What is comprehension monitoring?
Comprehension monitoring is a metacognitive skill. It is the ability to evaluate our own understanding, whether heard through spoken language or through reading.
It is the ability to work out whether you have understood – this could be a word you’ve heard, a whole instruction, basically anything you have heard someone say.
Comprehension monitoring also applies to reading – knowing whether you’ve understood what you’ve read.
We are focusing here on comprehension monitoring in relation to the spoken word.
Why some children struggle
Some children have difficulties understanding spoken language – they might be described as having receptive language difficulties. These children might have a diagnosis of Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) or have other language difficulties or disorders.
For lots of children with receptive language difficulties, monitoring their own understanding is a skill they need to be taught. They often don’t recognise when they haven’t understood – maybe a word, instruction or story - and so need support to recognise the difference between understanding and not understanding.
As adults we use these skills all the time. We recognise what we do and don’t understand and have lots of strategies to support our comprehension monitoring – e.g. paying closer attention to difficult content, asking for clarification, repeating instructions back to ourselves, breaking down information or summarising information we’ve heard.
It can be tricky to wrap our heads around why children struggle – surely we all know whether we’ve understood something or not, but for children with Language Disorders it can be a skill that evades them. The repercussions for learning can be far reaching – it’s impossible to seek clarification or work out ways to understand more deeply if you don’t recognise what you don’t understand!
What skills does comprehension monitoring involve?
Comprehension monitoring involves different skills:
Recognising when we don’t understand – this is the first step
Knowing why we don’t understand, which helps us to narrow down what’s getting in the way, for example:
‘I don’t know that word’
‘There was too much information for me to follow’
‘It was too complicated’
‘I got the first bit, but just didn’t follow the next bit’
‘There was too much noise, I couldn’t quite hear’
Or even, ‘I wasn’t properly listening’
Once we recognise we don’t understand, knowing how to seek clarification or use strategies to try and work things out – e.g. tuning in more carefully, active listening or asking for a summary or repetition.
There is also an extra step of having the confidence to seek clarification and feeling it is ‘safe’ to do so.
Finally, asking for specific guidance related to why we don’t understand – e.g. can you explain the last bit of the instruction, do you mean to do this first or last, can you break down the instruction for me – there’s just too much information.
Why we prioritise teaching these skills
As a speech and language therapist, comprehension monitoring is often one of the first things I prioritise for certain children. Some children with receptive language difficulties may have lifelong challenges with understanding and processing language; I want them to have a toolkit of skills and strategies they carry with them for life, so they recognise when they don’t understand and know what to do about it!
Supporting comprehension monitoring
We will often take children through a programme of work to teach these skills and support them to use the skills in the classroom environment.
This may include:
Taking them through the different skills needed and teaching at each level.
Support use of visual support/strategies, such as graphic organisers, talk or narrative frames, alongside visuals to highlight they haven’t understood such as RAG rating scales and checklists. We have also developed some comprehension monitoring bookmarks students can use to identify why they have not understood. Sometimes just a coloured page in the back of their planner is enough to flag they are struggling.
Practise key skills such as summarising and model skills such as thinking aloud or repeating to support comprehension monitoring.
Below are some free resources and also a paid for resource, Active listening for Active Learning, which we have found useful.
These skills can take time to develop, so we recommend lots of practise and noticing where students have opportunities to use the skills, including in fun activities or hobbies they like and enjoy. Plus reinforcement when they use the skills to monitor their understanding.
In the classroom
There are some simple strategies teachers and support staff can use to support these children with their comprehension monitoring:
Check whether students have understood – e.g. with instructions, it might be questions such as:
Do you know what you have to do?
What do you need to do first…next?
How are you going to do the task?
What equipment do you need?
Encourage them to identify when they didn’t understand
Rather than a general ‘don’t know’, support them to identify why they didn’t understand
Did they understand the words
Was there some information they understood
Were there too many steps to follow
Were they able to listen or did they ‘zone out’
Talk about how they might ask for clarification, maybe using key questions/sentence starters.
Can you tell me again?
What does xxx word mean?
I’m not sure what I need to do …
Could you break it down for me?
Students might have better ideas of what might work for them – it’s great to be able to take their lead. Asking for help in a class full of students can be daunting for anyone.
Remember to give students feedback on when they do use comprehension monitoring – e.g. it was good to know you didn’t know who that character was/follow the instruction/know what equipment you needed.
Many students with receptive language difficulties will need these skills taught directly – in lots of our work, our therapists will work with support staff to model and teach the skills to students which they are then supported to use in the classroom.
Lots of our schools have also had training on adapting their own language to support children with receptive language to access learning as well as the guidance on supporting comprehension monitoring.
We’d love to hear from you about how you support comprehension monitoring skills. Below are some resources we have found useful and also links to information through the EEF and Reading Rockets explaining the importance of comprehension monitoring for reading too.
Further information/resources
Introduction to comprehension monitoring
Active Listening for Active Learning
Ideas for comprehension monitoring