Comprehension monitoring is a strategy that students use in which they assess their understanding of content by constantly checking their progress. In order for students to have success with these behaviors, comprehension monitoring needs to be modeled by the teacher. There are three common skills that a teacher should model in order for students to be able to perform comprehension monitoring themselves.

1. Surveying a text and make predictions=-“I think this is about”
   1. Helps to focus the main on the task.
2. Asking questions about the main ideas of the text-“Why does it say…?”
   1. Helps the student to understand what they understand (metacognition)
3. Showing awareness of unclear passages-“I don’t get…?”
   1. See statement in 2A

These strategies are similar to the strategies employed in reciprocal teaching for those who read that post in this blog. The difference is that reciprocal teaching is a whole class or small group experience while comprehension monitoring is often an individual approach.

In addition to the skills above, there are several other aspects of comprehension monitoring. Students also need to

• Set goals for their reading-“what do I want to learn or do?”
• Focus-Pay attention to the task at hand
• Self-reinforcement-Encouraging themselves as they are completing the task
• Deal with problems-Assessing issues and developing strategies to overcome them.

Comprehension monitoring is an excellent skill for students to develop so that they can learn through self-direction, which is one of the goals of many educators for their students.