Supporting comprehension : early literacy initiative practitioner briefs booklet 2 / edited by Shailaja Menon, Harshita V. Das, Akhila Pydah, Shuchi Sinha ; published by early literacy iInitiative Azim Premji School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad.

Published by Early Literacy Initiative Azim Premji School of Education, Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad. In association with Eklavya Foundation.

Includes bibliographical references.

In this booklet, the reader is introduced to ideas for supporting reading comprehension within classrooms. The first brief in this booklet describes multiple ways to build vocabulary effectively. The ideas and activities suggested are based on research-based principles that focus on making learning new words interactive and meaningful for the learners. The booklet presents a two part series of briefs on comprehension. Part one addresses the importance of teaching comprehension strategies in the language classroom and describes four key comprehension strategies — prediction, summarising, visual strategies and activation of prior knowledge—that should be taught in early language classrooms. Part two demonstrates how teachers can plan and conduct a “think-aloud” for students. The last of the briefs in this booklet explains the importance of teaching students to ask good questions to support their comprehension. It discusses a widely used framework called the Question-Answer Relationship (QAR) and demonstrates its use with early language learners.