It is important for all teachers to informally assess students’ comprehension throughout any lesson in any content area.
When we ask a comprehension question, we use students’ response to determine whether it's time to move on to the next topic, or if we must spend more time on whatever we are studying at the moment.
Comprehension Checks are one of the essential tools in a Comprehension-based™ teacher’s toolbox. When used effectively, comprehension checks guarantee that all students understand the teacher when he or she is using the target language. When the input is comprehended by all students, all students will further their language acquisition.
Keys to comprehension checks:
Here are five key guidelines for checking for comprehension:
- Check for comprehension continually.
- Check for comprehension (mostly) in English. (Students can respond in TL; but usually question should be asked in English.)
- Check for comprehension in different ways.
- Check for comprehension quickly.
- Modify instruction as needed based on students’ responses.
Check for comprehension continually
It is important to keep your finger on the pulse of your students’ comprehension so that you do not lose students (cognitively or emotionally) by venturing into incomprehensible territory. This requires continual checking for comprehension.
Check for comprehension in English
Checking for comprehension should typically be done in English so that a wrong answer can only be attributed to a lack of comprehension of the content in question and not a failure to understand the question itself.
Use different questions to see comprehension from different angles
You must ask different kinds of questions to different populations (individuals and groups) in order to gather accurate data.
Keep your checks quick!
Comprehension checks should be quick so that they do not distract from the content.
Be responsive!
Comprehension checks are only valuable when you use the information gathered to inform your instruction--spending more time on a topic, backtracking, or moving forward based on your students’ needs.
In a language class, the response to a comprehension check is ALWAYS the same: MORE INPUT!
Four questions to check student comprehension
Here are four basic meaning-based questions that can be used during storytelling, PQA and other discussions, and read-alouds in language classes. These questions can be asked to individuals or to the entire class. When asked to individuals, the teacher should try to match the difficulty level of the question to the students' language ability:
Those four questions are all meaning-based and require an oral response. However, there are many other ways that students can give feedback (both general and specific) during instruction. Some are more accurate than others, so it is important that you do a variety in order to gain a complete, accurate picture of your class’s comprehension:
Follow instruction with comprehension check-ins
In addition to comprehension checks completed during instruction, there are many ways that teachers can informally assess comprehension after instruction: exit slips, post-it notes, pop quizzes, etc. These checks can be used to plan instruction for the next day, but they'll have to wait for another day :)
What other comprehension checks do you use during instruction in your classes, and what strategies do you have to develop the habit of checking for comprehension?
...and for more on checking for comprehension, check out this infographic from the TELL project; shared by Thomas Sauer!
Note: Much of my knowledge about comprehension checks has come from Betsy Paskvan, a Japanese teacher here in Anchorage, AK. Betsy has presented many times on checking for comprehension at state and national language conferences, and she often travels to other school districts to offer them professional development on comprehension checks and other essential Comprehension-Based techniques.
