Monitoring Comprehension
Notice the difference between decoding words and actually understanding them — recognise when you've read the words but not grasped the meaning, and do something about it
Typical age: 6–8 years
“After your child reads a paragraph or listens to an explanation, do they notice when they haven't really understood it — rather than just carrying on as if they had?”
0 / 2 mastered
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Needs first
- Feeling of not understanding
Noticing the decoding/understanding gap is the English-specific form of the universal comprehension-monitoring habit
- Reading for MeaningREQUIRED
Noticing the gap between decoding and understanding requires first having the foundational idea that reading means making meaning
Unlocks next
- Inference vs Explicit MeaningREQUIRED
Distinguishing literal from inferred requires first being able to monitor whether you have actually understood — you must notice comprehension before you can interrogate its source
- Author's word choicesREQUIRED
Recognising authorial effects requires reading for meaning rather than just decoding — you can only notice the effect of a word choice if you are genuinely engaging with meaning
- Self-Correcting While Reading
Self-correcting while reading requires the awareness that decoding correctly is not the same as understanding