Connect to Comprehension

Book excerpt: Connect to Comprehension is a comprehensive, scripted intervention reading program for struggling readers in grades 1-8. It is effective for small group intervention as well as for one-on-one tutoring. This program was developed to provide students who struggle with decoding access to upper-level comprehension instruction. Struggling readers typically don't get practice in these comprehension skills either because the reading materials are too difficult to decode or the lower-level text they can read are not engaging and motivating. As a result, when struggling readers begin to become more fluent, they then have to conquer their gaps in comprehension, especially upper-level skills such as making inferences, determining cause and effect, comparing and contrasting. In Connect to Comprehension, these upper-levels skills are explicitly taught, scaffolded, and practiced while students are learning and practicing basic decoding/structural analysis skills.