Summary of article "Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge---of Words and the World

The article Reading Comprehension Requires Knowledge ----- of Words and the World by E.D. Hirsh, Jr. provides us with some reasons why students typically hit a fourth-grade slump in reading comprehension. Based upon the findings of this article the actual “slump” which occurs in the fourth grade is based upon the reading scores achieved by low-income students between the third and fourth grades. An interesting finding ( as described in the article) is that the sudden drop in reading comprehension might actually be attributed more to the fact that testing of younger students focuses more on issues such as phonics and decoding rather than on vocabulary acquisition and comprehension skills. There is a need however to create programs which will allow our students to comprehend text with both fluency as well as accuracy. According to the article, there is agreement on three basic principles which must be established in order for students to improve their reading comprehension (fluency, breadth of vocabulary and domain knowledge). The more fluent a student is when they read ( how fast they comprehend text) the better they will comprehend it as well since they have mastered the basic decoding skills and they are free to devote their energy and skills on what they have read. In addition, the students’ breadth of vocabulary is vital to comprehension since it has been shown that adequate reading comprehension requires the ability to understand 90-95% of the words in the text. Ideally, the more words they know will help them make contextual sense out of those 10% or so they don’t understand. The best way to increase the knowledge of vocabulary words for these students is by being immersed in language situations which familiarize them with the word(s) in various contexts. Domain knowledge is vital for comprehension as well since it provides the reader with the ability to make some sense of word combinations which might mean very little to those who don’t possess this knowledge. Domain knowledge relies on a student’s ability to use their prior knowledge to make inferences or connections between ideas. The article gave an example of how Einstein’s theory of relativity would make little sense to us since we have little prior knowledge or domain knowledge; to most of us it would be a bunch or words we know but have no ideas what they mean when grouped together. In order to improve the comprehension skills of our students, the article suggests that we “rethink” how we teach language arts, especially the amount of time devoted to the subject. Furthermore, the article states that we are devoting far too much time to skills such as decoding when we should put our emphasis on activities which build students vocabulary, domain knowledge and fluency. Some activities include read-alouds as well as vocabulary instruction which emphasize both word as well as world knowledge. World knowledge is an essential component in comprehension since far too many students lack the knowledge and unwritten facts about the world. One of the primary reasons for the achievement gap between socioeconomic groups may be attributed lack of world knowledge. The more time devoted to content immersion will improve students domain knowledge, increase their interest and motivation to learn and at the same time improve their reading and writing skills.