evidence step is the whole skill, so being handed a letter teaches nothing. If you are checking finished work it will tell you which question to look at again and why.
My reading is slow. Is speed reading worth trying?
Skimming for structure is worth learning and speed reading as a general habit is not, because comprehension drops as soon as you outrun your ability to check yourself. Most slow reading is really rereading. If you cut rereading by summarising each paragraph as you go, the page takes less total time even though your eyes move at the same pace.
English is my second language and the passages are the hard part. Does that change anything?
The strategies are the same but the vocabulary load is heavier, so more of your effort goes to decoding and less is left for the question. Working out meaning from context first and looking words up after the paragraph protects the thread. Flashcards built from the words you actually hit make the next passage in the same subject easier.
Stuck on reading comprehension right now?
Talk it through out loud, share your screen, and watch it worked out step by step on a whiteboard.
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