How a Private Reading Tutor Can Boost Reading Comprehension
Comprehension: What It Is and How to Support It
What is comprehension?
If your child struggles with reading, a private reading tutor can provide targeted, individualized instruction to build these foundations and unlock deeper understanding of texts.
Comprehension is the ability to make sense of what we read. It depends on several interlocking skills:
Accurate word recognition: being able to read words correctly.
Fluency: reading with sufficient speed, smoothness, and expression.
Vocabulary: knowing the meanings of many words.
Background/world knowledge: having a base of information about the world—topics, contexts, concepts—that helps you understand what a text is referencing.
Verbal reasoning: being able to make inferences, see cause-and-effect, understand relationships, do deeper thinking about meaning.
Good comprehension begins early: when children listen to stories read aloud, and continues when they begin to read on their own.
Why comprehension instruction matters
Research over decades has shown that comprehension isn’t something that naturally emerges simply by reading texts; students benefit from explicit instruction of comprehension strategies. Some key findings:
The National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000) found that teaching cognitive strategies (either one at a time or several together) helps students understand and remember what they read.
Effective instruction involves students actively, not just passively hearing or reading text.
Standards such as the Common Core (CCSS) emphasize comprehension strategies, close reading, text-dependent questions, and using evidence from texts. These are intended to better prepare students for college, careers, and lifelong reading.
What are comprehension strategies?
These are cognitive tools that readers can use to actively make sense of texts. Some of the broadly supported strategies include:
Monitoring comprehension: Being aware of whether you understand, and taking steps when you don’t (rereading, asking questions).
Metacognition (“thinking about thinking”): Planning before reading (e.g. setting a purpose), monitoring during reading, assessing after reading.
Questioning & question answering/generation: Asking yourself or being asked questions about what the text says and what is implied. Generates deeper thinking.
Summarization: Identifying the main ideas and being able to restate them (in your own words).
Graphic & semantic organizers: Tools like story maps, webs, charts, semantic maps help readers organize and visually see relationships in the text.
Inference & prediction: Filling in gaps (what isn’t explicitly stated) and anticipating what comes next.
Standards & Close Reading
Standards such as the Common Core have pushed the idea of close reading. What is that?
Close reading means reading a text carefully and deliberately—paying attention to the text itself: its words, structure, syntax, and meaning—rather than depending on outside summaries or context.
It often involves text-dependent questions: questions that can only be answered by going back to the text, not by using outside knowledge alone. These questions help students see how meaning is built.
Multiple readings or revisits to the text are common in close reading: first to understand what it says, then to see how it works (structure, word choices, etc.), and often again for deeper meaning or implications.
Difficulties and Special Cases
Some readers struggle more than others with comprehension, often because of deficits in one or more of the supporting skills:
Fluency issues: When readers cannot decode words accurately or fluently, their reading is slow or effortful, which consumes cognitive resources and interferes with understanding.
Vocabulary and background knowledge gap: If a reader doesn’t know the vocabulary or lacks relevant background knowledge, comprehension suffers.
Dyslexia and related disorders: Dyslexia often involves phonological deficits, decoding difficulties, and problems with fluency. These lead secondarily to weaker vocabulary growth and comprehension because the reader reads less and with more struggle. Instruction needs to address these foundational skills first.
Challenges in attention, short-term verbal memory, and word retrieval can affect comprehension.
What good instruction looks like
Based on research, here are features of effective comprehension instruction:
Explicit, systematic teaching: Don’t assume students will pick up strategies by exposure. Teachers model strategies, scaffold their use, and gradually let students take over.
Start early: Even in preschool and early grades, instruction should include exposure to vocabulary, reading aloud, modeling comprehension strategies, and helping kids build foundational skills (decoding, phonemic awareness).
Integrate instruction in multiple modalities: Reading, listening, speaking, writing all help. Discussing texts and writing about them deepen comprehension.
Use controlled and decodable texts (for early readers) so that word decoding doesn’t overwhelm comprehension.
Provide interventions or structured programs for those who lag behind; for example, structured literacy or multisensory programs for dyslexia.
New and Modern Insights
Here are some more recent findings and perspectives that supplement the earlier foundational work:
There is still a gap between research and classroom practice: Many teachers don’t regularly use the comprehension strategies that research shows are most effective.
Digital vs print reading: Some studies suggest reading print (physical text) supports better comprehension than reading on screens, especially for younger readers.
Multimedia, interactive texts, and immediate feedback are promising for teaching comprehension strategies and vocabulary, especially in digital learning environments. For instance, “choose your own adventure” type interactive e-books with embedded comprehension monitoring show gains when properly designed.
The combination of studying text structure (how a text is organized) + finding the main idea + retelling or summarizing appears particularly powerful.
Practical Tips for Teachers / Parents
Here are some ways teachers (or parents helping their children) can use this research in practice:
Read aloud often—even after children start reading themselves. Read challenging or rich texts and model thinking (e.g. “I wonder why the author said that…”).
Teach vocabulary explicitly: pre-teaching key words in a text, exploring word parts (prefixes, roots, suffixes), and using words in multiple contexts.
Use comprehension strategy instruction: pick one or two strategies (predicting, summarizing, questioning) and model them, then practice together, then gradually release.
Use text-dependent questions: design questions that force students to go back to the text. Questions that require inference, evaluation, comparison.
Provide graphic organizers: story maps, sequence charts, comparison tables, webs.
Encourage discussions and writing about texts—this helps solidify understanding.
Monitor student understanding: check in frequently to see what students do or do not understand, adjust instruction accordingly.
Why This Matters
Strong comprehension is more than getting good grades: it’s central to being an informed, critical thinker. It influences success across all subject areas—not just reading and English, but science, history, social studies, and even daily life.
When comprehension is weak, students read less, avoid complex texts, fall behind in vocabulary and content knowledge. This can create a widening gap over time.
On the other hand, well-designed instruction can change reading trajectories. For example, neuroscience studies show that effective phonics-based intervention in early grades can produce measurable changes in brain activation patterns associated with reading. (That is, teaching matters at the neurological level.)
Why Students Struggle With Comprehension
Some common reasons include:
Weak decoding skills: If reading is slow or inaccurate, it’s harder to focus on meaning.
Limited vocabulary: Without knowing the words, students miss the message.
Gaps in background knowledge: Students may lack context to make sense of topics.
Learning differences such as dyslexia: Struggles with phonological processing and fluency often impact comprehension.
This is where a private reading tutor can make a difference—by diagnosing the root cause and providing individualized instruction.
Proven Strategies to Improve Comprehension
Research has consistently shown that explicit instruction works best. Some strategies that private reading tutors often use include:
Comprehension monitoring: Teaching students to notice when something doesn’t make sense and apply strategies to fix it.
Metacognitive strategies: “Thinking about thinking”—setting a purpose for reading, checking understanding, and reflecting after reading.
Questioning and predicting: Encouraging students to ask and answer questions as they read.
Summarization: Retelling the main ideas in their own words.
Graphic organizers: Using charts, story maps, and diagrams to visualize relationships.
Close reading: Carefully analyzing text details and using evidence to support answers.
These methods are most effective when modeled, practiced, and gradually handed over to the student.
The Role of Standards and Critical Reading
Modern education standards, such as the Common Core State Standards, emphasize close reading, text-dependent questions, and evidence-based answers. These require students not only to understand what a text says but also how it works and what deeper meanings it conveys.
A private reading tutor can help your child navigate these expectations by breaking down complex tasks into manageable steps and giving consistent feedback.
Why One-on-One Tutoring Works
In a classroom, teachers do their best to meet the needs of many students at once. But comprehension challenges can be highly individual. Working with a private reading tutor offers several benefits:
Personalized attention tailored to your child’s strengths and weaknesses.
Diagnostic teaching that identifies the specific barriers holding your child back.
Flexible pacing so your child can move forward only when skills are solid.
Confidence building, as struggling readers often avoid reading out of frustration.
Supporting Students With Dyslexia
Children with dyslexia often struggle with fluency, vocabulary growth, and comprehension. They may also face difficulties with memory, attention, or writing. A tutor trained in multisensory structured literacy approaches (such as Orton-Gillingham) can provide systematic, explicit instruction that helps rewire the brain for reading success.
Neuroscience research has even shown that effective early interventions can change brain activation patterns in struggling readers, making them comparable to strong readers.
Tips for Parents Supporting Comprehension at Home
Even if your child works with a private reading tutor, parents can reinforce skills at home:
Read aloud together and discuss the story.
Ask open-ended questions that require evidence from the text.
Preview vocabulary before reading.
Encourage summarizing: “What was this part mostly about?”
Use graphic organizers for school reading assignments.
