Levels of Comprehension

UNDERSTANDING

Making meaning while listening, speaking, reading, and writing begins with the mind.
Readers connect and make meaning of the text on different levels to achieve literacy.

KNOWLEDGE

SKILLS

Pre-requisite skill: Using metacognitive reading strategies before, during, and after reading texts.
Understanding the different levels of comprehension.
Constructing and responding appropriately to questions.

MOTIVATION

Mark the columns with emoji that shows your response to the following statements. Compare your answer with your partner and discuss your answers.

	AGREE	DISAGREE
It is always acceptable to give advice to your parents.
It is always true that someone with a problem knows how to handle himself or herself.
It is right to keep the problems to oneself because others have problems too.
It is a sole fault of the person if he/she is involved in addiction in any form.
It is true that people can function normally in spite of addiction.

After completing the chart, come up with an individual list of all the ideas you can think of about the topic Alcoholism. Then, work with a partner to group your ideas according to its category. After grouping them together, create a label for each category. Discuss.

Answer the following questions.

What have you found out after the discussion with your partner?
Were there similar ideas and responses between you and your partner?
Which statement did you find difficult to give a response in the first activity?
In the second activity, were you able to arrive at a conclusion?

READ: Coping with Alcoholic Parents

Answer the following questions.

What is alcoholism?
Why do people drink too much?
How does alcoholism affect families?
What do children experience when they grow up with an alcoholic parent?
What is the source of the article about alcoholism?
What happens if a parent doesn’t see alcoholism as a problem?
Can you do something to help an alcoholic friend? How?
Is it possible to give advice to parents involved in alcoholism?
Do you agree that parents can still function normally even if they’re into alcoholism? Why do you say so?
What strategy would best work in dealing with an alcoholic parent?
Is there a long-term side effect for this kind of domestic scenario?

COLLABORATE

Based on the article you read, form a group with at least five members. Create a circle chat and determine the answers for the guide questions. One member should start and call another person to answer another question. Then, complete the chart.

COMPREHENSION CHECK	QUESTION NO.
Which question/s do you think requires a simple answer?
Which question/s would have answers found directly from the text?
Which question/s would have answers not found explicitly in the text, but the idea is implied?
Which question/s would have answers that are based on predictions you made?

If your group was able to provide answers directly from the text, that means you have understood the text on a literal level. If you were able to give explanations to some questions, that means you are capable of interpreting the text. If you are able to provide a predicted outcome based on what you inferred, that means you can critically comprehend a given text.

List down five questions based on the article you read. Use these questions in the circle chat activity.

Circle chat react

As part of the group, determine whether your groupmates have constructed an easy or a difficult one. What did you find out? Write your response in the box.

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QUESTION CATEGORY

Write down the questions that came up during the CIRCLE CHAT REACT. Categorize the level of comprehension.

LITERAL LEVEL QUESTIONS	INTERPRETIVE LEVEL QUESTIONS	APPLIED LEVEL QUESTIONS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

News that Matters

Read the news article. Complete the chart and the activities that follow.

READ: Should Medical Marijuana Be Legalized in Ph?

GETTING THE FACTS STRAIGHT

Complete the WH Chart on the next page by constructing questions based on the news article you have just read. Then, turn to your seatmate and take turns questioning each other. Evaluate your seatmate’s response. Draw a thumbs up if you’re satisfied with the response, or a thumbs down if you think your partner didn’t understand the text. Explain your mark.

INDICATORS	RESPONSE
He/she was able to provide a brief explanation for the question.
He or she needs more thinking time to respond.
He or she shows complete understanding of the news article.

FREE DEBATE

Answer the question found in the box below. Then look for the local articles related to your stand and support your ideas. Print or cut them out. Do not forget to cite your source using any standard citation format (APA, MLA, etc.) Group with your classmates who share the same point of view. Choose the first representative for your group. State your stand and defend your answers based on the researches you have read.

Is the use of marijuana good or bad? _____________________________________

PUT INTO USE

You are a segment producer of a documentary news program. You are tasked to create a presentation report for a segment about addiction issues among the Filipino youth. You are to gather at least three different articles. In your presentation report, be guided by the following questions:

Which social issue do I want to focus on?
What is the central message of each research article?
What strategy did I use to process the article I read?
What message do I want my viewers to remember?
What issue do I want to address in my report?
What reason can I present to convince my viewers about my message?
What better way can I express my ideas?
What is the appropriate title for my report?
What questions do I want to ask my viewers to ponder on?

THE WRAP!

“Reading is thinking cued by written language. Effective readers think within the text. Effective readers think beyond the text. Effective readers think about the text.”

In reading, comprehension is an active process. A student becomes proficient when he or she is able to grasp the five levels: lexical, literal, interpretive, applied, and affective. Lexical comprehension deals with the understanding of the words in a text. Readers must be equipped with the knowledge of unlocking the meaning of the terms in a text. Literal comprehension involves an understanding of explicit ideas and information. To verify one’s understanding in this level, recalling of ideas or identifying the main ideas and details is used. Interpretive comprehension means that the reader is able to make inferences, draw a conclusion, and predict outcomes from the information not directly stated. In applied comprehension, the reader is able to relate one’s experiences in order to provide an evaluation. Lastly, affective comprehension is characterized by the ability of the reader to preview social scripts to ensure understanding of plot development. The reader should be able to connect motive to plot and character development. He or she shall be able to judge what is moral and what is not.

Literacy will mean more than basic skills of beginning reading, writing, and arithmetic. It will include the skills of comprehension and thinking.